Why Obama would be better for India....

With less than a week to go for the mother of all presidential races, the air is thick with speculation of who will be the next president of the USA. If we go by most polls, Obama has a significant lead but certainly not a decisive one. Though the race is primarily about who will be the commander in charge of America for the next four years, it will also decide on America's relationship with many other nations including India.

I have been an Obama supporter since day 1(ya i know...i have no business supporting anyone one of the candidates...but its just that way..). Obama, to me, represents a resurgent African American community that is fully integrated into American society and is ready to take on anyone, without playing the race card for evoking sympathy. Obama has never campaigned on the platform of race which clearly reflects his confidence on his own credentials. Contrast this with the race situation 4 decades back and u will surely agree with me that African American community has come a long way since then.

Ok i am digressing now. Coming back to the point, i feel that Obama would be a better choice as president from India's perspective than McCain. The reasons are aplenty. I will make a brief mention of a couple of those reasons.

1. India-Top Priority....Obama mentioned in an recent interview that India will be a top priority as far as foreign affairs is concerned. We can trust Obama's words to a reasonable extent because of the general opinion in the US that China has become too big for its own sake and that its growing economic and political clout might shadow that of the US in the coming decades. There is bi partisan support for creating a counter weight in the region. With a little push from the developed countries(lead from the forefront by the US), India could prove to be just that. So India has a greater chance of improving, or should i say upgrading, ties with the US with Obama at the helm.

2.Pakistan.....Obama has promised to reduce military aid to Pakistan drastically(read cut off). As we all know, Pak hasn't been using the money for fighting terror rather it was utilising it for better preparing itself against a possible confrontation with India. This action, as clearly pointed out by Obama, is destabilising the region more. Obama has also promised that he will go after militants hiding in Pak's North West Frontier Province(wooohoooo!) without waiting for Pakistan approval. Obama is clear about one thing..America's number one enemy( coincidentally India's too) is Osama Bin Laden...Its him that America has to hunt down. And stop draining American dollars on a quagmire that is Iraq.

I do understand that Obama has made statements in favour of restricting outsourcing. But we have to understand something here. Outsourcing is an emotive an issue as reservation is in India. No American politician can afford to say that he supports outsourcing and hope to win the race to the white house. The Obama plan says that the tax breaks will be transferred to companies that keep jobs in the US. Off course this will cut into the profit margins of these companies and consequently might lead to some setback to employers here. We MIGHT see some retrenchment on the low skilled labour front( ie..BPOs) . But that should be it.

But somehow i feel that Obama might bark about this issue but wont bite..because many economist agree that outsourcing is more beneficial to the outsourcing country than it is to the country at receiving end. Moreover with the kind of freedom American enterprises have been enjoying all these years, the least we can expect from these big corporations is a violent (not MNS style though) protest against any legislation that curtails their lateral movement.