Untrustworthy Indians

Can India trust the United States? "No", said 61 per cent Indians in a nationwide poll conducted by a Delhi based publication. The question is-has US ever betrayed India or broke a promise which she had had given to India? If not, then what makes a majority of Indians think that the 'US is untrustworthy'!

As a matter of fact, the US has been exceptionally magnanimous toward India. After partition, Western Punjab, India's wheat bowl, had gone to Pakistan. A food crisis awaited India. A spell of successive bad monsoons aggravated situation even more.

By 1955, India was faced with a sever food crisis. Memories of Bengal famine (1943) were still fresh. Over three million people had died in Bengal famine. During famine, people had begun eating leaves, banyan fruits hitherto eaten by animals and birds.

India had ran out of options. Chinese were already dying of starvation. Russia didn't have any grain to spare. The war ravaged Europe was in no position to help others. Even if there was food available in the world market, India didn't any foreign currency to buy it.

India in 1955 thus had only two options - either leave millions of its people to starve, or some Goddess came in with millions of tones of food as a free gift. It was at this point of time the US came to rescue. India signed a PL 480 wheat import deal with US in 1956.

The US was to supply 3.1 million tones of wheat annually for three years. Since India didn't have foreign currency to pay for even the transportation cost. The magnanimous US agreed to accept the money in rupees.

By 1966, volume of PL 480 wheat import had gone up to 10.36 million tones annually.

By 1971, US was faced with a very moral dilemma as one fifth of India's currency had accumulated in the US account in New Delhi. The US didn't know what to do with that Himalayan money.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the then US Ambassador to India, requested his Government to write off this debt as India was neither in any position to pay it in foreign currency, and nor the US has any usefulness of the Indian currency.

Approved by the Government, Mr Patrick issued a cheque worth $1.26 billion (about Rs 50 billion) to the Government of India writing off that massive debt. That cheque is considered as one of the largest amount of donation given to any nation.

The US however, knew that the PL 480 free feast was no solution to India's food problem. India too recognised that reality. If India had to become self-sufficient, there must be a revolution in its agriculture. But who would help accomplish that task?

Again, US stepped in to transform India. Sponsored by Rockefeller Foundation, America sent agronomist Norman E Borlaug, Father of the Green Revolution, to replicate his Mexican experiment in India. He successfully produced Sharbati Sonora variety of high yielding wheat. With that, Borlaug had implanted a Green Revolution for India as well.

During 50s' and 60s', over three thousand American agro-scientists had worked in India. Over six thousand Indian scientists were trained in American during the same period.

American agro-scientists helped India to establish chain of agricultural universities in States of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. "Over 300 American Professors gave more than 700 teaching years of service to India", says an India supportive website.

The present day Punjab, Haryana, and West UP became motherland of the Green Revolution. This highly fertile landmass however, had neither water and nor electricity.

To make this region green one needed to make a Bhakra Dam over Sutlej. But, who would do it? On a personal initiative of Pandit Nehru, US sent Harvey Stocum to build Bhakra Dam.

Completed by early 60s', three times taller than Qutub Minar, Bhakra Dam is considered one of the greatest engineering marvels of the 20th Century.

The US thus, turned a famine prone India into a food exporting nation in less than half a century. US saved millions of Indians from dying, and saved India's honour by transforming a perpetual food importer to a food exporter nation. A million and half Indians are having fun in the US, and another million got jobs due to outsourcing phenomenon.

Yet, 61 per cent Indians can't trust America. How untrustworthy Indians can become.

Article by Chandrabhan Prasad, at the Daily Pioneer.

A rare example of American magnanimity; there is that side to America too.