Days after the faceoff between the Indian and Chinese armies, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has called for boycotting 450 categories of Chinese products in India. It is calling on Bollywood celebrities to do the same.
The traders’ body will approach various celebrities like Deepika Padukone, Vicky Kaushal, Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif (Oppo Smart Phone), Virat Kohli, Aamir Khan (Vivo), Ranvir Singh (Xiaomi), to name a few, and motivate them to give away these endorsements, keeping in view the sentiments of Indian citizens.
It says that traders in India are deeply agitated over the developments along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in India’s Ladakh region and they have pledged to support CAIT’s national movement to shun Chinese products and promote Indian goods.
“In the wake of the recent developments and China’s persistent attitude of antagonism towards India, the Indian traders have taken a firm pledge to teach China a strong lesson by reducing Chinese imports…. Even though the business of the traders will suffer as quite a few are importing from China but nothing is above national interest”, said CAIT’s Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal.
In order to give a strong befitting response to China for its “unethical actions against the Indian soldiers”, he said the government has been also urged “to take certain immediate steps like cancelling Chinese contracts and making rules for withdrawing investment by Chinese companies into Indian startups and corporations”.
“There is an immediate need to put an end to Chinese dominance in the tech start-up segment. Various Indian startups like Paytm, Udaan, Big Basket, Milk Basket, Flipkart, Swiggy to name a few, have become Indian giants riding on Chinese money. It is nothing but a sinister design of China to capture the Indian retail markets completely”, CAIT’s secretary general said.
As per CAIT National President B.C. Bhartia, over the last few months Chinese companies have been making firm inroads into various government contracts by bidding at very low rates. “In this way they are able to bag several government project tenders. The government must instead favour Indian companies even if there is a marginal difference in cost”.
The violent clash on the intervening night of 14 and 15 June between the two Asian giants was one of the worst incidents in several decades. The clashes occurred even as both sides were in a de-escalation process in the Galwan Valley in the Ladakh region.
