IRAQ: Software Stakes in U.S. Ensure Muted War Protests in India

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Mar 26 2003 (IPS) - ‘’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 here, explains the muted, if not indifferent, public attitude in this country to the war on Iraq.

India’s emergence as a supplier of software services and manpower to the United States 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 8.3 billion U.S. dollars annually, led India’s emergence from a socialist past into an era of rapid globalisation, and is the pride of the ruling right-wing coalition which has, since coming to power in 1998, been seeking a close, strategic alliance with Washington.

According to Raj, these days neither the government nor ordinary Indians see percentage in criticising 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, right-wing 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 U.S. military aircraft access to refuelling facilities. Public pressure forced India to withdraw refuelling facilities for U.S. aircraft during the last Gulf War.

Said Rakesh Gulati, a fresh young graduate who is proud of being a ‘Microsoft certified’ software professional: ‘’I am waiting for my H1B visa – you won’t catch me going anywhere near those commie rallies in front of the U.S. Embassy.”

Gulati’s immediate concern is increased scrutiny at the U.S. Embassy since the Sep.11 terrorist attacks of H1B visas, which allow qualified professionals like him to work temporarily in the United States and earn salaries unheard of in this impoverished country.

‘’I just hate Islamic ‘jihadists’ and what they did to the World Trade Centre,” 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 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 conceptualising Sun Microsystems.

Asked about issues like racial discrimination in the United States or the human rights issue in Iraq, Gulati says 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 to know, 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 U.S. Department of Labour that he and hundreds of other employees were laid off by the company while retaining its H1B workers and seeking to hire more.

Professor Sabysachi Mitra, who teaches management, said at a strategy summit last month organised 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 àbut 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 U.S.-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-centre industries right at home.

To the rare visitor to ‘Expressway Calls’, a call centre on the outskirts of Delhi which services a bank half way around the world in the United States, 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 (abbreviated from Mandeep Singh).

Many believe that the Indian government’s abandonment of its leadership position in the Non-aligned Movement (NAM) 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 the 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.