BY tensing rodrigues
No; I do not wish to discuss Suresh Kalmadi, Craig McLatchey, T S Darbari, Mike Fennel, M Jeychandran or Mike Hooper; nor do I wish to discuss whether all the facilities in and around Delhi will get ready for the games; nor do I wish to discuss whether Indian sports persons will be able to assemble a decent medal tally at the games.

All that, and much more is served in plenty by the media; and, by the time the games are over, many of us may be suffering from information overload.
At the top of my mind today is a much less transient question : Can India make it into the big league ?
You might say that is an old question now; it is, I agree. But we have not really answered it. Not that I am going to answer it today. I just thought I would raise it once again. The immediate trigger for the urge to do so was the recent book by Raghav Bahl, the founder of Network18, a media conglomerate that owns CNBC-TV18, CNBC Awaaz, CNN-IBN, In.com, Moneycontrol and Forbes India; the book is titled Superpower ? : The Amazing Race Between China’s Hare and India’s Tortoise and is published by Penguin Allan Lane.
The serious arguments on India-China race apart, I was touched by a personal narrative and comment by the author; let me share that with you.
I was twenty-two when I first set foot on foreign soil, in February 1982. I was flown into New York for emergency medical treatment. It was my first brush with American efficiency and I was wide- eyed with admiration. The traffic into midtown Manhattan was exceptionally heavy, but we made generous use of the howler. Cars would part with magical discipline, clearing the way for my ambulance to race to the hospital. I spent the next four months in hospitals, clinics, hotels and sub-leased apartments. I would run into guards, housekeepers, lift attendants, nurses, all of whom, without exception, would ask me one cheerful question: ‘You from Pakistan?’ India simply did not exist in popular consciousness. That was the year ‘Gandhi’ swept the Oscars. I was often asked ‘if that guy was for real ?’ Another question would pop up with unerring regularity : ‘How come you speak such good English ? Have you studied in London ?’
At the end of four months, I was convinced about two things: Americans are a terrific people to deal with, but India is simply not on their radar. It was an astonishing revelation, since the streets, universities and hospitals were crammed with Indians. Yet we did not exist, as a nation, or a real, tangible, identifiable entity.
Over last three decades, I have often been asked, ‘You are such an India bull; what do you believe is the biggest risk to the India story ?’ This is one question I have answered without the slightest hesitation. There is only one risk for India, and that’s the lack of confidence that India’s own leaders have in its abilities and destiny. Every other disability stems from this endemic, ingrained complex that our policymakers suffer from. They are content being in the upper quartile, never quite believing that India has what it takes to be at the top, not just near the top. They are so incremental and risk averse that they pitch India much lower than what young India is yearning for, aspiring for, and increasingly, is impatient for.
That comes, for me too, three decades after I heard late Nani Palkhiwala speak at a post-budget talk show; I was just out of the university then, and the words touched my core; to tell you frankly, brought up on booth milk and ration rice, I never believed then India could ever make it.
Palkhiwala spoke of an incident when he dropped into the office of one of his friends in US, who happened to be the Chairman of a large multinational corporation. He took Palkhiwala to his board room where some of the top honchos of the company were gathered, and said “Out of these twelve, eight are Indians; they make my company rich. You have millions of these; why is it that your country is still poor ?”
Palkhiwala had no answer for a while; then, with deep sadness he replied “You are right; but that is because every year we spend millions to keep our country poor.” Palkhiwala was referring to the socialist shackles that dogged the feet of free enterprise in India then. Things have changed since; changed a lot. But perhaps the mindset of our leaders, that has not changed much, if we agree with Raghav Bahl. I do.