Falling off the Davos map

A view of Davos | Twitter: @wef

You have to give it to the Chinese for not beating around the bush when it comes to the big issues of their national interest. Not only did Yuan Ming, director of the Beijing-based Institute for International Relations, shake up a remarkably high-powered panel and a limited audience of not-quite-also-rans at the annual BBC debate at the World Economic Forum at the very end, with just four words, she also managed to bring what, until then, had looked impossible: a mention of India.

The debate was on rebranding America’s image around the world, and featured the most prominent European Bush-bashers, the Australian prime minister, the Latvian president, a legendary Saudi spymaster and prince. It had the two US senators, McCain and Biden, so hopelessly outnumbered, that the latter even questioned the very point of the debate which began with the assumption that the US was immoral and that Bush “was a jerk”. He then went on to accuse the Europeans of “griping and whining”, even to the approval of his Republican buddy in the bunker. But even they were taken by complete surprise at the Chinese snub, and the way it was delivered.

It was in the very last minute that anchor Nik Gowing asked Yuan Ming, the lone Chinese participant, that (given the amount of consternation US dominance had already caused in Europe and elsewhere) how concerned were the Chinese about the latest US National Intelligence Committee estimate that in 15 years China’s economy would overtake America’s. Yuan Ming replied, with a straight face, and complete nonchalance, “but that is not our problem.” And in uttering those four cutting words, she managed to bring India into the debate, even if it was in the last sentence any participant spoke. McCain said, yes, the US was conscious of these changes, and not just China but also India was growing at an impressive pace.

While I walked up to congratulate Yuan Ming, you could hear murmurs from the few Indians in the select audience. How could such a debate have taken place without a participant from India, and with just one mention of us, and that too in the very end? The truth, however, is you could ask that question on the entire WEF this year. Most Davos veterans agree that never in the past five to seven years, since India became sexy, has it counted for so little as this time. No Indian leader or representative is making any buzz here. In no session, except those to do with information technology, is India getting a mention. Nobody is flocking to press conferences staged by Indian ministers (Kamal Nath, Kapil Sibal and Vasundhara Raje) ‘ in fact I am not even sure if a press conference has been held by any of them so far.

Not one story on anything to do with India has appeared in the major international papers out of Davos this year. Even Pakistan is doing enormously better. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz is painting the radar screen at the head of an energetic delegation, feting likely investors and the media. He made it to the front page of the Wall Street Journal with his views on a whole range of things, including the gains from an Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline.

You see this marginalisation of India in the signing up records of the paid sessions you have to pay 90 Swiss francs to attend any session held over a meal. All sessions with anything to do with China were filled within minutes of opening on January 26. The lunch session on “bigger and better” business opportunities in India was open till the time soup was served. In fact until the McCain mention at the end of the debate, the only time I had heard India mentioned was in the celebrity lunch with media leaders where Richard Gere upbraided us for living in denial on the HIV/AIDS threat.

This is even more remarkable considering the number of Indian faces you see here. Certainly here you see more Indian businessmen than the Chinese. Then the teams of so many large MNCs have so many Indian faces. The CII team is here in strength, working very hard, but really poorly served by the peremptory way the government in Delhi has treated this year’s WEF.

What justifies this couldn’t-care-less approach is difficult to understand. Davos this year has attracted more than 50 heads of states or prime ministers. Blair, Chirac, Schroeder have considered it worth their while and speak at what has now emerged as the most significant and powerful audience anywhere in the world. Even Left icon Lula of Brazil has come even while the WEF counterpoint, the World Social Forum, is going on in his country. But from India ‘ and I say this with due respect to friends Kamal and Kapil ‘ there is nobody that the very busy crowd at Davos has time or keenness to listen to. We forget that WEF is no picnic. Businessmen pay a fee of more than a million rupees to attend just once, besides their travelling expenses, and have to choose between several sessions that go on simultaneously at different venues here.

You have to therefore compete for the attention of a no-nonsense, paying audience which has many other choices. To approach this as half-heartedly as we have done this year is criminal, and self-defeating.

Sadly, it is happening at a time when there is still a lot of residual excitement about India as well as a sense of fatigue on the great India story. Rightly or wrongly, there is a feeling of things having stalled in India, of Indian politics speaking in different voices, of the new government being more inward looking, and so on. Not everybody has bought the bad news yet, but people need faces to convince them and India simply does not have them here this year. You needed people here, for example, to talk about the unique ruling coalition in India now, how it hopes to maintain continuity with change. Either the prime minister or one of the more familiar faces around him had to be here to reiterate the theme of his remarkable speech at NYSE, his estimate of the $150 billion needed for infrastructure in the coming decade in India. People here come to network, to listen to big ideas and to gather something more to write home about than their performance at skiing. India has missed that opportunity which is even more of a pity because this was the first WEF since the ascent of the UPA government.

There are many excuses, some procedural, some lazy. That the prime minister could not have travelled because of Republic Day ‘ but even Lula is only arriving on January 28. That the finance minister has to travel for the G-8 meet and it would have looked odd if he had done Davos also so close to the Budget. And, by the way, what is the excuse for our new Investment Commission not being here? Certainly, Ratan Tata, Deepak Parekh and Ashok Ganguly would have attracted attention and also dispensed some confidence as well as gyan, particularly with their new official status. This could have even given the commission a headstart.

People in the government are not the only ones whose time is valuable. So many people here have taken notice of the remarkable presence the Infosys top brass have established for themselves, speaking at sessions, networking, even throwing a party with Indian food. And, as an American CEO pointed out, it is paying dividends because a large number of their clients are at Davos. As a consequence, Infosys is painted so much larger than life that even I was nearly mobbed in the hotel fitness centre where I went wearing an old freebie Infosys t-shirt.

The central idea of Davos is networking, of running into Bill Clinton in a hotel lobby, Angelina Jolie in a bar, Sharon Stone in a hat-shop, Tony Blair in the corridor, Bill Gates in the loo. To make impact here, you have to be seen and noticed. You have to say things to be heard in the din, put forward faces that stand out in the crowd. If India starts to approach these events like a nonchalant spectator, the image of a confident, growing economic power will begin to fade. If you approach this business with the backfoot lazily planted behind the crease you deserve the marginalisation that comes as a consequence, a little favour done unwittingly by a sharp Chinese professor notwithstanding.