Scoop’s Views

Are President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, and India’s Pradeep S. Mehta, secretary general of the center for international trade, economics and the environment of CUTS International, an independent research institute based in New Delhi, all locked in an emotional argument without fact-based evidence?

Mehta is quoted in yesterday’s New York Times article, saying if Americans slimmed down to the weight of middle-class Indians, “many hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa would find food on their plates.”

Continuing, Mehta told the New York Times that the money spent in the United States on liposuction to get rid of fat from excess consumption could be funneled to feed famine victims.

It’s nice that Mehta wants to consider feeding sub-Saharan African, as well as provide food to famine victims, but Mehta is grossly off-target when attacking the U.S.

Sure, the U.S. may have issues, but when it comes to spending hard-earned money, does some guy in India have any say over how a woman in New York City or Chicago should spend her hard-earned money? If she wishes to have liposuction performed, so be it. That’s her money. It isn’t money that’s due and payable to India. It isn’t money she promised to donate to feed the starving children in Bombay. It’s money she earned, saved, and spent as she desired.

It seems Mehta got hot under the collar, then engaged in some kind of testosterone-based argument in the media with Bush and Rice because of a statement made by Bush, then later expounded upon by Rice.

It seems that Bush was in Missouri back on May 2, 2008, and, the New York Times says, was "quoted as saying of India’s burgeoning middle class: ‘When you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food, and so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up’."

Pushed for more information about his comments about liposuction by the New York Times, Mehta said that his remarks were "supposed to be tongue in cheek," according to the New York Times’ article. He continued, saying that "politically incorrect" attitudes like President Bush’s and Ms. Rice’s needed to be challenged. Rather than blaming India, Mehta said, the West should be adjusting to a changing world.

"If the developing world is going to develop, demand is going to go up and there are going to be new political paradigms," he said.

Mehta’s comments made me laugh. Who does he think he is? What does Mehta think India is? In reality, India is akin to a poor, under-educated suburb of any major American city where many of the wealth-earners are doing so only because American companies are allowed to, in my perspective, illegally profit from the illegal exportation of American jobs. In fact, more American companies could learn how to increase profits by bringing those call centers back to the U.S., employing American workers, but using quality customer services skills, as discussed, also in the New York Times, just the day before this article appeared.

Should the U.S. really care about the Indian economy? As a good neighbor, many will argue, "yes." As one country to another in a global economic environment, I say, "no." If India cannot take care of its own, then it needs to figure out what to do to improve the situation on its own.

America is not responsible — nor should America ever be "politically correct" — in dealing with another country, or, for that matter, any issue, domestically or internationally. Yes, I know, that goes against the grain of politics, but I’ve never been one to play politics with anything. I tell it like it is.

If Mehta believes the U.S. and any other country should bow to India or other developing nations, for any reason, Mehta is off his rocker. In fact, Mehta may have his head cap on a little too tight, much like the school girl with her pig tails pulled too tightly against her scalp. The work doesn’t need to change — nor do political paradigms — to benefit India or its citizens. Instead, India and its citizens need to fit into the paradigms of the world; fit into the societies in which they wish to mix, such as in America, those from India need to mix in with American society, not American society "adjusting" to meet the needs of those from India or any other country.

As far as India, or any other nation, including China, using more resources, well, let’s just see how the numbers pan out over the next few years. While I don’t hold much stock in anything Bush says, Mehta seems to want to argue a little too aggressively that India is akin to an innocent child albeit with its fingers in the cookie jar.