India is a SupErpowEr! Huh? u mEan rEd Indians? Part-3

The third and last part of a myth-busting.

Finally the political power which is more of a soft power or rather a soft skill. I think it is developed more as a combination of the previous two powers. A nation with no military or economic power cannot exert any political influence; although strategically used it can deliver more than it promises. The power that Cuba exerts in the World or atleast amongst its neigbors is a wonderful example. Political power is the soft power which we exert through diplomatic and international decisions which can turn the tide in our favor. I don’t see when we have ever applied a well thought about political decision since the Nehruvian days. But even then political blunders committed by Nehru ensured that Kashmir will always be a sore point in all international matters pertaining to India and Pakistan. Also his Hindi-Cheeni bhai bhai rhetoric was no hindrance to the Chinese juggernaut in its path for attaining what the dragon wanted. When it loses its decision making powers to external influence we loose our political power too. We kindly bend down to any pressure point in international relations and deliver others what they want. We always fail to see what India as a nation wants in the long run. Politicians are ready to sell their nations for petty political interests. We shrug off our economic might just as an elephant does not understand its might. The e way in which we favored American companies in all agreements with them, by limiting their liability in case of nuclear accidents, the immunity with which Dow chemicals and its subsidiaries still continue to operate in India, a non-aligned nation like India providing support for a nation (that too almost a military base for them in Indian territory) that was altmost single handedly responsible for all major world conflicts after Second world war and the conversion of this country to almost that of a dominion of the United States; I wonder with who/what the allegiance of the political elite of India lays.

And as long as we remain so dumb and driven by short term political and vanity reasons we never stand to make it in this world as any kind of superpower. And we Indians sooner realize the fact the sooner will be out of this matrix of illusion.

India is a SupErpowEr! Huh? u mEan rEd Indians? Part-2

Part 2 of a myth-busting.


In the olden days, military might should have augmented all other short comings but in the present, omnipotence comes closely associated with Economic might. Concept of an economic superpower emerged during the the renaissance period and gathered steam during the industrial revolution. Nations were looking for lucrative markets for selling the excess goods churned out because of the improved productivity bought along by the industrial revolution and also to buy cheaper raw materials for their industries. Britain emerged the clear winner during this period as it laid its hands on vast portions of territories all over the world and fortified these holdings with its military and cunning. That kind of economic might saw a change after the World wars with the US emerging a clear winner as European economies were shattered and US economy soared by selling war to both sides. Americas, with its abundant natural resources, a daring political leadership guided mostly by capitalist interests and the only strong economy after the WWII, made sure that it will create a new economic order in the world on the basis of dollar.

And it sure did and managed to keep that up so for the next 60 years or so. Even though it shows signs of weakness, there is no sight of a threatening force in the near future. To keep up this economic might they sure did use the military as well. Not long back American companies were in the forefront rummaging through the new nations and amassing profits. The treasury bonds purchased by the Asian tigers and the Dragon nation further enabled it to rise upon a credit based economy. The importance of oil changed the dynamics of the economics with US exerting all the influence it can over the OPEC to sell oil in dollars, which it just had to print up and other nations just bought it. In those countries where communism and leftism showed resilience against market forces, the US showed its economic and military might so as to scare off competition or to change even the rulers of democracies. After all democracies became just another name of a channel for capitalism. The economic might also served to buy off entire nations so that capitalism could thrive in them. And sure they did succeed. Well, for those who matters, it did.

To ask the obvious, where do we figure in this field? We have come a long way from those times; when the US gave us food grains in grant, when we had to sell bullion in the international market to sustain our imports, when our forex reserves came down all the way to $1 billion; to one of the largest producers of food grains, more than $300 billion of forex reserves and the fourth largest holder of dollar and ready to buy back gold from the IMF. But does these make us a so called economic superpower? We ourselves assign that term to us taking pride in the new found purchasing power of the great India middle class. It’s true we have huge remittances from our NRIs; we have a large export industry (although the import-export deficits are still on the darker side) and the purchasing power of the average Indian is said to be higher than say 20 years back. But what can we do with this economic might?

Power matters only as long as it is used; the muscle to flex and make other nations act to your will without resorting to arms. As a matter of fact the economic powerhouse status that other national leaders bestow on us is the power of the worlds biggest market for selling goods and services. Sure that's a power; that's the only power we have. But are we going to utilize that? When are we going to ask things to move our way when we have the power to do so? The pathetic state we are in is clearly depicted by our affairs in this realm. We are not able to influence even our neighbors to buy from us, we are ready to open up our markets, banking and insurance system and whatever we can without even the slightest compulsion or need. We allow foreign banks to work freely in India when our own State Bank has been denied permission to operate in areas with vast migrant Indian population. We have to push over selves to a corner and limit the liability of American companies in case of a nuclear accident (and with Bhopal like tragedies and the kind of treatment the victims have been receiving, i doubt whether there is any liability for a foreign company operating in India). We want to open our markets just for the sake of opening it up. We should seriously think where the priorities of our policy makers and the bureaucrats is. It’s as if we are selling ourselves to the bidders, rather than be the bidder in other world economies. Our hold on the SAARC countries itself is loosening.

