The Financial Express: Tuesday, Nov 09, 2010
Given his skilled oratory, President Obama had India’s MPs eating out of his hand in no time. Punching the right buttons in his joint address, and the MPs clapping on cue, Obama talked of India’s contribution to the world, the zero, Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi, his impact on Martin Luther King (and how Obama wouldn’t have even been there but for Gandhi and King) … he spoke of how, as India progressed from being an emerging economy to one that had emerged (this drew the loudest claps predictably), it stood side by side with the US, ready to not just change the two countries’ worlds, but to change the world itself. The President spoke glowingly of India’s e-panchayat revolution and a meeting that he joined in (sadly, the cameras never zeroed in to show us Mani Shankar Aiyar’s expression!), and of how India’s farmers actually received text messages on their mobiles giving them weather updates and the prices of various commodities; tie this in with the US famed prowess in agriculture technology and, he said, we had a world beater; an Indo-US farming initiative in Africa was mentioned in this context. Sadly, while the MPs were quick to clap to Obama’s flattering references to India such as the impact of the RTI legislation, few responded to Obama’s flattering references to the US—so the comment about bringing greetings from the world’s oldest democracy to the largest democracy went unsung.
The pleasantries over, Obama then got down to some plainspeaking, of the responsibility that comes with power. India wanted him to speak of supporting its candidature for a permanent membership of the UN Security Council, so Obama went about promising this while covering his flanks: “In the years ahead, I look forward to a reformed United Nations Security Council that includes India as a permanent member.” This power, he said, meant that India would have to, along with other Security Council members, ensure sanctions worked fully (Iran), in censuring regimes that were undemocratic (Burma) … India, he said with a candour rarely seen in public, had shied away from some of these issues in the past, and could no longer afford to do so. Whether the MPs got the message is not clear, but you can’t be a great power without thinking and acting strategically. If even raising FDI limits in insurance, or in defence manufacturing, which actually help India, are going to be so difficult, how will India get around to doing the more difficult reforms? No nation is perfect, and India has a long list of what the US hasn’t done, but nations wanting to enter exclusive clubs have to walk the extra mile.
.JPG)
.JPG)
