T Thomas: Selling India abroad

The government should use businessmen to promote relationships with countries and talk about investment opportunities here. Today what India needs is investment by the private sector that can create worthwhile employment opportunities. We are no longer in need of aid from other countries, as we did in earlier years. Therefore, the focus for selling India abroad has shifted from aid to investment. This calls for a corresponding change in the quality and background of those who represent India in the interaction with foreign audiences, including governments and institutions. Generations of Indian Foreign Service (IFS) personnel were brought up and trained in the Nehruvian tradition of extolling the virtues of Indian culture and history, and the advantages of public sector-led socialism, with a corresponding suspicion of (and disdain for) the private sector and capitalism, in general, and Western capitalism, in particular. Since those Nehruvian times, the world order has changed dramatically in both political and economic terms. Today socialism is very much on the retreat, if not discredited, in most countries and is being displaced by various amalgams of capitalist economics and social equity. More and more countries of the world are turning to the private sector for their economic growth. Correspondingly, the role of the state in the economy is being demarcated more clearly as that of a facilitator and regulator, and not as a major participant.

Most countries in the world look at India now, not as a potential political ally (if they ever did that), but as a destination for their products and investments. This is not only because we are not (and have never been) a political heavyweight in international terms but also because the priority of world powers has shifted from military alignments to economic ones. Of course, localised conflicts like those between India and Pakistan will continue to draw attention and interest but the wider world is not affected on any large scale by these localised conflicts. Even in the case of the Arab-Israel conflict, the US interest is only because of the influential Jewish lobby. As a consequence of these changes in international attitudes, the focus of diplomacy today is more on business. When President Bush visits a country or region, he is accompanied or followed by businessmen and potential investors. This is becoming true of President Putin and even the Chinese leadership. Clearly, diplomacy is now more about economics and business.

In order to enable our diplomats to play a more effective role in supporting businessmen, there has to be a reorientation in the training of our diplomats. As part of such training, they should be sent on an attachment (not as visitors but as active participants) to established and willing companies. If a would-be diplomat is sent on an attachment to a manufacturing company like Arvind Mills (textiles) or L&T (engineering) and he is required to work as a manager in sales for six months, he will gain much better insight into how a company functions, how it assesses consumer preferences, competition and pricing potential, and how it then formulates its sales and marketing strategy. If he is exposed to the R&D lab of the company, he will get an idea of Indian R&D capabilities and how we compare with the more advanced countries. To round it off, some of our diplomats may find it useful to spend a three-month semester at one of the better Indian business schools, which may be prepared to arrange a special course for diplomats and administrators. This will expose them to concepts in business management and how Indian business functions.

They will realise that business in India does not depend any more on favours from the government, and only seeks that the government not interfere. They will also realise that business people do not have an easy life. Most businessmen work long hours, often take no holidays, and they take a lot of trouble to meet customers and suppliers, their own colleagues and their peers in the industry. Since a business is judged on the basis of published financial results with regard to profitability and growth, a businessman's life is focused on these quantifiable measures. Most businessmen cannot control the market, consumer preferences or competitive activity. They constantly face uncertainties and have to be agile enough to meet all kinds of exigencies. At the same time, they have to exercise their minds on the long-term strategy for the business, management development and product innovations.

Most of our diplomats are divorced from this reality, and are not aligned with India's business objectives. Which is why, at a recent symposium "India boom - myth or reality" organised by a well-known European university, the senior Indian diplomat accredited to that country thought the best way to gain acclaim from his audience of foreigners was to be critical of India. He started off by saying that in the 1943 famine in Bengal, the death toll was 4 million, which was only 2 million less than those killed in World War II! Apart from the irrelevance of that 60-year-old tragedy in a discussion on today's India, our diplomat even forgot that at the time of that famine India was ruled by a European imperial power which did not have to care much about such an Indian tragedy. The diplomat went on to belittle Indian agriculture and industry and even the current economic boom. He warned the foreign audience that investors should proceed with great caution and make their own judgement while investing in India. A Pakistani diplomat could not have done a better job of running down India! Fortunately, at the same function there were a few bright Indian CEOs as speakers who strongly contradicted the ambassador and impressed the audience with the excellent performance of their own business groups and therefore showed how great the opportunities in India were.

There was a time when the IFS attracted some of the best and the brightest of our youth. Today, government services including the IFS no longer attract the best. Our brightest youth seek their future in IITs and IIMs as channels to a career in business. And it is business that oils the wheels of relationships between countries. It is therefore logical that the Indian government should also use businessmen to promote relationships with other countries and to talk about investment opportunities in India. It should even be made a part of government policy that a few key ambassadorial posts are assigned to Indian businessmen. A good example was that of the late Nani Palkiwala as ambassador to the United States. Why shouldn't more businessmen (like Rahul Bajaj, NR Narayana Murthy or Deepak Parekh) be persuaded to serve as the Indian ambassador in a leading country for a full term, as indeed several US businessmen have done? I am sure some of them will accept the invitation as it is an honour to represent one's country at that level. It will help to change the image of India, from that of a bureaucracy-ridden country, to that of a country of successful enterprise!