Commentary/Saisuresh Sivaswamy

Did we have to bend over backwards to show the world how pleased India was to have Bill Gates here?

The most telling image during the recent visit of Software Sultan Willam Gates III's whistlestop tour of India was projected in Bombay, when at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan function which was graced by the prime minister no less, the latter hastily got to his feet along with the others on the dais when Gates walked in.

One does not know if this was a simple gesture of Indian sanskriti, or even if it was part of international protocol -- after all, Gates's visit had all the trappings of one by a First World head of state (this distinction is essential; just contrast the hype and hoopla surrounding the Gates-crashing to that which is missing for the Ethiopian prime minister's visit to the country) -- but whatever, the message is clear: to a country of 900 million, with an increasingly affluent middle class, Gates is the new messiah and his credo, the new buzzword.

Forget the fact that despite all the acres of newsprint devoted to his visit and the attendant coverage on the electronic medium, Gates demonstrated more than successfully the one single trait that must have carried him to the top of the world's roster of richest men: Parsimony.

Contrary to all-round expectations, he did not announce a single penny as investment in a country which is tipped to produce the world's next software guru and whose talent he has so well harnessed back home in Seattle.

One question that needs to be asked of all who were so enamoured of the Gates visit is, did we have to bend over backwards to show the world how pleased India was to have him here, and oh what an honour for a population that, if the West had not ruled over us for close on 450 years, would have remained in the backwaters of human civilisation, not knowing what the PC is or the Internet is.

In simple terms Gates is a trader, and he is here to do business. He came to India not because he likes Tandoori cuisine dished out to him by ersatz eateries back in Washington state but because he has realised that after colonising China and the Far East, India presents the next largest market for his business.

Could one say that he needs India more, at this point when the Western market is saturated and the other overseas ones are fast filling up and India is the only virgin territory worth doing business in? Definitely yes. Thanks to the widespread software piracy, what Gates does back home in the US is replicated within hours on Lamington Road in Bombay, and there is no way anybody is going to stop this illegal trade. And Indians would patronise anything if it comes cheaper than the original, ditto with Microsoft.

So what's the big fuss all about?

In essence, the Gates visit was little more than what comes up in the dinner circuit, like say that by Henry Kissinger some time ago. He came, he saw and spoke about his success.

So did we have to allow ourselves to be conquered as well by the magic of the American personality packaging industry?

Assuming that he were to seriously do business with India, Gates, no doubt, would find it is a different ballgame altogether here. The kind of playing field he is used to, in which Microsoft is the captain, referee and the opposition rolled into one, would simply not be available to him. What's worse, he will find the government breathing down his neck at every step he took, even if it was in the country's software capital, Bangalore.

So are we going to change the laws just so that Gates could have an easy time here, when all others before him, international corporate giants included, have sweated it out?

This, in short, is the legacy of Manmohan Singh's tenture at North Block which is being carried forward by his successor P Chidambaram. If the highlight of the former's role as finance minister was the nation genuflecting to one stockbroker in Bombay -- and who went on to assume a cult status before the law of averages caught up -- Chidambaram has gone one step better by letting the nation be caught in a swoon by a ruthless tycoon who dropped out of Harvard.

The hard fact of life is that we need foreign investment. The corollary to this is that we are not asking anyone for charity either. Like most nations in the region, India is one of the few countries that has not bartered away its sovereignty for a few dollars more -- but that may not be the image that has gone out after Gates has made his presence felt in the country.

Those who are looking to invest in India are doing so not because they like the climate here or the food. It is a hard-headed business decision, taken after due consideration of the large market here that is often said to outstrip the adult population of the United States of America. Fine, China may just be next door, and its eocnomic performance may have outdone ours, making it a sounder choice.

The fact nevertheless is that those who have chosen Beijing over New Delhi will never change their calculations, regardless of the nature of the red carpet that North Block rolls out. And those who have chosen China also know that the internal situation there will remain unpredictable: Essentially it is like a game of Russian roulette, so wait till you lose.

What the leaders of the country must bear in mind is that at the height of the colonisation of the country, the white man did not like sycophancy and often exploited this innate streak in us to set one off against the other. Things have not changed much, although generations have passed. The white man is still the dominant partner, and he still does not like sycophancy.

Rather than going through with the rigmarole of letting a businessman think he is god, a better option is to lay one's cards on the table. His decision to invest in the country or not is going to be swayed by hysteria or hype. And any deal that we enter into, let's do so as equal partners.

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