M D Nalapat
Over
the past month, a troupe of Obama backers have descended on India,
seeking to soften opinion in the country ahead of President Obama’s
visit. The English-language media in India, both print as well as
television, have given continuos coverage of such non-events as former
Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott discussing issues centering
around the braid theme of “what India can do for the US”. Apart from a
few retired diplomats and civil servants, as well as the participants
themselves, there has been no viewer interest in such fare. Then why air
on television or print so many such “debates and discussions” featuring
an army of retired (but hoping for re-employment) Clinton-era officials
and their Indian clones? In large part, such coverage is a tribute to
the public diplomacy skills of the huge US embassy in New Delhi, that
networks intensively with not only the journalists working in these
media outlets but ( much more crucially) the proprietors. Getting the US
ambassador over to dinner is a social coup for Delhi’s glamorous
society ladies, and all of Timothy Roemer’s charm and gift of the gab
are being put to good use in a context where the Obama administration
has been largely hostile to India.
This columnist visits the Information Technology (IT) hubs of Bangalore and Hyderabad often, and in both there is anger at the shabby way in which Indian IT professionals are being treated in matters of visa and entry into the US. These days, visa interviews for software professionals has turned nasty, with the (normally polite) consular officials clearly under instructions from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to discourage Indians from going on work assignments to the US. Interestingly, the Republican Party has turned to Indian-Americans, especially in the conservative south. Some years ago, India-born Bobby Jindal became the Governor opr Louisiana, defeating his Democratic Party opponent despite the fact that she belonged to the (Caucasian) majority. Now, another Indian-American, Nikki Randhawa, has been elected the Governor of South Carolina, defeating her Democrat rival in a campaign marked by numerous personal attacks on her. Both Nikki and Bobby have married within their communities, and that fact has not stood in the way of conservative white voters overwhelmingly preferring them to white Democratic opponents who have near-total backing from local African-American communities. Although it is not considered politically correct to mention this, it is a reality that several African-Americans resent the economic success of the Indian-American community. This is unfortunate, for India has been a consistent backer of racial equality, being for long the only non-Communist country to give assistance to the African National Congress while Nelson Mandela was in jail. Within the African-American community, leaders such as Martin Luther King have been inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, and they in turn have inspired many Indians, including this columnist, who once wrote a short biography of Dr King in his mother tongue, Malayalam. By his numerous negative actions on India, President Obama seems to be reacting more as a sectional leader than as the elected head of the entire American people, which is perhaps one reason why his party has suffered so badly in the 2010 polls, just two years after he was elected as the first African-American President of the US. In this respect, Obama;s election has put his country on a higher moral plane than India, which has yet to see a Muslim Prime Minister emerge, despite having been free for 63 years.
