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Indians wary of biting the US hand that feeds
them
By Ranjit Devraj
NEW
DELHI - "Given a chance, most Indians would emigrate to
the United States tomorrow," is how Christopher Raj,
professor of American studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru
University in the capital city, explains the muted, if
not indifferent, public attitude in the country to the
war on Iraq.
India's emergence as a supplier of
software services and manpower to the US roughly
coincides with the demise of its former ally, the Soviet
Union, and the utter defeat of another close friend,
Iraq, in the high-technology, first Gulf War of 1991.
Software exports, now worth US$8.3 billion
annually, led India's emergence from a socialist past
into an era of rapid globalization, and is the pride of
the ruling right-wing coalition which has, since coming
to power in 1998, sought a close strategic alliance with
Washington.
According to Raj, these days,
neither the government nor ordinary Indians see an
advantage in criticizing the policies of a country they
look up to or are dependent on. "We are not alone in
such attitudes - people in many Arab countries, for
instance, feel the same way," Raj said.
Indeed,
the ruling, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) refused to
allow a resolution in parliament against the war in
Iraq. Likewise, Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha has said
that, if asked, India would allow US military aircraft
access to refueling facilities. Public pressure forced
India to withdraw refueling facilities for US aircraft
during the previous Gulf War.
Said Rakesh
Gulati, a fresh graduate who is proud of being a
"Microsoft certified" software professional: "I am
waiting for my H1B visa [to work in the US] - you won't
catch me going anywhere near those commie rallies in
front of the US embassy."
Gulati's immediate
concern is increased scrutiny at the US embassy since
September 11, 2001, of H1B visas, which allow qualified
professionals like him to work temporarily in the US and
earn salaries unheard of in mostly impoverished India.
"I just hate Islamic jihadists and what they did
to the World Trade Center," said Gulati with a vehemence
that brooked no discussion on the finer points of what
produces religious fundamentalism and how it may best be
tackled. That is a clear departure from typical
attitudes a decade ago, when young people in many of
India's best universities were inspired by Marxist
ideals and a healthy disdain for things American.
Gulati's heroes are Indians who have made it big
in Silicon Valley, like Sameer Bhatia, who created
Hotmail and then sold it to Microsoft for hundreds of
millions of dollars, and Vinod Khosla, best known for
conceptualizing Sun Microsystems.
Asked about
issues like racial discrimination in the US or the human
rights issue in Iraq, Gulati says that he is sure that
these have been exaggerated and are anyway no concern of
his. "Are you saying there is no discrimination in India
or that the human rights situation is perfect in this
country - especially after last year's violent events in
Gujarat?" he demanded, referring to the anti-Muslim
riots in that state.
In fact, India's software
hopefuls are encouraged by stories of "reverse
discrimination". In February, for instance, a former
systems administrator at Sun Microsystems, Guy
Santiglia, complained to the US Department of Labor that
he and hundreds of other employees were laid off by the
company while retaining their H1B workers and seeking to
hire more.
Professor Sabysachi Mitra, who
teaches management, said at a strategy summit last month
organized by the powerful National Association of
Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), "There is a
lot of resistance in the United States to people who
don't walk, talk and look like them - but the business
[software] has a lot of lobbying power."
On the
other hand, many of the people who attended the summit
said privately that India would be shooting itself in
the foot by opposing the US-led war effort which they
thought could actually create demand for software.
For those who cannot make it to the land of
their dreams, there is still the prospect of a
high-paying situation in the booming market for
outsourced software and information technology-enabled,
back office and call-center industries right at home.
To the rare visitor to Expressway Calls, a call
center on the outskirts of Delhi which services a bank
halfway around the world in the US, the sight of young
Indian boys and girls wearing baseball caps and
conversing in perfect mid-Western accents through
gum-clenching teeth may sound bizarre. But even more
bizarre than the accents are attitudes that fit better
in Dallas than in Delhi. "Like the prez [George W Bush]
says, Saddam is pure evil," declared Monty, the nickname
for Mandeep Singh.
Many believe that the Indian
government's abandonment of its leadership position in
the Non-Aligned Movement and muted criticism of the war
in Iraq may have been prompted, at least partly, by its
interests in the global software industry and the
growing influence of NASSCOM on policy.
Earlier
this month, the Malaysian government was surprised by
what some of its officials thought was the
"overreaction" of New Delhi to the detention 270 Indian
software professionals on suspicion that they were
illegal immigrants, and their alleged roughing up by
police in Kuala Lumpur.
India's External Affairs
Ministry, which is often accused of being unsympathetic
to the plight of Indian workers abroad, suddenly turned
uncharacteristically pro-active and demanded that Kuala
Lumpur take action against the policemen involved in the
incident.
There were moves suggesting that
India's High Commissioner to Malaysia would be recalled,
landing rights for Malaysian Airlines at Kolkata airport
curtailed and concessions for the import of Malaysian
palm oil cancelled.
Formal apologies from
Malaysia did not prevent India from announcing that it
would, as a mark of protest, bar its national hockey
team from participating in the prestigious Sultan Azlan
Shah hockey tournament being played out this week.
(Inter Press Service)
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