Changing minds about India

Images of India have changed beyond recognition since 1990, when British-Indian actor Dev Patel was born in Harrow, United Kingdom. Next week sees the release of Slumdog Millionaire, a high-profile movie that stars Patel as a Mumbai street kid who becomes the biggest quiz show winner in history.

The plot is simple and engaging. It follows the story of a penniless waiter who loses his loved one in the chaotic swirl of urban Mumbai, appearing on her favourite game show Kaun Banega Crorepati -- the Hindi version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire -- as his only way to win her back. It is filmed in Bombay, features spontaneous dance routines, and combines the Hindi and English languages. It has an English director, but the actors and other creative input draw extensively on British-Indian talent.

The outside world has often seen India through the eyes of its diaspora, and this film is no exception. What has changed is their outlook, which has shifted from pessimism to hope:

• The last generation's great interpreter of Indian experience is Trinidadian-Indian British writer V.S. Naipaul. His 1975 book, 'India: A wounded civilisation' depicts a troubled nation, grasping in vain for a strong and dignified future.

• Big-hitting academic works by diaspora academics often shroud their analysis in a sheen of pessimism. A major book published in 1990 was subtitled 'India's growing crisis of governability', pointing to the country's repeated separatist convulsions and inability to grow its economy fast.

Yet India is now in fashion, in the United Kingdom at least. New Delhi is aware of this and has set up a state-linked agency charged with building the country's "brand equity." At home and abroad, the middle classes will also be hoping that the film's message -- of India as a land of opportunity -- will stick more than the slum setting.

Hopes and fears

The reason for India's low profile before the 1990s was simple: self-imposed isolation. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wanted to marshal the country's own resources for development, avoiding costly entanglements in an international system that had imposed upon it centuries of imperial rule. He carved a policy of non-alignment: Delhi would stay equidistant from the major powers, while the state pushed to build up the economy.

This strategy is seen as a failure, in economic terms at least, but it left India was assets that are now burgeoning onto the global scene. Its big business houses have snapped up vintage Western brands, while its universities produce much of the talent staffing Silicon valley. India even has a space programme that leads the world in launching commercial satellites, using indigenous technology and a 20,000 workforce.

In this context, there are good reasons to hope that India's international image will continue its steady rise. Yet there are also clouds on the horizon for 2009: one economic and one political.

The economy has slowed from last year's 9.6% growth rate, with consumers feeling lethargic and exports plummeting. It could even fall below 7.0% next year, in which case social tensions will start to rise and the state's manifold weaknesses will come to the fore.

There is also a general election due by May, and campaign tactics already threaten to sully India's reputation. The Hindu-nationalist BJP has in the past generated support by whipping up Hindu-Muslim antagonism. Radical Hindu organisations are doing something similar in the southern states, but this time with Christians.

Some BJP leaders realise that there is no more certain way to destroy reputation than to be seen as allowing Christians to be killed for political gain.  In India’s embassies overseas, each new incident has caused its ambassadors to wince.