Boycott of Tata, Airtel and Reliance fizzles
By Bala Shah

Depending on your perspective, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is a Saintly hero blessed with the Midas touch or a Hindu strongman with a bias against minorities.  What is not disputed is that Mr. Modi understands business and has brought unprecedented economic success to his State. A call by one of his critics to boycott 3 telecom companies has had mixed success.

Many of Mr. Modi’s supporters feel that he is Prime Ministerial material.  Super successful Industry heavy weights like Sunil Mittal (Airtel), Anil Ambani (Reliance) and Ratan Tata (Tata Indicomm) have publicly embraced him with two of them even suggesting he would make a good Prime Minister.  All three billionaire business tycoons own telecom companies in India and have many other non-telecom business interests as well

Bangalore-based documentary producer Ranjan Kamath is a Modi critic and not too happy at such respected business figures backing Modi.  Mr. Kamath started an online petition against Mr. Modi and the 3 telecom tycoons which requested anyone who did not agree with Mr. Modi’s policies to switch off their mobile phones and internet broadband connections for one day on Jan 30, 2009. (For some reason the petition says broadband and not dial up connections. Also, nothing about the fixed phones at home).  The idea was to use economic pressure on these business leaders to stop publicly supporting Mr. Modi.

Tata Sons threatened legal action as their big boss Ratan Tata had publicly physically embraced Mr. Modi but never “endorsed his becoming Prime Minister”.  In view of the legal threat, petition originator Mr. Ranjan Kamath changed the wording to make it clear that Mr. Tata did not publicly say he wanted Mr. Modi to be the Prime Minister.

While this public petition may have galvanized 4900 people on the internet and some actually switching off their mobile phones and broadband connections, it has failed to mobilize the general public in a big way.  While a number of high profile dancers, film producers and writers signed the petition, other hesitated because politicians and business houses make formidable enemies in India.

Jan 30th came and went.  By all accounts there was no mass boycott of these telecom companies.

Will there be another similar petition against telecom companies?  Will it have more success? Is it a good idea to switch off your mobile so that even close family and friends cannot contact you in case of an emergency?  Would it have been better if the boycott call asked not to buy new products on that day rather than switching off existing equipment? Only time will tell if such boycotts of telecom products make a difference.