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So much
has been said and written about cars in the West, that it would
leave the normal Indian rather bemused. Cars have been associated
with your lifestyle, your personality and even with sex. The drivers
of the rusty Beetle and sleek Ferrari are said to make equally powerful
albeit different statements about themselves. They declare themselves
to be particular kinds of people, and so define themselves in society.
Thus from being purely a means of transportation, the car
can actually rise to the exalted status of the human alter ego.
This latter utility of the car seems to have been sadly denied
to the Indian consumer, who till very recent times never had much
of a choice. The average Indian in the first place can - for the
best part of his life - only dream of purchasing a car.
The car in India, therefore, remains what it ostentatiously is
- viz. a means of transport.
Will the Tata Indica change all that? Will the advent of the Matiz
and Santro whip up a new craze in the Indian consumer?
Given several factors it is very much doubtful. Due to the sheer
size of the population and the sheer poverty in the country, the
car is unlikely to be easily accessible to the common man. When
Henry Ford brought down the price of the Ford to its lowest ever
$260 in the early 1900s, proud existing owners suddenly found that
people in a strata of society below theirs owned the same car, prompting
a few to switch to other models.
A people's car in India never was. Unless we see competition drastically
reducing prices, owning a car will be always be beyond the reach
of most Indians. However that small fraction of our population,
who can afford to purchase cars, is a big enough market in itself,
for the worlds car manufacturers to fight for.
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