IIf you stop and think about the circumstances 33 years ago, when the US-India Business Council was conceived, it's a wonder we're standing here today. Indira Gandhi was (the Indian) prime minister. The Emergency was declared soon after. A year before, India had tested its first nuclear device at Pokhran. In the United States, Richard Nixon was deep in the quicksand of Watergate.
I'm not sure the idea of the USIBC would have been well received in Washington, DC at that time; nor in Delhi for that matter.
And it is a great testament to Dr Henry Kissinger that, at such a time in our history, he had the foresight to think about the future relations of the United States and India. I would also, at this point, like to pay tribute to one of my predecessors at PepsiCo, Don Kendall. As one of the early leaders of the USIBC, Don showed the ability to think ahead and think big. PepsiCo recognised the enormous opportunity and made the leap of faith to enter India before liberalization seemed at all likely. It required great foresight and vision to see so clearly. It's only one of the many attributes that have made me both proud and lucky to count Henry and Don as friends and as mentors.
The organisation they helped establish has been through many twists of fate since then. But I think they can be divided into two distinct periods. The first 16 years, from 1975 to the Indian liberalization of 1991, was a time in the shadows. Business relationships were not well developed and government relations were frosty.
This was a time when visitors to India frequently found themselves marooned at the airport, waiting for hours for a government carrier to take off. It was a time when a call from India to the US had to be specially booked. Hours after the appointed moment, a faint connection might be established. You would speak at the speed of light for fear of being cut off. By comparison, the 17 years since 1991 have been marked by extraordinary progress. The shackles were removed, and now, how different it looks!
Domestic consumption has grown; so has investment. Employment has expanded and both capital and labor productivity have increased. Abject poverty, while certainly not eliminated, has been greatly reduced.
Today, India's emerging civilian aviation industry is growing at greater than 20 percent annually. People move through its airports swiftly. Today, India's is the fastest growing telecommunications market in the world with 10 million cell phones registered each month. Communication is instant.
The last 17 years have also seen a distinct warming of US-India relations. Gradually, India opened up and gradually the relationship with the United States developed. To see, as we will today, two members of the US cabinet meeting a Union minister, witnessed by business leaders from both sides, is no longer unprecedented and is a cause for great optimism.
So, the second phase took the partnership between the US and India out of the shadows and towards the light.
Image: A labourer inside the passenger terminal building at the newly constructed Bangalore international airport at Devanahalli, about 36 kilometres north of the city centre in Bangalore. Photograph: Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images
Also see:
New Bangalore airport takes off
Advertisement
