Superpower India

The Indian press seems to be saturated with deplorable and delusional reports of India's immediate future as a superpower. Some joker always writes an article in Rediff touting India's "rapid" rise to prominence; NDTV carries an opinion poll on whether India is already a superpower - and all this happens when 60% of the country lives below / near a poverty line. (near enough for discomfort).

While I do not doubt as much that India will rise in power [There's a caveat of course: global warming] in the decades to come - I do not see it happening right now. Such irresponsible banter about "Superpower-dom" shifts the focus from the real issues: hunger, poverty and misery. So, I just had to write the following article.

SUPERPOWER INDIA

Yes, India is a superpower. And it will become a superer power soon. As a matter of fact, it is the Indians who will protect the planet from the green men from outer space who will (presumably) attack us with the intent to terminate all life on planet earth.

Taming the Colonizers

The seeds of superpowerdom were sown by the reverse colonization of the United Kingdom. It is common knowledge that Pt. Ravi Shankar introduced Lennon & Co. to LSD. Do you know what Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds actually stands for? L.S.D as in Lennon - Shankar - Dope. One can therefore say that behind the origin of western pop-culture is a significant Indian hand.

Ethnic Indians, for all vaguely practical purposes, annexed Birmingham (a nondescipt Punjabi city slightly to the northwest of London). They then furthered their reverse colonization cause with the movie "Bend it like Beckham" and by inflicting with Chicken Tikka masala all McDonaldses in the UK. And finishing the job was Ms. Shilpa Shetty's miraculous victory in something called the Celebrity Big Brother (more due to the Indian media throwing a tantrum than anything else). The destruction of one Jade Goody's career and her subsequent presumable conversion the Hinduism seemed to have almost made the sun set on the British Empire.

Then the Tatas took over Corus for $12 billion. It looked like it was all over for the British - even their cricket team was being humiliated down under. The proverbial "last nails" in the coffin. [We will conveniently forget Indian misadventures in South Africa]. But UK still seems to be putting up some sort of fight. Vodafone (a British phone company) procured Hutch for $19 billion. Looks like the Indians will have to crush England mercilessly - just like the British Crushed India in 1919 in Amritsar.

Taming The Empire

Since the neo-natives of the North American empire are extremely jingoistic, the Indian invasion of North America has been far more subtle. Cavalier impositions of Chicken Tikka on McDonalds restaurants will come under attack by Bill O'Reilly or someone - so they won't bring the US to its knees, unlike Britannica. So, the Indians have used a more careful approach. Indians have surreptitiously landed in control of 17% of the US economy (larger than India's economy!). South Asians (another term for Indians) more or less run silicon valley and dominate academic institutions.

India tries to paint a pathetic picture of itself by buying decades old naval vessels and second hand military aircraft. Talks, presumably, are on to buy used American Toilet paper.

But all this is to catch the Americans off guard. To divert the world form the real issues. Indians are ready to conquer this land. And proof of the pudding will be when Abhijit Sawant wins American Idol.