M.D. Nalapat
Manipal, India — Throughout the European
Union, and increasingly in the United States and Australia, immigration is
being directed on racial grounds, with preference given to immigrants of
European origin. This is despite the reality that an immigrant from Chennai or
Hyderabad in India is far more likely to add immediate economic value to a
society than migrants from Tirana, Bucharest or Sofia, to take just three
examples.
Even Britain, till now a haven of
race-neutral policies, has lately introduced measures directed against citizens
of countries other than those with European-origin majorities. Clearly, to many
Western policymakers, "globalization" is a one-way street, confined
to improving Western access to other locations but hostile to a reverse flow.
The blocking of a Dubai-based company from acquiring a port in the United
States -- even though that city is largely run by executives from Western
countries -- is just one of numerous examples of the phobic reaction to efforts
by outside corporations to buy into Western companies.
Astonishingly, even the corporate sector
has not freed itself of biases dragged over from an age in which European
countries administered most of the world. Today, both India and China are witnessing
growth rates that could in a generation recreate the period when India and
China accounted for over half the world's output, an age that vanished only in
the early 1880s. Especially since the 17th century, what has driven Western
prosperity is the unprecedented expansion of knowledge within those societies,
which even today account for nine out of ten scientific patents worldwide (a
small but increasing proportion of which are being contributed by researchers
of Asian origin).
It is only in the past two decades that
Brazil, India and China have been closing the "knowledge gap,"
although the three are as yet far behind Western countries in the range and
significance of their discoveries. Should they reach Western levels of
performance, the global economy would be the beneficiary of the numerous
improvements and additions that such research would create, in the same way as
populations worldwide are sharing in the benefits of Western prowess in science
and technology.
Two years ago, the reaction of the board of
European steelmaker Arcelor to a takeover bid by India-born entrepreneur
Lakshmi Mittal gave the first hint that race could be a factor in corporate
planning . Key company officials, ignoring Mittal's record in turning around
dying companies -- and becoming one of the richest individuals in the world --
talked of Indian "eau de cologne" versus European
"perfume," and even of the undesirability of "monkey money"
(Mittal's). Finally shareholder pressure forced them to agree to a takeover
that has since boosted the now merged Arcelor-Mittal stock substantially.
The same happy trend followed the
subsequent, and entirely civilized, ITata Steel's takeover of British
steelmaker Corus. Unlike Arcelor, the British firm's directors welcomed the
entry of the Indian company. Indeed, Britain has been significantly relaxed in
its reaction to Indian takeovers, unlike the rest of the European Union and,
surprisingly, the United States. Recently whiskey producer Whyte & Mackay
was taken over by India's UB in a friendly atmosphere, and events since have
confirmed that the Indian company's global distribution network has been a
significant plus to the British company.
The subliminal racism that lurks behind the
polished mahogany walls of the boardrooms of some U.S.-EU corporations came
into the open a fortnight ago, when the testy response of Orient-Express CEO
Paul White to Indian Hotels Vice-Chairperson Krishna Kumar became public. In
his missive, White explicitly stated that an Indian connection would
significantly degrade the value of the U.S. company's brands.
As the continuing viability of U.S. Senator
Barack Obama as a U.S. presidential candidate is demonstrating, such a
conclusion does scant justice to the tolerant and inclusive mindset that is the
most attractive feature of present-day Western society. Indeed, several
Orient-Express customers come from the Middle East and South and East Asia,
while a significant proportion of those of European origin have business and
social links with individuals and institutions in locations other than North
America, Europe and Australia. White is at least a generation off base in his
implicit assumption that customers in Western countries would be turned off by
a non-Western owner despite retaining the quality of service.
A similar shriek of alarm has greeted news
that Britain's faltering Jaguar and Land Rover brands are at risk of a takeover
from either Tatas or the also India-based Mahindra group. While the British
public and those associated with the two brands in Britain have been welcoming,
the reaction of Ken Gorin, the U.S.-based chairman of the Jaguar Business
Operations Council, was that he did not believe "the U.S. public was ready
for ownership out of India of a luxury car."
That a U.S.-based company is competing with
major Indian companies for control of the two brands may of course be
coincidental. Sadly, even the media has not been entirely without bias on this
issue, with several commentaries in the United States expressing skepticism
over the placement of non-Western executives in top management slots. For
example, dismissive views have been expressed on Citigroup's recent decision to
appoint India-born Vikram Pandit as CEO, despite the performance of other
India-born CEOs as Indira Nooyi of Pepsi and Rajat Gupta of McKinsey.
One-way streets are rare, and the
involvement of non-Western corporate leaders in Western companies is an
inescapable adjunct of globalization. Hopefully, the residues of racism that
are surfacing will subside with time, as the new entrants have shown they can
maintain high standards of quality and performance despite being born in a
lower-income country.
-(Professor M.D. Nalapat is
vice-chair of the Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair, and
professor of geopolitics at Manipal University. ©Copyright M.D. Nalapat.)
No comments:
Post a Comment