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AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERYRobert B. ZoellickU.S. Trade RepresentativeNew Delhi, IndiaAugust 9, 2001
““
India and America: Seizing Economic Opportunity
””
It is a special honor for me to be with you today. Given my respect for India -- your ancientcivilization, your democracy, and your distinctive potential to influence the world -- I askedPresident Bush if I could be the first member of his cabinet to visit you.It is also a special privilege to visit shortly after the arrival of my close friend and colleague, BobBlackwill, the new U.S. ambassador to India. Ambassador Blackwill is the latest in a line of distinguished U.S. scholar-ambassadors to India, including Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan andProfessor John Kenneth Galbraith. During Ambassador Blackwill’s years at Harvard, hecontributed importantly to our country’s assessment of the changing security agenda, includingAmerica’s consideration of strategic interests in Eurasia. In addition, he taught a cominggeneration of leaders from around the world.Yet I also know Ambassador Blackwill’s skills as one of America’s premier diplomats. Someten years ago, we worked closely together, along with Dr. Condi Rice, on the unification of Germany and the panoply of political and security issues associated with the end of the ColdWar.Moreover, as a compatriot with then-governor Bush, Ambassador Blackwill brings to India astrong familiarity with the President, his senior team, and the Administration’s strategicthinking. I cannot think of a better person to represent U.S. interests to India and to explainIndia’s interests to the United States.
India’s Challenge
Fifty-four years ago this week, India achieved its independence after a struggle that moved theworld. Late on the night before India’s independence became official, Mr. Nehru delivered aspeech from a balcony outside India’s parliament. “The achievement we celebrate today,” hesaid, "is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements thatawait us." He then put a test to the Indian people: “Are we brave enough and wise enough tograsp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?”In the years that followed, India faced many challenges. One of the most important legacies of the past 50 years was India’s forging of a democratic federalism that has proven flexible enoughto respect India’s rich diversity, resilient enough to adjust to many pressures, and strong enoughto preserve the integrity and durability of an independent Indian state.
 
2Today, leaders from the major parties in India have identified a new, vitally important challenge:How should this vast civilization, encompassing one-sixth of the world’s people -- this proudcountry with a strong sense of sovereignty -- adapt to globalization?The Cold War has been over for ten years. The original vision of non-alignment does not fit thedynamic of this new era. So whither India?I have come to India to learn the Indians’ answers to these questions. My trip here includesvisits with the Prime Minister, senior government leaders, the democratic opposition, strategicthinkers, businesspeople, young entrepreneurs, journalists, and the children at the Salaam Baalak Trust shelter for homeless runaways. The sense of hope in the eyes of the young children andthe warmth of the Indians who care for them perhaps send the best message of both the challengeand promise of this vast land.I am here to listen and observe. I would like to better understand the rich range of Indian lifeand opinion about changes in the subcontinent and the world beyond.My prior experience has given me some initial sense of how India is starting to answer thesequestions.First, I have read with interest the Prime Minister’s appeals to his countrymen and women to beattentive to India’s destiny as an increasingly more important country in the world. I have felt astirring, a new vision, of an India that is looking outward: beyond the borders and mountains of the subcontinent and over the seas that wash South Asian shores.This new outlook seems to be shared -- with variations in concept and degree -- by manypolitical leaders from the major parties. There seems to be an emerging, yet fractious, consensusthat India must engage with the world economy. Indian leaders are recognizing the country’scompetitive strength and prowess, at the same time they appreciate the risks and problems of change.Moreover, this new India is taking form through Indian policies. Ten years ago, when I servedin the State Department, India’s far-sighted Ambassador to the United States, Dr. Abid Hussein,urged me to be alert to the historic shifts just beginning in the Indian economy. So I watched thefirst, tentative steps toward economic liberalization, followed over the decade by strides to endthe license Raj, lower tariffs, and begin privatizations and disinvestments.India began to create a more vibrant economy, generate more jobs in services andmanufacturing, and boost agricultural output. You started the turn away from the controllingregulation left over from both colonial governance and the Fabianism that a newly independentIndia imported from a fading empire. In doing so, India helped to provide hope and newopportunities for the millions of Indians for whom grinding poverty remains the everydayreality.
 
3Second, I touched the new India through my contacts with many Indian-Americans. At onesession with a group of Indian-American businesspeople a few weeks ago, I heard a story that Iwould like to share with you.One of my guests had visited India recently with his 13-year old son. Together they had woundtheir way to a 600-year-old temple in Mangalore, where they were greeted by an elderly priest, aslight, wizened figure with a shock of white hair. At first, the clash of cultures and even of centuries seemed apparent as the boy extended the wrong hand to receive the offering from theseemingly remote priest-- to the great embarrassment of the boy’s father. Yet in a moment, thepriest, recognizing the boy as an Indian-American, piped up: “You should check out mywebsite,” he acclaimed. When they did so, the boy and his father encountered a blend of the oldand new Indias -- high resolution-graphics and animation, telling a story of social and culturalevents over hundreds of years.Third, I have a suspicion that the new India might find its origins in an older India -- indeed, amuch older India, far pre-dating colonial intrusions. For I first encountered India not here, in thehomeland, but in Hong Kong, Singapore, Southeast Asia, and East Africa. I have tasted India inEurope and America. I know that India was one of the great originators of globalization, manyyears past.The voyagers from India sought not to conquer, but to trade; they journeyed not to compel othersto think in a certain way, but to offer to share a culture. Like the proponents of open computerarchitectures who share software, these early Indian travelers were marketing geniuses.A few years ago, when I visited Yogyakarta, in the Javenese heartland of Indonesia, I wanderedaround the Hindu temple complex of Prambanan and saw the ever present figures of theRamayana epic. By exporting ideas, these long-distant Indians transformed thinking.Indeed, historians trace the root of modern physics, economics, and engineering to India’sinvention of the concept of zero. Hindu numerals spread as broadly as silk and spices, to seats of learning in China, Russia, Baghdad and Egypt.As commerce swelled, Hindu numerals formed the foundation of estimating, bargaining,reckoning, and records of transactions. Is it any wonder that the land that gave birth to zerowould thrive in the zero-one world of computer binary code?These are not tales of an old India; they are scenes from the life of the India. Any observer of the information technology environment has seen the modern influence on the world of Indianthinkers, designers, and software engineers.I believe India is on the verge of opening a door to tomorrow. If it chooses to do so, India canhelp shape this age of flux. With further deregulation, privatization, limited taxation, and opentrade, India can free the entrepreneurial and inventive skills of the Indian people to overcomepoverty, strengthen the country, and sway the world. The real test—the most important
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