Suckers, coddling despots and firing temp workers....

A ‘sucker’ (noun), the dictionary says, is a person who is gullible and easy to take advantage of. This word constantly kept popping up in my head ever since I read a few news articles on the relationship between Bharat Mata and Uncle Sam (and to a lesser extent Chini bhais and Pakistani saaleys) and another article related to consultancy work.

First one. A few months back the U.S. decided to sell (give what was theirs by right in the first place as they had already paid for it) F-16s to Pakistan. Before India could scream “arms race”, Bush calls up and offers F-16s and other stuff to India too. Neat, eh! Not only there’s going to be an arms race we’ll heat the race up by selling to both the khiladis. That word again began reverberating in my brain, “twaang!, suckers!!”.

Twenty, thirty years from now declassified documents might reveal the following conversation Bush had with Condi, his State Secretary. (Much like the Nixon - Kissinger talks on India and Indira in the 70s that was revealed last month)

Incurious George: So, are we giving the F-whatever to General whatsisname in Pakistania?
Condi: Yes. F-16s. He’s giving us a few more bearded guys in return next week, but we also need to give something to his neighbour.
Incurious George: Who, Afghania? What’s up with you? Haven’t we given enough? Send some more Jeeps or Toyota Land Cruisers if needed, will ya?
Condi: No sir. I meant India. The bastards may complain. They’re major league a***holes, if I may borrow from your (inaudible, sounded like a whispered “limited”) vocabulary.
Incurious George: Oh, India. They’re not “our sons of bitches” yet, like Mush-Mush or the other guys. So? Is there anything to help our rich friends here?
Condi: We could sell them the same aging F-16s. Would be a big help for Lockheed and could also save, though we don’t care, about 5,000 jobs there, giving you some brownie points with the “working” class.
Incurious George: Whatever. Don’t bother me with the details. It’s 8, gotta sleep. G’night. Also, explain it to Dick, and take it easy. Don’t want any heart attacks here, do we?

India is looking into that offer, the newspapers said. That word again….“suckers”. Recently, we’re under this grand illusion that we’ve made it as a successful country, soon to be in the developed countries list. That’s where all this macho posturing of getting into U.N. Security Council and other such things are coming from. Not such a bad idea, but, do we need to continue falling for the divide and rule trick. Before helping the 5,000 workers in the U.S. to make their ends meet (and their bosses to help themselves to the millions), we should be trying to feed and clothe some of the millions living in penury in India (as well as in Pakistan). At $35 million per piece for 126 planes, this is some big money we’re talking about. And, no amount of F-16s is going to save us if a nuclear-tipped Hatf or whatever missile is fired at us. It could even be a Cessna flown by some nut-head. Perhaps we should buy 126 Cessnas.

In the meantime Uncle Sam said it’d support Japan and another country (not specified) for the Security Council post. No surprises with Japan there. Who’s going to be the second lackey? The second “Yes sir” man. They’re probably waiting to see if we’ll fall in line and get into the grand plan of containing China, which is the real motive behind all these sale of second-rate technology.

MacDonald's Second Law:
Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and give it back to them.

The Indian government paid McKinsey Rs. 20 crores, said the news report. What’s the big deal? Lots of people pay tonnes of money to McKinsey for their valuable advice. They’re good at it. They gave some numbers back to India. Again the music and that word…“Twaang!, suckers”.
The 20 crores was paid to find out what’s wrong with Food Corporation of India, or FCI. The advice given was “Close it down”. Now, you don’t need consultants who charge 20 crores to tell you that, do you? Li’l bit of commonsense is all you need. The stuff stored in the FCI warehouses is anyway rotting. The consultant also said, “fire the workers and privatise it.” The govt fired 20,000 temporary workers. They are all probably now showing up on lists of people living on less than a dollar a day (lists created by such consultants for million dollar fees), eagerly waiting for the trickle-down theory to kick in.

Another well-intentioned advice that made me cringe is next.
Michael Vatikiotis, is a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore. The other day (June 3, Int’l Herald Tribune), this fellow carped about India coddling despots in the region. He mentioned the Nepal king and the Burmese junta and why India shouldn’t coddle dictators, like the U.S. did during the cold war days. He conveniently forgot about Gen. Mush, to our Northwest, who is a major non-NATO ally, anti-terror ally etc. of his country (I’m not sure of his nationality. The name is all Greek to me, but am assuming that he’s from the U.S.). He also forgot about the Saudis and other such despots that his country still coddles whenever it is convenient. India has its reasons. Some strategic and some related to resources. We, not withstanding all the recent bombast, still don’t have the wherewithal to invade sovereign countries for resources (except maybe Maldives, if it had any oil) and install our sons of bitches as rulers. All we can do is coddle.

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