China is flexing its economic power by influencing even India’s neighbors and surrounding us and choking us. We are still too complacent to do anything proactive. We take pride in our economics by stating that if we wanted we can reduce America to nothing by recalling our engineers and scientists (I laugh myself out of my senses) and all the [crappy meager] software that we produce [for foreign companies]. We fail to realize that our software power is only an illusion. It’s the foreign corporates that are still running the business and we are just tools. If they want they can make Mexicans or Chinese or Africans to do the same thing. As long as we don’t flex the economic muscle its useless. After all brains is all that matters and only if it is used. For our politicians the philosophy seems to be that of the cancer cell - growth for the sake of growth.

(to be continued)

India is a SupErpowEr! Huh? u mEan rEd Indians?

Part 1 of a myth-busting.

There is a widespread illusion of super prowess in the Indian nation, primarily among the India middle class which can be attributed to the economic growth they have seen in the past decade or so. I believe this illusion began appearing somewhere during the reign of the Vajpayee lead BJP coalition at the center during the latter half of last decade of 20th century. The trigger should be considered as the Pokhran blasts and the associated nationalist rhetoric put up by the BJP (which apparently failed them in the next elections). Apart from this, the middle class saw their standard of living rise and the nation witnessed the IT boom and the rise of India as a software powerhouse (the illusion of Indian Software power will come later). This Pokhran lead nuclear "surge" and the associated economic burgeoning lead the news media to put out the superpower rhetoric; which the Indian middle class readily believed just as anyone would believe that there are a billion galaxies each with a billion stars in it. With the spread of computers and emails and social networking; mails spread around the web educating the children of the great Indian middle class that they are living in a Utopian super power society. We are taught to be proud of our scientific history, our nuclear capabilities, our great military and many other factors like number of Indians heading multinationals, Indians forming a considerable force at NASA, Microsoft filled with Indians and so forth. I believe there is a generation of Indians who think that its just our self restraint that keeps other countries from bowing down to us.

But are we really so? Who is a superpower in the current world context? I think there are three main categories according to which super powers can be called so - military, economic, political.

First and foremost military super power - the best example being the USA. They are the most powerful military in the whole world in terms of combat expert, effectiveness and technology. They take risks like no one else so as to attain whatever ends that their masters at the White house and the Pentagon want them to. In any conventional or non-conventional form of war fare (lets rule out nuclear weapons); there is no contention as to who will emerge the winner. After the second world war we have seen a lot of their military greatness in action all over the world - from covert ops in the Latin Americas to conventional warfare in Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq to tactical warfare in the Balkans and the Russian union; apart from a few failures they were mostly success (as far as the myopic eye goes). That stature has not changed or even shows any sign of change as far as the immediate future is considered. So as far as the military might goes, USA is the sole superpower with no parallel. And where does India figure in all this? We are still the second largest army (fueled and filled in by the large population and poverty), who has seen no major victories apart from some costly endeavors against an ill equipped Pakistan. We were no match for the Chinese or the small terrorist outfit LTTE. An army that has hardly seen any combat duty after 1971 Bangladesh endeavor and the nuisance (it was made out into a war, because it sounds great) that was Kargil (that was costly for the army with almost 1 soldier killed for every 2 infiltrator; but not that costly considering the gargantuan size of the army and the money made by the politicos buying coffins for the bravest of Indians). We still marvel at the sight of refurbished aircraft carriers purchased from Russian scrap dealers (figure of speech). Our Navy has seen hardly any combat duty apart from foiling some piracy attempts and capturing Somali pirates/. Air force is no better with a large fleet of aging and rusting aircraft peeling off mid-air and the infamous flying coffins (Mig 21). During the Kargil conflict politicians strictly wanted no crossing of the LOC, not because of the moral superiority but because they were fully aware that if some insurgents can bring down a few Indian aircraft, the better equipped Pakistani military can bring down the whole of it, if it crosses the border. To suffice, India is hardly in any position to flex its military muscle to coerce any nation to follow its will and therefore it is hardly any superpower in this context. Let us be content with keeping peace in African and eastern European countries and after all that’s what we all want.

(to be continued...)