As India stirs, the region must react quickly
by Karim Raslan
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http://www.todayonline.com/articles/10753.asp
INDIA and Indians are changing. After decades of slumber, the subcontinent and its people (including its substantial diaspora) are waking up, and with surprising consequences.
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Recent events underline the extent to which India has departed from the Nehru socialism of its immediate post-Independence years as well as its long-standing commitment to the Non-Alignment Movement and traditional wariness of the US.
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In September, New Delhi shocked the Muslim world by hosting Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon and, only last week, an Indian-American Republican named Piyush “Bobby” Jindal narrowly lost a Gubernatorial contest in the US state of Louisiana.
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Furthermore, Standard Chartered Bank reported that India’s GDP was slated to grow at over seven per cent in 2003-04. Finally, the back-office services industry had expanded by over 25 per cent in the first three months this year, adding some 130,000 jobs and taking sector employment to 650,000.
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The region should remember that while India’s development is extremely uneven, it remains a land of vast opportunities. Bangalore, Mumbai or New Delhi more than compensate for the squalor and lawlessness (the Indians call it “dacoitry”) of states such as Bihar.
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Certainly, the whole of South-east Asia is going to have to adjust to a far more assertive and confident India — one that wants to be recognised as being on par with the other great Asian power, China.
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At the same time India is also becoming more overtly western and American in its orientation. This shift will have striking implications for the region as the two giants (along with the US) seek to influence South-east Asia.
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There needs to be a mindset change on dealing with people from India.
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For decades Indians have been looked down on — the terrible poverty there seen as a damning indictment of the country’s failures.
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As such, many are not entirely familiar with the idea of wealthy, worldly and successful Indians like Narayana Murthy of Infosys, the actress Aishwarya Rai or the New York-based publisher, Sonny Mehta.
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India has long been associated with backwardness. Over the past fifty years or so, a combination of Nehru’s socialism, a sclerotic bureaucracy and non-alignment in geo-political terms has left India on the sidelines as the Asia-Pacific region boomed.
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In the 1980s and 90s India stumbled as China streaked ahead. For example India — with a population of 1.1 billion — had external trade of only US$110 billion (189 billion) — noticeably less than Malaysia with over US$175 billion in trade.
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However, conventional thinking in Delhi has changed and C Raja Mohan, a columnist for a highly respected newspaper, The Hindu, has written a fascinating account of these trends in his recently published book Crossing the Rubicon. The author places a great deal of emphasis on what he considers to be India’s commitment to the ideas promoted by European “Enlightenment” thinkers of the 18th century.
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In doing so he groups India with the nations of the western world and Israel — societies that have, to his mind, done three things: Separated religion and state, adopted and promoted democracy and, finally, embraced modernity as symbolised by the worlds of science and technology.
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Interestingly the author distinguishes India from China and the Islamic world. He argues that these two civilisations are incompatible with the Enlightenment experiment. In doing so he covertly reaffirms the fact that India has sided with the US against both China and the Muslim world.
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Of course many people might argue that the ruling BJP party’s avowedly Hindu orientation and ultra-conservative religious inclinations make them an extremely dubious advocate of secularism.
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Both 911 and the US-led war on terror have had a searing impact on the way India views the world. The Indian Premier Atal Bihari Vajpayee identified himself immediately with the American cause, going so far as to offer military support to the Americans.
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This can be explained in part by the country’s long-running insurgency in the majority Muslim state of Kashmir as well as an underlying anti-Muslim bias, which is in itself linked to India’s historic rivalry with Pakistan. As America has grown more wary of Pakistan, India has used the opportunity to embed itself more closely with Washington.
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The shift towards the US has been accompanied by a tacit recognition within Washington circles of India’s vast economic potential as well as its possible role as a counterweight to China — the one country that the US remains fearful of. In their haste to embrace India, Americans have conveniently forgotten their anger at the detonation of an Indian nuclear device at Pokphan in May 1998.
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US-Indian relations are also being forged in business and people-to-people ties. The rapid growth of software industries — both in Silicon Valley and Bangalore — has created hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
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Whilst the economic connections are strengthening there are hurdles to future growth. Indian call-centres are taking jobs away from Americans and Europeans. HSBC’s decision last month to relocate over 4,000 back-office jobs from the UK to India caused a firestorm in the British media. The collapse of the Internet bubble and heightened US paranoia has made the lives of those recently settled in the States far more difficult.
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India’s shift away from Russia and its embrace of the US will create tensions for South-east Asia just as another giant to our north also begins stirring. Are countries in the region ready for the challenge? Can we engage with India?
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Karim Raslan is a Kuala Lumpur-based lawyer and author. His latest book, Journeys through South-east Asia: Ceritalah 2, was published last year and is available in English and Malay.
by Karim Raslan