The Hindu Business Line : A new diplomacy for Destination India

To make India an attractive destination for work, the country needs to make the proposition attractive. This can be accomplished by addressing the twin aspects of physical and emotional health.

THE opportunity has emerged for a new diplomacy, one that would make India a hero on the economic and political world-stage. This new diplomacy can do with nothing short of prime ministerial attention if it has to succeed.

It is now clear that knowledge work will inexorably continue to relocate to India across various industries, not just Information Technology. As this trend intensifies, the world can head towards one of two scenarios.

Scenario A: Economic compulsions continue to propel business corporations to send work where it is most efficiently done. Political and social compulsions don't necessarily align with this movement. Large job losses continue in the developed economies, and the social outcry against India becomes vociferous. While economically the Indian is hailed as a smart professional, he is ostracised.

Hate groups form against ethnic Indians. "Bangalored" joins the vocabulary of expletives. Western governments take veiled protectionist measures that cause their economic engine, and ours, to sputter. Tension prevails in this tug-of-war for jobs.

However, a new diplomacy can remedy Scenario A. It will take hard work but will lead us to the more desirable Scenario B.

India markets itself as an attractive work destination for foreign nationals. It presents the emerging economic order as a relocation of jobs across the globe and not as the loss of jobs in one economy to the gain of jobs in another. It embraces Americans, Britons, Germans and Israelis to evolve a new professional melting pot which attracts the best professionals from all over the world.

It sells the quality of life in India. A good number of foreign nationals move to India to work, and outsourcing is no longer seen as inimical to any country. Relieved of tension, corporations assign more than the planned quantum of work to India. More Indians, than foreseen before, find employment.

The new diplomacy begins with the idea that jobs relocate and are not always lost. If you have to keep your job, you must be ready to relocate. This new diplomacy has to gently remind the governments of developed countries that there can never be a globalisation with the movement of just capital and work. Movement of labour is just as necessary to sustain the new world order.

In the second half of the last century, millions of Indians uprooted themselves to go to Silicon Valley and other American destinations to inviting opportunities. In the first half of this century, Americans may have to leave their nation for India and China which will be the new job creation machines.

And we do not have to worry about foreign settlers colonising India. Such a thought would be nothing more than a bad hangover from the British rule.

First, the number of foreigners would be too small to steal our jobs, anyway. Second, economic power vastly exceeds political power that the forces to fear would be large companies, not large countries, and this threat applies to the world at large. Third, no country will win by insularity. The economic dominance of America is largely due to the fact that it was most liberal in admitting foreign professionals. If we think that we can build a strong and global India with hundred per cent Indian population, we are certainly wrong.How do we put this new diplomacy to action? Much the same way a large corporation markets itself. First, by implementing some changes that make the new proposition attractive. Next, by communicating its virtues and aggressively campaigning to its intended audience so they turn votaries.

To make India an attractive destination for work, we need to make the proposition attractive. We accomplish this by addressing the twin aspects physical and emotional health. A number of attractions of physical convenience already exist, albeit undersold. Nowhere in the world can an average professional either afford or have a supply of domestic help as in India. An increasing number of employed white-collar professionals means an increasing number of people employed as domestic help, and that is good news for the Indian economy. Most fashionable destinations for work the world over (save for such exceptions as California) suffer from extreme weather. Indian cities and towns offer very reasonable weather. More and more Indian residential colonies resemble the best in the world. Palm Meadows in Bangalore found in Fortune for this reason. Homes now come with the most sophisticated fittings — Toto toilets, Dorma doors and Kohler sanitary ware — and the best in Indian décor such as terracotta tiles and Rajasthani marble to give you the best dwellings ever. Telecommunications now work as well as anywhere else in the world. Designer labels are everywhere.

For sure, a number of infrastructure elements need dramatic improvement. The airports are the worst showcases for Indian professionalism. The sooner we privatise the building and management of the airports the better. While the National Highways may pass muster, city/town roads are pathetic. Roads with massive craters and potholes lead to all the IT parks touted as the best places of work. Bangalore is splitting at the seams, and, in a short while, so will other cities as nothing is being done to enable them bear this sudden unprecedented load.

While improving the metros, two things can be done simultaneously. The development and promotion of smaller cities such as Pune, Coimbatore and Bhubaneswar will help relocate work that would otherwise go Mumbai or Bangalore.

A more important move is the development of twin cities. A twin Mumbai and a twin Bangalore could be developed close to the respective cities. It is unlikely that the populations in these cities would shift overnight. A twin city with excellent MRT arrangements (like in Shanghai and Kuala Lumpur) will help keep the old city, yet save it from ruin. New Chinese cities such as Shenzhen (indistinguishable from any modern Western city) and the recent development of Shanghai, not necessarily Beijing, have served to give China its new face. Fortunately for us there is enough space and some time to undertake the building of twin cities.

The emotional security of employees will be higher than the previous world average. You no longer need to worry, every Friday evening, whether you will go to work on Monday morning. The cost and efficiency arbitrage of the current India will ensure that it will be a long time before knowledge-based white-collar jobs that migrated from elsewhere will leave this country.

A far less stressful life, with less attendance in psychiatric clinics and emotional well-being programmes, would be an important part of the desiderata of the average American or Briton.

Since all this essentially means changing the face of India, the task of marketing the new diplomacy will have to be personally led by the Prime Minister. Dr Manmohan Singh's personal reputation as an economic seer of repute will lend unimpeachable credibility to the new diplomacy.

Now would be the best time to launch the new diplomacy as the pro-outsourcing US President, Mr George W. Bush, would highly appreciate a non-confrontationist solution to the outsourcing dilemma. Given its overarching nature, this diplomacy has to inform every policy: economic, political, educational or foreign.

Enlisting the support of Messrs Narayana Murthy, Azim Premji, Ramalinga Raju, Kiran Karnik and other industry leaders would give the Prime Minister the most impressive sales force. If we don't have an appropriate structure to undertake this mission, it is time we created one.

The challenge of building this new India would energise the country as a whole. It is not enough that India emerges an industry leader. It needs to become a statesman.

(The author is Director, Consulting and Enterprise Solutions, Satyam Computer Services Ltd. These are his personal views.)