With India seeming to take giant steps to become a global leader, we are aspiring to be a leading nation in every prominent sector across the world. The “Atma-Nirbhar Bharat” campaign has now turned into a discussion held in every nuke and corner of the democracy. India is witnessing a rampant shift from being just an importer to becoming an avenue of manufacturing for the world after China, which is still recognized as the “FACTORY OF THE WORLD”.
Even after considering all these developments across the nation, we still need to be cognizant of the fact “Are we growing in real sense”?. I mean despite the giant materialistic developments and big foundations taking place all across the country, India can never be termed as a “Developed nation” if our people’s intellect doesn’t match the way, the growth is heading with. A nation can’t sustain for decades if the natives don’t develop their intellectual levels similar to the way the nation is building.
Our upbringing is done in such a way that we over-emphasize amassing real assets (house, car, bike) and putting our hard-earned money in traditional financial instruments like Term- Deposits (FDs/RDs) and savings account for meeting our day-to-day financial needs. Even during our schooling, hardly, there was any subject in our studies that could teach us the importance of money creation. We, still as society in general, do consider such possessions as our assets which are not in reality but turns to be a liability in long run. Example: – Indians spend nearly 40-50% of their monthly salaries in paying off their home loans, just to live up a desire of owning a house which could be treated as their holding after certain long period (say 20Years). Perhaps, they could have died to see that happening in reality. Moreover, when it comes to investing, we start searching for avenues which are known to us from the decades passed away. We don’t look for new ways to investing.
I mean, according to a reliable source, only 2% of the Indian population invest in stock markets. On the contrary, more than half the US population bet on the companies’ fortunes to build their wealth. We comprehend the terms very well like market, Sensex, Nifty, index funds, mutual funds, crypto currencies, NFTs et-cetera but when it comes to real action to take upon, we step back. This is a very small example that could be mentioned but the point is, we have locked our doors to welcome this financial knowledge into real practice in our lives.
As Chanakya rightly said, ’KNOWLEDGE CAN’T BE A KNOWLEDGE IN REAL SENSE, UNLESS YOU PUT IT INTO REAL PRACTICE.’
Our actions and mindset needs to change. We can’t continue to live in the same way as it is going on. People need to take charge of their financial needs and try to figure out how they can make their money earn for them.
We can’t even imagine to be competitive like USA if our people don’t act the way they should be. Financial literacy is something which can justify our development in real sense.
Last but not the least, “We can’t be financially independent just by playing PUBG and viewing all non-relevant stuff over YouTube. We can’t just sit and cry over the problems that we have been facing. Other people who are aware will work and will keep their growth trajectory high, now we have to decide whether we want to make our lives better or just want to sit idle and see the economic divide getting widened.
Thank You
Rupanshu Bansal