India Starts to Get its Due
By Terry Weidner
The Missoulian, September 7, 2006
Like most Americans, when folks in Missoula think about India,
they’re likely to conjure up a basket of scattered, contradictory
images: great cuisine and near starvation; Gandhi and nukes; maharajahs
and Ballywood -- and of course, a voice at the other end of the
line when your computer has crashed. All are slivers of a fascinating
culture and country, but few of us have a coherent picture of this “other” Asian
giant.
The limits to our knowledge of India fly in the face of reality.
It has a fabulous historical and cultural heritage. With over a
billion people, it already accounts for one-sixth the Earth’s
population and will soon be the most populous country on the globe.
At a time when “regime building” is a key catch phrase
in a war on terror, India is a rare, stable democracy in a largely
unstable but strategically vital region. India is also an emerging
economic power. The telephone techie you might talk to in Bangalore
is part of a rapidly emerging Indian internet/technology sector
that now produces nearly $40 billion in revenue. The Indian economy
as a whole is clipping along at an impressive annual growth rate
of 8 percent a year. India’s economic emergence now has a
local dimension with the establishment in Missoula of an office
for the Tata group, an old and respected Indian conglomerate with
operations on six continents.
But owing to quirks of history, India has always played second
fiddle to China as a target of U.S. interest in Asia. While India
was overlooked as a British possession, missionaries enthralled
church-goers in even remote American towns with tales of a “heathen” and
needy China. Desperate to win support for World War II in the Pacific,
the U.S. made Chiang Kai-shek’s China – not India – the
focus of a rallying cry against Japan. China again stood front
and center under Mao – this time as an enemy – before
America embraced the Chinese ping pong team as a symbol of a new
era of relations. As India began its economic take off, it was
against obscured by the PRC, whose transformation was even more
gaudy in its speed and magnitude. Ironically, my Chinese friends
have complained for years about all the attention, as it too often
spills over into U.S. “interference” in China. My standard
response: “Talk to someone from India about what it’s
like to be ignored, and get back to me.”
Finally, though, India is starting to make it on the global radar.
Thus, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was accorded an usually
warm welcome when he visited Washington in the summer 2005. More
significantly, a joint statement following the visit pledged the
United States to "help India become a major world power in
the 21st century" called the two countries "natural partners." During
President Bush’s visit to Delhi this past March, the U.S.
administration entered into an unprecedented agreement to provide
nuclear power assistance to India while allowing Delhi to substantially
step up its nuclear weapons production – developments that
wouldn't have been dreamt of a couple of decades ago.
India’s new status as a strategic partner has clearly been
influenced by the U.S. desire to counter China’s rising power
in Asia (Japan is increasing its attention to India for the same
reason). But the U.S. seems to have found too that it’s sometimes
easier to negotiate with an Asian democracy than an autocracy.
Happily, India’s new strategic niche has led to the first
trickles of media recognition in the United States – for
example in features in Time magazine – that explore other
aspects of India’s emergence. With luck, that coverage will
become more extensive and comprehensive, helping us replace our
often-scattered images of India with a broader perspective on India’s
culture, people and place.
Terry Weidner is director of the Maureen & Mike Mansfield
Center at The University of Montana
The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation
1401 New York Ave. NW Suite 740
Washington, DC 20005
Telephone: (202) 347-1994
Fax: (202) 347-3941 matwater@mansfieldfdn.org
