Posts Tagged ‘Transition’

After the champagne, the hangover

November 9th, 2008

Chicago

If you’ve been exercised by the trivial matter as to why U.S. president elect Barack Obama hasn’t yet called Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, then you don’t need google to find the answer. A number of explanations present themselves. That the Indian Prime Minister is away on an official visit, explains what Indians perceive as Obama’s tardiness, though not fully.

Obama found the time to call 15 other heads of state at the end of last week, including Pakistan’s Asif Zardari, which led Pakstan’s Daily Times to gloat about the U.S’s “no lift” stance towards India. It was pointed out, of course, that the countries Obama dialed were all “known U.S. allies” and that India, by inference, is not.

A better explanation is that Obama has just been swamped with work. The task ahead is enormous, and Obama was in a huddle with his transition team over the weekend to first make the key personnel decisions. There are hundreds of positions to be filled under the new regime, from Cabinet posts to the appointment of U.S attorneys in all states. Work on policy begins only after getting somewhere with settling these.

And when getting down to policy, his first three priorities are likely to be: economy, economy, economy. Telephone calls to India will probably be made only in case he’s having trouble with his bank account.

After a campaign full of prophecies and promises, it now comes down to priorities. Since Obama begins at minus $700 billion thanks to the bailout for financial institutions, there’s already a debate on whether to postpone meeting the (expensive) commitments he made on energy independence, healthcare, climate change and education, till after a plan for the economy is put in place.

With a middle-class that’s hurting, and a business community that suspects deep down that there is a small chance that the man could be the socialist the McCain campaign made him out to be, taxes will be very high on the agenda, however.

This isn’t the best news for India. At a time when at least a hundred thousand people are losing their jobs every month, Obama’s repeated promise of tax breaks to businesses that keep jobs in the U.S. would be a popular measure. Less off-shoring has obvious repercussions for India.

How soon such a measure will come into force, and to what extent, will decide how much Indian BPOs will suffer, but suffer they will.

The world, and India, probably celebrated Obama’s election after viewing it purely through a foreign policy prism. On that score too, India has a bit to think about.

The outline of Obama’s foreign policy can be found in a report published last year by a group of democrats called the Phoenix Initiative. Susan Rice, who is tipped to be Obama’s secretary of state, was part of this group. In brief, the report said that governments could not handle things like counter-terrorism and nuclear proliferation on their own and envisioned an interconnected world where (presumably) America held most of the “diffuse power”.

Obama has echoed that in speeches: “the threats we face.. can no longer be contained by borders and boundaries”, he said in his first major foreign policy speech last year. The threats are global, and need a global response.

In effect, this means, as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman puts it, “show us the money”. Obama’s America will expect nations to contribute in tangible terms (”money, police, aid workers, troops, diplomatic support”) to its efforts at making the world a “freer” and better place.

Till the time that Obama talks about winding down the war in Iraq, that seems alright. But what happens when he shifts the theatre to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to “crush Al Qaeda and kill Bin Laden” as he has said he will? Perhaps he will call Zardari to let him know that he should stand clear of dropping bombs. And then make the call to Delhi for support.

What happens to our already rough neighbourhood then?

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