Before America went to elections India media and journalist went speculating Obama’s attitude and outlook towards India by reading his talisman. What an illogical way to deduce a conclusion on foreign policy based on his talisman. Is it desperation or delusion to think this way? Or both? May be Obama wanted Hanuman, the messenger Rama sent to court of Ravana to be his messenger too?
Obama appointed a few smart Indians to lead a few key functions in Washington. However much Obama tries to sharpen his knife and severe the umbilical relationship between Bangalore and San Francisco, shift jobs from Bangalore to Buffalo, reduce the H1B cap, cut back on sops and tax credits for corporations that outsource work to India, but will this really propel the stalling American economy is to be wait and watched.
Irrespective of the geographies they live in (UK, US, Aus) Indians have commanded respect both in the axis of power and knowledge. Is it awareness or fear that makes them get Indians on their side or make us their benchmark? Sadly this also makes Indians are targets of racial violence.
Post 9/11 a fellow student who went to school with me at University of RhodeIsland abused and accused me and other fellow Indians of taking their jobs away. He used to work at American Power Conversion (APC). A cousin of mine who went to law school in Manchester was beaten black and blue 5 years ago. Then Gandhiji was asked to de-board the train in South Africa, and today Indian students are targets in Australia. Racism never went away. Crudest weapon to use on mankind is the one based on race, color, caste, creed, and sex.
Nazism…Ausizm…Obamaism….
In the wake of all this US and Obama must exercise caution while making reference and comparison to India and Indians. Today American economy is badly hit with recession, unemployment and more American students are going back to school to re-skill themselves. Indian have always pollinated American universities and now Obama’s speech exposes Indians and Indian students to a high risk of racial discrimination. Intimidation and comparison is not the best way to motivate to compete and perform. Obama’s speech only instigates hatred, anger and violence against Indians. See the tone of this message…..Is the Hanuman talisman really working the Indian way?
Here is what Obama said…
Obama said that while at one time America produced the highest number of school and college graduates, PhDs, engineers and scientists, it has fallen behind and is no longer “head and shoulders above other countries when it (comes) to education”. “We’ve got to pick up the pace because the world has gotten competitive. The Chinese, the Indians are coming at us and they are coming at us hard, and they are hungry and they are really buckling down,” Obama said at a meeting in Wisconsin on Friday. “Their (Indian and Chinese) kids watch a lot less TV than our kids do, play a lot fewer video games, they are in the classroom a lot longer.” At present, the US is in the “middle” and has settled into “mediocrity” among the wealthy, advanced, industrialised countries. There is a need to improve as American kids are falling behind when it comes to science and math, Obama said.
This is really sad to know. Where did he say this? I thought the success of the American economy lay in their really walking the talk about being a melting pot society and the land of opportunity for all.
ReplyDeletePolitical bigotry seems the ugly companion of Economic Crisis. Strangely, this comes at a time when continental Europe sees the comparative advantage of countries like the US, UK and Australia as being able to attract the best talent from all over the world to fill the ranks in the wake of their demographic shifts. So what if Indians go to universities there and do well? They contribute to the GDP of those countries. It also helps the cause of better global wealth distribution through remittances, and is verily the rising tide that lifts all ships.
As for the kinds of jobs that are outsourced and that being made an issue...thats a double whammy. Company profits and competitiveness depend on outsourcing and they will do 'business as usual', while political brownie points are earned by pointing fingers at these jobs and the people who do them, regardless of the fact that there will be takers for them in the home country. So much for the human genome project!