India's Leadership

My friend from US-India Friendship (http://usindiafriendship.net/ ) mass mailed me the following link http://www.indianexpress.com/news/enough-with-the-diffidence/387850/ . The e-mail also contained the following excerpts:

"Despite the chest-thumping in recent years about India emerging as a major global power, its strategic and political elites display an insecurity that defies explanation. A powerful, self-confident nation should be able to articulate a coherent vision about its priorities and national interests.

"The visible lack of self-confidence among Indian elites in their nation’s ability to leverage the international system to its advantage will only weaken India. India should assess its interests carefully and learn to stand up for them.

" India is too big, too proud and too significant a global player to worry about Obama’s phone call. Its sights should be on the real challenges to its interests and it should work towards preserving and enhancing them, without any apologies or explanations."

The context for this Op-Ed piece: Apparently the Indian government felt snubbed by the time he took to phone Mr. Manmohan Singh.

My own quickie, two cent’s worth of response to the theme of self-confidence in this piece or lack thereof was:

The Indian bureaucratic mind is well . . . too bureaucratic. Everything is suspect and unfortunately, only an open mind can soar high like an eagle. Otherwise, we'll continue to stew in our own inward looking ways and be a bunch of turkeys.

How much money India has spent on American PR firms! who seldom delivered. I don't know the exact stats. but tourist dollars going to India is very low other than what the NRI's spend.

There is also always this smug attitude: Oh, India is a great country, we are an old civilization, so there is no need for us to learn much. Only recently the West discovered that the world is round, we knew it three thousand years ago.

Smugness, false modesty and misplaced reverence among a slew of other ills are India's downfall.

Of course, there are some industrial giants and technology titans but unless at the top of the government there is more than lip service to encouraging people of all kinds of talent, we can never fully exhibit our full potential and thus never feel self-confident enough. Bravado is very different from self-confidence. Smugness leads to bravado.

Yeah, about a million people out of a billion plus are enjoying a high standard of living. This too thanks mostly to the handouts from the West. What is India's original contribution to today's world? If we cannot identify this and more importantly others cannot, how can we possibly feel self-confident?

When PM Manmohan Singh talks, do you think it's possible to stay tuned to him for more than two seconds? Why does he have such a servile appearance?

India has a long way to go. Its problems are multi-layered.

The response I got was: Have you met any of India's senior diplomats to assess their performance? About Manmohan Singh and the other things you refer to, I think you are being over-critical.

My response to this was:

I'm of the belief "all criticism is constructive." As for being over-critical, this is an area that needs honest assessment to make any progress. Indeed, it's just my opinion and I'm also of the opinion that had the powers that be been more critical, we (I'm referring to the U.S. here as I'm more plugged into the scene here) wouldn't be in the kinds of mess on various fronts that we are in.

Harsh Pant's own op-ed piece was a criticism of India being "over-critical" if you will over the delayed phone call from Obama (btw, isn't the victor first supposed to get a congratulatory call form foreign leaders?).

My association with Indian diplomats and bureaucrats began at birth. More recently, I have stayed away.

I think I'll blog on this topic.

And I did just now.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ciao!
Ro.