Obama and India

Barack Hussain Obama was recently appointed the President of United States of America- (a golden crown encrusted with thorns) and the entire world had its eyes glued to their television sets just to watch his speech and inhale his moves. There is some undefined charisma around this magician as the Americans and the people at large look to him as the modern day Messiah. A superhero, who, they believe will resurrect the world from this abysmal trench which The Bush administration has left the world in.

 

How ironic is it to see that you, me and the world is looking towards the same country which buried the world into this pit, to bail us out from it. Such is their grandeur its comparable to the pull of gravity in the black hole…if they get sucked in they carry the world along with them. Anyway so hoping against hope that this Revolutionary Democrat has some tricks up his sleeve and he is able to re-build the economy (which by the way is at a staggering trillion dollar debt) ‘brick by brick’ then let us analyse the implications of his ascendancy on India as a country.

 

The most outstanding aspect about Obama’s campaign is the fact that his promoters made it very clear what it is not but always left it obscure as to what it is. His trump card was to address the people …in previous decades the past presidents had campaigns of the riches by the riches for the riches, which Mr.Obama modified to a more realistic of, for, and by the people…. (Maybe because there is no one left rich in America anymore)…

 

The most controversial statement, which got India concerned, has been in the field of outsourcing. Obama proclaimed that he would safeguard the jobs of native Americans. This statement is quite an obvious politically correct statement for any politician to gain the trust of people and win elections especially in such troubling times these words are like sweet nectar for the masses. He will take measures to safeguard American jobs but that does not necessarily mean that outsourcing will be terminated as concluded by the judgemental media. The recession will also affect jobs in India but the fact remains that in India, the educated labour comes at a much cheaper cost as compared to America. In the States, people get paid on an hourly basis whereas here the job culture is such that people won’t mind putting in an extra couple of hours just to impress the boss. Thus they cannot do without customer services and shifting the entire set-up back to the states would cost them a fortune so invariably they will remain to the Indian subcontinent- its just this temporary lull which the outsourced companies have to see through and which infact everyone has to recover from.

 

Another important concern as projected by the pundits is the stand of the Obama administration on the Indo-Us nuke deal. Although Obama eventually voted for the nuke deal he had moved an amendment in the Senate which would
cap the amount of imported nuclear fuel that India could stockpile.
This leads us to believe that India will eventually be forced into signing the  Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which are two treaties India has carefully avoided giving it the freedom to be a force to reckon with in the international circle. If this right is given up then India will lose its power to take decisions on its own in the international arena and will end up becoming USA’s puppet. I am not saying that the nuke deal was a failure infact it is the best thing that happened to India in a while- the man who brought L-P-G (liberalisation-privatisation-globalisation) to India also brought power and it was much needed for the interiors of the country where they don’t have the luxuries of electricity spanning over days. At least this will make India more connected from interiors to the metros. But India will have to tread its steps carefully now so as to ensure regular supply of nuclear fuel and resources simultaneously avoiding signing those treaties for it to reap the benefits of this deal and the vision of our forefathers.

 

The most sticky issue which India has had to suffer over the years is the Kashmir issue. My blood boils over how our honourable next door neighbours have succeeded in making an issue out of nothing at all trying to steal from us what is rightfully ours. The cause for concern is that over the years Democratic governments are known to be less friendly to India than a Republican association.

Washington is in a big dilemma. On one hand they want to abolish all the terror camps within the Pakistani soil as one of the camps has been a cause for the bombing of one of their prominent buildings and it also brings USA in a positive light in front of the world. But if they take steps to do that then the Pakistani government has given open threat that it will withdraw its troops from the Afghan border thus annulling any strategic support given to the Americans by them. Washington does not want to lose its hold on Afghanistan a country on which it has taken a lot of time to get hold of and from where they can very easily rob oil deposits and transfer to their country free of cost. If they don’t support India the world will take note of it and if they do support India they are risking the enmity of Pakistan and its strategic partner China (who supports Pakistan by arms and ammunition just to keep a check on our country’s progress) thus they will adopt the reasonably milder path of peace talks between the two countries and the intervention of a third party into the already severed relations will re-hyphenate the Indo-Pak relations already hanging by a loose thread. If India deploys troops without America’s consent it risks the ire of the world and may lose international credibility as far as the nuke deal is concerned and the last thing that a country wants during a recession is international isolation. So it’s a wait and watch time to see how Obama and India’s incoming prime-minister handle the virus named Pakistan.

All in all India may not be at an advantage with Obama's regime but according to my understanding I don't think there is any cause of concern for India as far as Uncle Sam does not meddle his fidegety nose into India's internal matters.