Vitriolic tirade rages against offshoring jobs

American anger against Indians surfaces online

Forget what the analysts say or what the thought leaders argue. The techie on the street in the US is seething with anger, having lost his job to an Indian, and this is visible in his words. In the Internet world, the offshoring debate is turning into a vitriolic tirade against India and Indians.

Spoofing on the famous song in Shri 420 "" Mera jootha hai Japani... "" a blogger says: "In today's day and age, an American should probably sing: My shoes are Made in China, My trousers are also Made in China, Oh this red hat too is Chinese, But our software, that's built in India."

Blogging sites are home to those who vent their spleen against India. One blogger posts: "Those evil Indians. They are getting jobs only through stealing. They are stealing jobs by selling themselves cheap.... their quality has got nothing to do with it. In fact, Indians are of very cheap quality."

Adds another blogger: "When an Indian comes to the US to destroy the livelihood of an American worker through 'Knowledge Transfer' he is a THIEF. No changing that! Attempting to place the blame on the 'greedy CEO' or the 'failed American system' does not change the fact that you are engaging in an act of thievery and that your reputation has been ruined because you are now thought of as an Economic Terrorist. Yell, scream, call me names or whatever it is you want to, but that will not change the fact that you are a thief."

Indians who are in the thick of this offshoring controversy are doing their mite to ward off such sentiments.

Putting forth his perspective, an Indian blogger says: "I suppose some people really like their Chinese take-out food and don't want to talk about the Chinese THEFT, lest they anger all those wonderful Chinese restauranteurs. So when these haters are sitting in their Chinese made sofas while eating Chinese take-out dinner, heated in a Chinese made microwave ovens, surfing the Internet through their Chinese made wireless lAN cards/routers and watching Chinese made TV, they suddenly remember how those evil Indians are stealing their jobs."

Trying to reason that offshoring does benefit the global economy, he adds: "Many people in India are buying personal laptops/computers these days. And guess what. MS Windows and all the assorted software comes pre-installed. The last time I checked, Windows OS and MS Office were totally designed, developed and tested in Redmond. Now don't start whining about how all the MS software is made in India these days. Coming to the non-retail purchases, literally hundreds of thousands of offices, both government and private, run legal copies of windows software which benefits the US economy."

This argument apparently does not wash with another American. Chiding the offshoring trend, he writes: "And think about this: If the Indian mind is so superior to the American mind, why can't the Indian worker stay home and develop the Indian market without the need to come to the US and ruin somebody's life? Hard questions to answer, but should be easy for the obviously superior 'Indian Brain'... And before you accuse me of being a 'hater', how do you think you appear to Americans whose lives you are ruining? Not a lot of love there either... "

A sad but sane American sums up in what direction the American economy might be heading: "The reality is that America has followed a policy of shifting production out of the country to the extent that it is losing whatever technological edge it had to other countries. Some argue that because it is losing its edge, American corporations move production offshore. I argue that because it moves production offshore to simply save on costs while making no effort to improve production at home, America is playing a losing battle on prices!"

Agreering with this argument, an American entrepreneur says: "In other words, American corporations are increasingly turning to easy fixes to compete in world markets than taking the tough road of utilising local talent and building strong American brands! Whatever technological edge this country had is being gifted away to foreign countries who owe NOTHING in terms of allegiance or even goodwill to the development of this country!"

The person adds: "The Pepsi and Coke success stories date back to several decades ago! Then Americans took pride in themselves, today we are saying that 'we have a weak labour pool, we don't have talent, we have to import labour'. I say, that's the biggest lie and fraud that's being sold on national TV to the masses. Further, that is the most pessimistic and defeatist argument our corporate and national leaders can make!"