Obama Must Stop Neglecting India
forbes.com
forbes.com
1) Obama 'must' not do anything, and will not do anything, just because India is a great nation and the world's largest democracy and so on...geopolitical relationships are always centered first on self interest (of each country).
2) Just because Obama does not say hail India more often does not mean Indo-US relations are in bad shape. The United States is fighting a tough war in Pakistan and walking a very thin line between 'helping' Pakistan to avoid a huge civil crisis, using US drones to attack militants inside Pakistan etc and at least appearing to show some respect for Pakistan's sovereignty. Given Pakistan's suspicion of anything India related, it makes sense for the US government not to make any loud pro-India gestures without sufficient reason. Behind the scenes the picture may be (and indeed most likely is) very different. See for example the appointment of Richard Holbrooke. Originally he was supposed to be the US envoy for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kashmir. Kashmir was dropped because India insisted the US has no role meddling in its internal affairs.
3) Why this obsession with how much attention the US pays India? I understand that expatriates from all countries in the world who are now US citizens lobby for better US relations with their countries of origin (see Israel for example), but India's growth (or lack thereof) is not going to come from how much praise a US administration showers on us. In fact it's quite the reverse, this and future US administrations will have a lot of incentive to treat India favorably as long as India's growth story as an economy and a democracy is intact.
US MSM is obsessed with poverty, and other sensationalistic news. I know about Thomas Friedman's love affair with India. Outside of few technology oriented journalists, there are very few who cover India.
Even CNN India correspondent is a parrot of MSM view of India.
We have managed to keep democracy working even after wave after wave of tremendous challenges which threaten to pull it down. We are naturally democratic country. Just look at the beating progress-hating leftists and overtly religious right got in the recent elections.
Indians have managed to prosper both at home and abroad despite all the disadvantages we had in last 6 decades.
Time for USA to let go of China==Asia and Pakistan==South Asia strategy and embrace India as sane, democratic and progressive partner.
True, U.S. Americans should be more knowledgeable about other parts of the world. But as the world's largest economy and military power, most other nations have a vested interest in what happens in the U.S. The inverse is not as true. The U.S. has important economic and diplomatic relations with pretty much every other nation on Earth.
In general, we U.S. Americans are (unfortunately) only interested in the specific aspects of the relationships with other countries that seem to have a direct bearing on our lives. Thus, Latin America means illegal immigrants depressing wages of low skilled workers, Indian technology workers mean depressing wages of skilled workers through outsourcing and H1-Bs, China means cheap stuff at WalMart and the evaporation of the U.S. manufacturing sector, Iraq and the Middle East means oil prices and young men and women coming home in body bags. The situations in all of these places is of course far more complex and interesting than that (if the stereotypes are true at all). But I honestly wonder if people in other places do not have similar shorthands for thinking of people in other countries only in terms of how those people are perceived to affect them. I seem to remember a French campaign against the expansion of the EU revolving around a Polish plumber, for example.
However, opinions and knowledge of a person is a function of the inputs they receive. For most people it is the media.
The US media paints India as a country of poverty and "exotic" things. If you scan through the major newspapers, heck! even regional newspapers of India, you will see a informative and balanced coverage of world events.
My comment was more about the lack of usable information to the US citizens that they obtain through their media to make informed decisions about India.
My intention was not to critique their general knowledge and world affairs.
At best , this is an article on US foreign policy. What's next? Obama's policy for Afghanistan and how it should change?
flagged!
"Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or egregiously offtopic, you can flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did."
I was interested from the standpoint of how the technology sector transfer of knowledge, and common cultural values has led these two great nations closer together. After all, a significant portion of HN readers are from India.
I really don't like the Obama slant, and I wished it were left out. But (so far) I don't see the conversation degenerating along typical partisan divides.
In short, it's a politics and policy article, but (in my eyes) it's more along the lines of 30-year strategy instead of being some immediate, blabbed-on-cable issue. It raises some interesting questions.
Where's the strong ties, between the US and India or between the US and China? Where is more room for growth? Is there more security and opportunity for startups in one country than the other? How do people from each country see our relationship?
If it was simply Obama-bashing or left-vs-right or something, I'd consider it more out-of-bounds. But it's your call. I can only explain why it interested me.
Where's the strong ties, between the US and India or between the US and China? Where is more room for growth? Is there more security and opportunity for startups in one country than the other? How do people from each country see our relationship?"
All this is fine but it is still "politics".
From the HN guidelines,
"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon."
I guess we are now arguing on whether this story falls in the "most stories about politics" bucket or not. You seem to think it is some kind exceptionally brilliant article which is evidence for a new phenomenon.. I see it as the typical political hack job, and inappropriate for HN.
I would rather not see such US foreign policy discussions on HN. This particular article isn't even very interesting intellectually, which could be "of interest to Hackers" imo. This is a very fluffy article with some Indian guy (I am Indian too) pushing his pov on how the USA (and Obama in particular) should treat his nation of origin. Meh.
Point taken about not commenting on flagging. Mea Culpa. Totally.
Chalk it down to the fact that I was just overcome by the horror of a submitter who I respect submitting such a political article (that too such a fluffy one, with no meat on its bones), and seeing it as number one on the main page, with multiple upvotes.
So I still stand by "this doesn't belong on HN" or "Arrgh politics" ;-).
I'll quietly flag such articles in the future. Thanks cdr and DM for pointing out the right way to flag.
Exactly.
I also was surprised to see such a post come from a user who has consistently high-karma comments. My suggestion to DanielBMarkham is this: read the political article, extract those questions you found thought-provoking, write about it in your blog quietly referencing the political article, then post the link to your blog. (Don't feel bashful about posting a link to your own blog. It's not much different than an Ask HN post.)