Very recently I happened to watch a vernacular TV channel backed by the Communist party airing a programme on Iraq war (yes, the very same war that led to the ouster of Saddam Hussein) and America's "fossil fuel thirst". Come on guys, it has been ages since Saddam regime was toppled and he hanged. Why should the channel still harp on it and warn its viewers (read Communist voters) on the impending danger of American imperialism.
From times when the words like 'globalisation' and 'liberalisation' were first uttered in India, it has been an ideological pursuit for Communists to use them synonymously with 'American imperialism' and 'colonisation by multi-national companies' (American monopolistic companies as in the local dialect).
In those times, the common man too shared the fear attached with these 'futuristic thoughts' as the country itself was not sure how the reforms would shape up. Now couple of decades later when we realise that India was one of the foremost economies to benefit from globalisation, can't you stop this comrades?
During the last decade, we saw emergence of several domestic companies going global and growing phenomenonly into multi-national giants. While the US IT and ITeS companies set sail to countries like India in search of cheaper labour, our companies set shop in the US. Just ask a call centre guy who serves American clients in his made-up nasal accent. The moment his Indian accent lurks out, the white man on the other end will shower abuses on Bangalore for snatching away their jobs.
Post-recession, the employment data in the US has not been giving much hope. And that's why we saw, President Barack Obama hurriedly flying down to our commercial capital, scrambling up whatever he could and showing off '$10 billion' worth virtual deals to assure his countrymen that he was doing something about unemployment. It not just employment, housing, real estate and industrial data have not turned impressive in the US.
Unlike the erstwhile USSR, which would wear on the cap of super power till it got scattered into pieces, exposing its hungry millions, US is an economic super power and mostly the power resides with its corporate giants.
That does not mean that the US is finished. Ups and downs are part of any capitalistic economy. But Communists, at least give America and the Iraq war a break. There is no dearth of issues to fill up your airtime.
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