What's in a name, you may well ask. However, one of the most interesting sidelights of the TV coverage of the US election results was the difference between how the American and English-language Indian channels invoked the name of the new President-elect. To CNN, CBS and, for that matter, BBC, the victorious Democratic candidate was simply Barack Obama, prefixed with either Senator or President-elect. To the gushing Indian anchors, particularly those channels that described his victory as a "world renaissance" and an "end of the dark ages", he was, however, Barack Hussein Obama - the emphasis being on the middle name.

The temptation to see the domestic election of another country in terms of personal political inclinations is sometimes irresistible - even if that involves a massacre of reality. Despite a staggeringly high registration and turnout of Black voters for Obama on November 4 and his failure to win a majority of White votes, the US Presidential election was neither about race nor the middle name of the winner. If it had been, it is doubtful Obama would have won so decisively.

Obama is not an American Mayawati seeking to turn caste hierarchy upside down. He is a mainstream American politician who ran one of the most brilliant and innovative election campaigns we have ever witnessed. He has merely demonstrated that personal charisma, backed by relevant ideas and motivated followers, can transcend pre-existing prejudices.

In purely clinical terms, Obama delivered a substantial incremental vote of hitherto apathetic Blacks and young voters to the pre-existing Democratic base. In recent US history, only Ronald Reagan managed such a major shift in the electoral calculus. And Obama was helped by the fact that the two pillars of the Reagan consensus - American strategic hegemony and domestic prosperity - had developed almost irreparable cracks. Obama's moment has coincided with a larger existential crisis gripping America.

The need to locate Obama in the real world of America rather than in some imaginary stratosphere is all the more compelling because India will have to deal with his administration for the next four, maybe eight, years. Celebrating the fulfilment of Martin Luther King's "dream" is worthwhile but becoming the chorus boys of liberal triumphalism will not address the question: What does an Obama Administration mean for us?

The answers are still tentative. The transition from campaign rhetoric to a philosophy of governance will take some time and may even be marked by six months of fine tuning. Yet, it is important to anticipate the trends early, not least because India has hitched its stars to the US in a strategic partnership from which there is no early exit clause.

The central theme of Obama's campaign was "change" and at the very least the new President will have to demonstrate that his administration is markedly different from that of President Bush. Crafting a post-Bretton Woods global economic order is already in the minds of the entire West, particularly Europe, and Obama is certain to devote attention to getting the US out of a deep recession.

Attending to the ailments of western capitalism is not going to bring the US into any serious conflict with India. There may be a tussle between outsourcing and creating jobs at home and India will have to recognise that the boom in the IT sector is well and truly over. Free market has traditionally been a non-negotiable belief of those who stand to benefit from it the most. Today, it is the US that seeks to temper its commitment to free trade. This may take the form of non-tariff barriers such as exacting environmental norms, insistence on labour standards and an intrusive human rights regime.

The central theme, which will also intrude into foreign policy, will be the principle that no nation must enjoy absolute sovereignty. In many ways, Obama's approach will mirror the European desire for multilateral systems based on rules and pooled sovereignty - all of which can be packaged as something very noble. Obama has already proclaimed his desire to draw his own country and other non-signatories such as India into the CTBT. With control over both the Senate and House of Representatives, there will be an inclination to use the Indo-US nuclear deal to arm-twist India into accepting a stringent non-proliferation order. By not making public Obama's gratuitous letter to Manmohan Singh in late-September, India has already shown that it doesn't even have the resolve to protest.

On the question of terrorism, there will be a similar temptation to play to his activist gallery, repair America's image in the Muslim world, be the good guy and address the so-called roots of terrorism. The suggestion that Bill Clinton may be appointed a Special Envoy to resolve the Kashmir problem was not an unintended slip by an uninitiated candidate. Nor should it be blamed solely on a conversation he had with a former Secretary of State. The natural inclination of people like Obama who have spent too much time with campus radicals is putting strife in West Asia, the Balkans, Chechnya, Congo and Kashmir on par. Unlike President Bush who wanted India to be given special accommodation in all matters, Obama will be inclined to apply the same yardstick to all problem areas. He doesn't hate India but he doesn't think it warrants special handling. He is also likely to get a broad measure of European support for his initiatives. Unwittingly, he may end up pitting the White world, Russia apart, against Indian sensibilities.

Of course it may not come to all this and the journey of change may yet be diverted to the passage of continuity. Yet India can't afford to take chances. We are likely to be faced with a grim choice of either travelling as anonymous passengers in the Obama-led ship or insisting that we have our own sense of destiny.

Courtesy: www.dailypioneer.com, November 09, 2008