Al Arabi, p.18, (2/11/2008)

 

Do you think I am Indian?

 

By: Saad Hagras

 

Do you think I am Indian? This question used to be uttered by Egyptians. It expressed a common erroneous view regarding our Indian brothers who were considered a model of poverty, ignorance and backwardness for a long period of time.

 

This negative image prevailed between us due to our ignorance of India as it was an obscure country for us. A lot of Egyptians even thought that Indians ride elephants for transportation.

 

We owe a lot to our veteran writers Mohammad Ouda and Kamel Zohieri who corrected the image of Indians as in our minds as they traveled to this country in the forties and interacted with its people and gave the Arabs a fascinating image which is totally different from the imperialistic image spread in Egypt at the time. India remained a puzzle for most of us although information about this country has become more available, due to the information revolution and the close ties between Nehru and Nasser who played an important role in establishing the Non-Aligned Movement and their solidarity with all struggle movements in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

 

 This country got its political independence in 1947 a date which is close to our July revolution. It suffered from all the problems that faced Egypt on the internal and external levels. However, the magnitude of problems faced by India was greater due to the huge number of its population. Furthermore, the Indian population is divided into numerous ethnic, religious and linguistic groups. More than four million Indians live under the poverty line. Yet, they are luckier than their predecessors who died of famines.

 

If Egypt had been plagued by Israel on its eastern border, India had a legacy of disputes, animosity and conflicts with Pakistan and China. In spite of all this, India managed to collect itself and progress in a confident manner until it has become a major regional power that affect the international equations and arrangements.

 

India has become an economic tiger that maintained a growth rate of 9% before the current economic crisis. After the eruption of the current economic crisis, the Indian Prime Minister apologized to the Indian people because the growth rate will come down to 8%.

 

This augmenting economic power moved hand in hand with the deterrent military power India possesses. The Indian air forces controls the Indian skies and it has military bases in central Asia and the fleet of the Indian Navy sails in the international waters from Malaga Strait till the Gulf of Aden. Moreover, India did not confine itself to traditional arsenal but it also joined the nuclear club.

 

A few days ago, I visited India as a member of the delegation chambers of trade and industry of G15 which is one of the tools of the developing countries to defend their rights in view of the current ferocious globalization. All Indians were looking up to launching the Indian spaceship Chandrian 1 heading for the moon.

 

We have to remember Indian collages graduate a large number of engineers every year. We should not forget that there was cooperation between Egypt and Indian in the sixties while we were equal in progress. However, India managed to proceed in its progress but we didn’t.

 

What is amazing is that Indians did not just laud this great scientific achievement but they started a frank public dialogue about the feasibility of such a move as other countries already took such a step starting from the Chinese spacecraft "Luna-2" which landed on the moon in 1959, to the historical landing of the American astronaut Armstrong on the moon, and ending with the successful attempts of the Europeans, the Japanese and the Chinese, the last of which was the launch of the Chinese spacecraft Shang-1.

 

India is the sixth country to launch such a space mission. Some Indians asked: "What is the benefit of doing what others have already done about half a century ago?" Others said: "What is the benefit of going to the moon, while there are Indians on the earth suffering serious problems like poverty, illiteracy, diseases, weak infrastructure and other problems that should be given priority in respect of expenditures."

 

Indian scientists said the benefits of Chandrayaan-1 will not appear immediately for the people would not feel these benefits before 30 or 40 years. Such a mission, they say, would bring helium-3 believed to exist on the moon. According to experts, one tonne of helium-3 can be used to generate an amount of energy equal to the needs of India over a year. Moreover, India can make use of the minerals to be fetched from the moon.

 

Protesters argue that the US has launched 9 missions to the moon, yet they did not bring this "helium-3". The fans of the mission say that it achieves several aims. It allows India to compete China in this field, to develop its launching systems showing its military capabilities, to promote its technologies and their application in industry, and to join the space club nations.

 

Despite the international financial crisis and its negative effects on India, it goes ahead on the way towards becoming a regional superpower and a major player on the world arena. The success of the Indian experiment is attributed to several reasons:

I headed for Indira Ghandi airport thinking about this "Indian miracle." On my way to the airport, there were many aspects of poverty. I compared between our status and that of the Indians and between our beginnings and theirs. Nowadays, there is a wide gap between us and the Indians. Yet, some people still unjustly use these sarcastic words: "Do you think I am Indian?"

 

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