Thuglak editor S Gurumurthy, on Monday, said that the western world has begun to understand that there is no other way to handle the growing assertion of China in the post-pandemic world other than aligning with India which can counter China’s imperialist ambitions.

“Some governments in the western world have began to realise it and that’s why India is more needed to the world than world is needed to India,” Gurumurthy said, adding: “India is probably the least integrated of all the great nations and it can still survive in a sense without the world or at least the totality of the world.”

He was delivering a speech titled, ‘Post-pandemic world and India’, as part of Leaders Speak webinar series organised by the Madras Management Association.

Noting that China’s global ambition has really begun, the political and economic analyst said China’s ambitions can never be satisfied because it’s empire building instinct is very much intact.

“That is why China is targeting India because it knows that India is not its enemy but an impediment to its global ambition,” Gurumurthy added.

Lambasting the western world, particularly the United States, for aligning with China all along, Gurumurthy said: “The post-cold war world order is changing for ever and for the better of India and for the world, which has committed supreme fault by mixing up autocracies in the market which it has realised now.”

“I am happy that pandemic is needed to deliver this message to the west, particularly to the US,” he added.

Citing a response of 12 foreign policy experts, the Chartered Accountant-turned-journalist said that in the post-pandemic scenario, the world will be less open, less prosperous, and less free while businesses will be less profitable but more stable.

“Global supply chain was an unstable idea and not workable or practicable unless the whole world shared a common quality and there wasn’t one,” the thought leader added.

India’s GDP

Gurumurthy, who is also a director in the RBI, added that while agriculture, which contributes 14 per cent of India’s GDP will remain largely unaffected, mining, manufacturing, construction, electricity and water accounting for 28 per cent of GDP will take 3-6 months to recover.

“Hospitality, trade, hotel, transport and communication, which are one of the largest employers of 42 million people, will be severely hit and will take the maximum time to recover,” Gurumurthy said.

He also said that ₹6.5-lakh crore of money parked in the RBI’s reverse repo window is a bigger problem for India.

“For the next 6 months to one year, the only active mechanism is government and public investment. Private investment is folded back. FDI and FII wil surge because of the global situation, and the global investment will not slack as much as local investment,” he added.

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