Everyone loves Google ?

Everyone loves Google. It gives us everything. We google for information. We google for things to purchase.We google for free software’s. Google movie maker help us to create our own videos. Lawyers cannot do without it. Business is driven by it. Google assist scholars, teachers and researchers.   Companies google to find the right candidates.Google’s latest initiative would bring about 20 million Indian small business online. They expand through various kinds of strategic alliances. Their goal is to bring together the worlds knowledge at one place. At a time when knowledge is power and information is money if one company controls every knowledge and information think about the power that we are handing over to one company.  In the last one decade or so we have become so dependent on Google that it has penetrated every aspect of our life.

Being a god loving person I was reflecting on the qualities of God at the beginning of the Lenten season. I believe in God because he is all powerful, all knowing, and omnipresent. Without his help nothing moves. Google knows everything that we do, helps us in every one of our needs, and is everywhere.  So, is google the new god? Has it become so important? Are we giving a larger than life position to Google? Any one who tries to equate themselves with God end up being a monster. Are we therefore giving rise to a monster?

It is therefore apt to assert that human being has become dependent on this computer company. The question is how much dependence a good dependence is. During our student days we used to call this kind of a relationship as a monopoly and we knew that Monopoly goes against the very nature of Capitalism. In Monopoly-Capitalism there is a cannibalisation of smaller companies. The monopolist will use any means to eliminate the competition. Probably Google understood Porter’s five force competitive strategies. They have eliminated every competitionthat is there in the market.

There is a monopoly happening in every walk of our life where a western business enterprise control directly or indirectly every kind of business that we do.  Take for example the soft drinks market in India. Every known brandin the market belong to either PepsiCo or Coca Cola. Most auto parts companies have a European counterpart who is waiting for the government of India to lift the entry barrier. Every private education provider is agonisingly aware that it is not far before the government allow foreign universities to operate directly. The biggest shopping space today is Amazon which is trying its best to acquire every Indian online retailer. Almost all the IT companies exist because there is work in the West. And most of them are either operated from a western office or follow western modus operandi in their daily functioning. It won’t be wrong to assume that in the short run all our business will be managed or owned by a western company.

We boast that India is a nation of start-ups. So much so, theStart Up India has become a national slogan. Every Indian start-up wants to make it big. They dream of getting bought by an American company of Google or Microsoft.  What we probably do not know is that by doing this we are surrendering all our business to these companies. The Uber and Ola is poised for a merger and would be controlled by its biggest funder the Softbank from Japan. In the e-commerce sphere Amazon that started only in 2013 is one of the fastest growing and we may see them overtaking both Flipkart and e-bay. With a JV with Narayana Murthy’s Catamaran Ventures they are growing at an unprecedented speed.

From this discussion what I wanted to bring to attention is the growing influence of western business firms in the Indian soil. The Europeans looted India for over two centuries through its direct rule. They are today looting India covertly through these business enterprises. Who is helping this movement? Should we say that it is us the middle class unwittingly helping them to dominate us? Is Strat-up, Stand-Up, policies an alternative way that will help India to stand on her own legs? Will the Patanjali like organisation an alternative? Is swadeshi movement something the middle class must embrace or reject? I am scared looking at the scenario. Who knows that one day when every one of us is sleeping these giant organisations won’t take over the reigns of our nation?