Obama’s Awkward Mission to India

From Nov. 6 to 9, U.S. President Barack Obama visited India. The press reported that this is the first time he has visited the country as president, and his time there, three and a half days, was the longest time he had spent in another country as president. This greatly pleased Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Besides visiting India, Obama also visited Indonesia before arriving at his final destinations, Seoul, Korea, and Yokohama, Japan, on Nov. 14. In Seoul, he attended the fifth G-20 Summit, and in Yokohama he attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting.

Indian officials considered Obama’s visit a milestone as important as former President Richard Nixon’s visit in 1972. India’s foreign secretary, Nirupama Rao, had a hard time hiding his delight at Obama’s visit. However, at a press conference held on Nov. 2, he said that he didn’t expect any explosive results from the visit. The New York Times, an American newspaper, said that Obama’s visit was a chance to improve peaceful relations, promote Indian-American trade relations, increase nuclear power cooperation, build political structures and make strategic military partnerships. It seems that America and India are just pretending to be serious. Before Obama left for India, it was already celebrating and creating an optimistic atmosphere.

However, on Nov. 4, before Obama even left, he said the purpose of this trip to India was mainly to open foreign markets for American goods. If he could sell more American goods, he could create much needed jobs for the American people. Obama’s statement differed greatly from Indian Prime Minister Singh’s lofty proclamation, which called the event a milestone. It made people suspect that Obama was going to India simply to look for jobs for Americans, which was a bit awkward.

Perhaps due to the statement, American media outlets immediately raised suspicions about the president’s mission in India. On the evening of Nov. 5, when First Lady Michelle Obama boarded Air Force One, anchor of NBC Nightly News Brian Williams reported on a piece entitled “Obama Bypasses Bangalore, Outsourcing Capital.”

According to the report, Bangalore is a city that gives President Obama sleepless nights, since it is the outsourcing center for America’s IT industry. By not visiting Bangalore, Obama missed a great opportunity to take back American jobs. The report states that the IT industry in India is a $60 billion industry, employing over 4 million people to work on electronic communication products and the development, design and manufacturing of networks. Roughly 60 percent of Bangalore’s work is for the United States. Every major electric power and electronics company in America has an office there, including electrical giant General Electric (GE), who employs more than 4,000 workers in Bangalore.

Furthermore, American companies are continuing to expand their outsourcing work, which is increasing the size and scale of Bangalore. In Bangalore, every technical school that focuses on information technology is constantly training batch after batch of young Indians who are just waiting to be hired. “Every day, 400 new cars are added to the street here,” an American manager from Ohio said. The overweight man who worked in Bangalore seemed quite happy to tell NBC reporters about the city’s development. When asked why Americans want to give so many jobs to India, one Indian man, probably an engineer, said, “It’s unimaginable. The cost [to employ an American instead of an Indian] would be 10 or 12 times more.”

Clearly, NBC is calling Obama’s visit into question. If he is going to look for jobs for Americans, why is he bypassing Bangalore, a place that has snatched so many of the jobs that Americans hoped to have?

Obama is experiencing bitter suffering that he cannot speak of. Just think: the Democratic Party, which is Obama’s party, was routed in the midterm elections on Nov. 2. Before the elections, the Democratic Party controlled both the House and the Senate, but after Nov. 2 the winds changed. The Democrats lost six seats in the Senate, barely keeping the minimum fifty-one seats to enjoy a majority. In the House of Representatives, the Democrats lost sixty-eight seats, thereby losing control to the Republicans. For this reason, Obama is practically a lame duck president, and he must deal with the Republican Party’s uncooperative nature and theatrical complaints. This makes it even more difficult for Obama to fulfill the promises he made during his election [campaign], turning those dreams into nothing. Obama can no longer make good of the promises he made to those who elected him into office. Citing the example that with the midterm elections he was hurt by his opponents based on the sole issue that the economy has not gotten better and that the unemployment rate is not falling, Obama does, despite this, think that he has tried his best in the past two years.

On Nov. 3, he faced reporters with a tired face, analyzing his troubles and helplessness. Some reporters asked him about the deficit and high unemployment rate, asking whether he was willing to accept any economic stimulus plan that will increase employment. With a note of complaint in his voice, he said, “I think the American people are absolutely concerned about spending and debt — and deficits … We can eliminate programs that don’t work, cut back on government spending that is inefficient, can streamline government … So the question I think that my Republican friends and me and Democratic leaders are going to have answer is: What are our priorities? What do we care about? And that is going to be a tough debate, because there are some tough choices here.”

Then Obama raised his voice, saying “We just learned that China now has the fastest supercomputer on earth — that used to be us … It makes sense for us to extend unemployment insurance … So there are some things that we can do right now that will help sustain the recovery and advance it, even as we’re also sitting down and figuring out, okay, over the next several years what kinds of budget cuts can we make that are intelligent, that are smart, that won’t be undermining our recovery but, in fact, will be encouraging job growth.” Afterward, he said, “without any Republican support on anything, then it’s going to be hard to get things done.” Clearly, President Obama has not been in a good frame of mind lately.

In the past, America always scorned India, looking down on this large South Asian nation. In May 1998, India set off five atomic bombs in order to prove itself as a nuclear power. The United States regarded the matter as unimportant, saying India was being childish. India was just tinkering around to make other people take notice since the whole world was not paying attention. However, times have changed: Not even America expected that, ten years later, its own president would stoop down to the level of rushing to India to ask for handouts. Obama broke new ground by visiting India for three days. Yet the trip caused a lot of annoying publicity because it seemed that he purposefully avoided Bangalore, a city with extensive and close relations with American trade. The only reasons for which he is not visiting Bangalore are to avoid thinking about his electoral defeat and to comfort himself. After all, this city in India is the headquarters for stealing American jobs. Those job opportunities are all high-end industrial jobs such as software engineering, jobs that Americans dream of having.

Fortunately, on Nov. 6, the first day Obama arrived in India, he hurriedly gave Americans some good news: He signed a series of business deals worth over $10 billion, selling aircraft and weapons. According to reports, the deal could create 50,000 jobs for Americans. The news put a smile on Obama’s face. But those 50,000 jobs seem to be just a drop in the bucket, because the news that day stated October’s unemployment rate in America was still over 9.6 percent.

On Nov. 8, the day before the end of his trip, Obama gave his hosts a big surprise at the address to the Joint Session of Indian Parliament, saying, “The United States not only welcomes India as a rising global power … We welcome India as it prepares to take its seat on the United Nations Security Council.”

As soon as he said these words, the entire audience stood up and applauded. All the same, he was firmly refused when he brought up the issue of creating more jobs for Americans while speaking at a press conference with Indian Prime Minister Singh. Singh replied, “Indians are not in the business of stealing jobs from Americans … The outsourcing industry, I believe, has helped to improve the productive capacity and productivity of American industries.”