The Knack

The Knack

It is ironic that the big news on the commercial front from President Obama’s recent state visit was about Indian orders worth USD 10 billion for American goods. And that it translates into 50,000 new jobs in America. This, in a beleaguered US, with unemployment percentages running into double digits, was President Obama’s first message from Indian soil.

Irony is a largely Western concept with no equivalent in Sanskrit; even if its harbinger is a path-breaking African-American President of the US, till recently given to stoking the outsourcing controversy with “Buffalo versus Bangalore” rhetoric.

But then, the charismatic President Obama’s roots, as one of the most Liberal-Left US presidents in recent times, are in local and community politics. And the dire state of the US economy, which he inherited, and has largely rescued from certain ruin with huge government hand-outs and near nationalisation style moves; is certainly not his fault.

But not to miss a beat, our usually mild-mannered Prime Minister Manmohan Singh chimed in on cue by declaring that we Indians are not in the business of “stealing jobs” from anyone.

The fact is, a severe drubbing at the mid-term US Congressional elections held just before his India visit, set President Obama’s perspective to rights. He got little credit for battling to save the economy of the free world from collapse; but scads of brickbats for not putting the nation back to work. Duly chastised, Obama is no longer keen on raising the outsourcing “bogeyman”.

The Republicans, now in control of the US Congress, consider it Luddite folly to refuse to go wherever in the world something can be sourced more cheaply and efficiently. So India, particularly its thriving software industry, can breathe easier, both because President Obama is forced to course-correct now; and because as an economy, we are, in the President’s own estimate, already “emerged”.

In a globalised world, it is indeed seen as unwise, to try and set the clock back, either because of populist reasons; or even by dint of other vexing issues, such as bureaucracy, red-tape, corruption, even bad infrastructure; when the key need is for a thriving manufacturing base and export hub. This particularly when one has a limited, expensive, and ageing workforce, as is the case in most of Europe and Japan, if not also in the US. Even the Chinese workforce, though populous, is ageing, thanks to its one child policy.

Japan, previously sceptical about India despite its potential, tried to grow its economy with China at first. And China took in huge amounts of Japanese investment in the eighties, but to fuel its own will to power. The nationalist Communist Party there were happy to fan anti-Japanese sentiment left over from the war years after their purpose was served.

Japan’s eyes are now opened to India. Long the No.2 economy after the US, though languishing through a two decade-long recession; over a 100 Japanese firms are entering India every year now. They are creating jobs here, in their home country, and around the globe, by investing, without demur, into the Indo-Japanese corridor between Delhi and Mumbai amongst other places. A $ 90 billion commitment, the corridor will, when completed, give the Indo-Japanese collaboration state-of-the-art manufacturing abilities and an exporting base second to none. The Japanese government is also moving finally on other matters like a free-trade agreement, a bilateral defence framework, and even an Indo-Japanese civil nuclear deal.

America too is treading a similar path with India, with some strategic and geopolitical overlays. Ergo, its intended removal of restrictions on the Indian access to dual-use high technology, closer defence related cooperation, and of course the consummation of the civil nuclear deal.

There is a compelling need for many of the erstwhile dominant Western powers to forge closer ties with India, growing robustly by dint of its domestic demand, and refresh long-held negative attitudes that have outlived their usefulness. Some of them are moving towards the opportunities presented faster than others, but we can expect a cascade effect as the time goes on.

Pundit after financial pundit is proclaiming that the Sensex will be close to 50,000 by 2015, and double that figure by 2020; the figures based on an approximate compounded return of 18% on equity. And this for the next quarter of a century at least, albeit with swells and troughs thrown into the puissant ride.

India’s biggest foreign bank, Standard Chartered declares India will be the world’s fastest growing economy by 2012. In the next two decades India will become the third largest economy in GDP terms, only behind China and the US. Morgan Stanley, on its part, says India will become the fastest growing economy in the world by 2013-15.

At the root of all this happy talk, and even at its branches, is the belief that globalisation provides additional job opportunities at home and abroad in a win-win partnership between participants. It becomes a virtuous cycle of additional capital raising both productivity and know-how for all concerned. The elephant both inside and outside the room is India’s appetite for infrastructure development, which will not be assuaged for years to come.

There was, during the US presidential visit, a low-key announcement of an Indo-US Infrastructure Development Fund with an initial corpus of $ 10 billion. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh however said we need over one trillion dollars for infrastructure development in the next decade alone. There is therefore plenty of room for other comers.

And lastly, as Linnet Mushran, an Englishwoman married to an Indian from the landed classes; the owner and inspiration behind the delectable Bhuira Jams made to legendary Fortnum & Mason quality standards by largely illiterate Himachali women, said: Indian women are very good with pickles and English women with jams. 

The observation is strikingly true. But the magic ingredient in either case is, of course, an indefinable, cultural/ethnic instinct and sensibility for the appropriate that makes for the excellence.

The analogy can be extended to many other things that contribute both to the good life and human progress: Scotch and the Scots, sauces /gravies and the French, automobiles and Germans, software development and Indians, mass-manufacturing and the Chinese, styling and Italians, scale and the Americans, and so on.

The point being that some people are innately, and by virtue of their knack at something, better at doing certain things than others. Also that an intelligent workforce can be taught to perform to high standards.

The Japanese are astounded that we win Alfred Denning prizes for quality manufacturing of auto-components amongst all our chaos. Fact is, they shouldn’t be.

(1,096 words)

16^th November 2010

Gautam Mukherjee


Published in The Pioneer as Leader on the Edit Page as :"Bailing out America" on 17th November 2010 (Eid Al Adha). Also appears online at www.dailypioneer.com, in The Pioneer ePaper facsimile also on the 17th of November 2010. The article is also archived under Guest Columnists at www.dailypioneer.com against the dated listings under Gautam Mukherjee.