India Rest House

It's Raj chic: the Maharaja. It can also be the official mindset of India. Does it mean that India as a modern nation is proud of having ...

It8217;s Raj chic: the Maharaja. It can also be the official mindset of India. Does it mean that India as a modern nation is proud of having a mental mascot that exudes tradition and historical glory? India, one of the most potential markets of the East, India the nuclear power, wants to reach out to the world.

It wants to be recognised and respected. It is eager to do business with the world. You heard it from the prime ministerial mouth itself, from New York. But India of the world has a life outside political rhetoric. Our London correspondent8217;s despatch on India House provides a glimpse of it. It is the story of a lazy, inefficient, fat, opulent Maharaja. The Indian mission in London is awesome not only in terms of real estate. It is apparently a vast, overcrowded rest house8217; maintained and preserved by the taxpayers8217; money not for diplomacy, but for image, for keeping some Indians employed and for keeping quite a few others entertained. What is wrong? It is the mission in London, the headquarters of theformer empire. And can the ex-colony afford to have an inferior image of tropical remoteness in this age of India redux? The Maharaja would like to strike back even though it is perpetually laid back. So what is wrong? Everything.

Everything, from style to substance. Perhaps there is only style in India House. The High Commissioner8217;s residential address has royal proximity, and the rent runs into millions of pounds. With that money, India could have bought a house of its own. The mission has a staff of 300 maybe because India is a vast country with a big population. Still, there is no diplomat to look after the economic affairs maybe because Britain is a third-rate market. Of course, the House is so good at issuing visas, taking care of visiting dignitaries, and reminding the potential investor of the utility of the yellow pages 8212; maybe because India is the venerable land of babucracy.

The prize for keeping this decadent Maharaja is absurd enough. But the diplomatic licence to have such atourist-friendly luxury hardly serves India8217;s mission in this world forget a purposeful Indo-British relationship.

In this age a foreign mission is not a super-luxury clerk8217;s counter. Nor is it a cosy space for diplomatic siesta. The diplomatic activities or the lack of them of India House are a lesson in monetary waste and national irresponsibility. Take the economic section of the High Commission: no head, no compulsions. The global village has already graduated into a global market, and the thrust of modern diplomacy is economic everything, including the bomb, is subordinated to it. If India wants to reach out to the world, it cannot be done through Pokharan, but through the market. For India House such a world doesn8217;t exist. India8217;s largest mission is not worth its size or work. Downsize it. Make it functional. For India doesn8217;t need a museum for national opulence in the heart of London showmanship of the decolonised can wait. The Maharaja is too archaic and too expensive to achieve anything forIndia. He can only make India poorer.