A friend of mine asked me today looking at my Nokia handset, You talk so much about India and Indian, why are you having a handset manufactured by a foreign company?
I replied to him, Not only my mobile handset, there are many other things in my house starting from TV, Refrigerator, Washing Machine etc which are manufactured by foreign companies.
The concept of swadeshi is being entirely misinterpreted. I bought a Nokia handset for the simple reason because no handset manufactured by an Indian company matched the number of features or quality the Nokia handset had. I dont want to buy an Indian handset even if it is of a low quality just because it is of an Indian company and thereby end up giving false statistics to that Indian company that their handsets are of good quality and so the sales are high Let them face the competition and manufacture quality handsets, I will buy one then. Else the result will be only swadeshis will have those products and internationally nobody will buy them and in that case our exports will come down, we cant compete with china, market will be restricted only to India and what not.

By wrongly interpreting swadeshi, please dont end up buying all Indian things just because they are Indian without testing the quality. But if there are equal qualitative Indian products as well, then in that case PLEASE BE SWADESHI AND BUY INDIAN PRODUCTS ONLY.
For me the definition of being swadeshi is buying India products when I have a choice of both Indian and foreign products with same quality. In fact I will be more happier if the Indian product is far superior in quality compared to the foreign one. But if the Indian products are less superior in quality than the foreign ones, then I WILL BUY FOREIGN PRODUCTS.

What my friend didn’t ask me when he asked about my handset, was my mobile subscriber. I have been subscribed to Airtel (an Indian company) for the past three years even when there were cheaper offers by Hutch (a foreign company) for the simple reason that quality of Airtel was superior than that of Hutch. Airtel had signals even on highways away from city and places in western ghats where Hutch didnt have signals.

BE INDIAN, BUY INDIAN – BUT QUALITY DOES MATTER

Please ensure that Indian companies are able to compete internationally and offer quality products and services. To ensure this buy only quality Indian products and services. Never try to sustain an Indian industry with false growth and feedback. WE DONT NEED SYMPATHY, A DAY SHOULD COME WHEN JAPANESE BUY INDIAN MICROELECTRONICS PRODUCTS. FOR THOSE WHO DONNO, READ HOW AKIO MORITA MADE SONY AND MADE IN JAPAN SYNONYMS TO THE WORD QUALITY!!