Through the Indira Gandhi days of the late 1960s and through the 1970s there was a strong Soviet Union lobby in the corridors of power. Its ripples were to be felt in the culture circuit, in the academia, and even in the media. The Soviets could do no wrong, was the themesong then. The strategic silences in our pronouncements on Czechoslovakia in 1968 and on Afghanistan in 1978 are still too fresh in memory. It was also the time when the Indo-Soviet Friendship Societies dominated the scene, and former ambassadors to the Soviet Union had the pride of place.

In the same proportion, the parallel Indo-US friendship societies were literally in the shadows. Things have certainly changed since then. It is the Americans and the friends of Americans who seem to be calling the shots in Indian affairs right now. It appears that it is much more than what the poor Soviets and their colourless friends in India ever did in their heyday.

Indian opinion-makers expound and defend the American point-of-view with fervour, and that too in Americanese, a form of English which lacks elegance as well as gravity that is usually the distinct feature of the language. No wonder, standards in English language are dipping rather drastically in India.

We have young Indians pleading for the freedom of access of American satellite television channels like the Star Plus and the CNN with no greater ulterior motive than that of savouring more of that American stuff. We have the chattering classes swooning over jaded soap operas like The Bold and the Beautiful and Santa Barbara.

We have the smart set smacking its lips at the fare offered in Baywatch. And before all this began, there was the pathetic sight of young Delhiites rooting for Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA at the Human Rights concert in New Delhi 1988. Of course, it is cultural invasion of sorts, but not the dangerous kind predicted by the old Left and the xenophobic Right. It is a mild cultural wave which would not go beyond slightly posh middle class neighbourhoods in the metropolises.

The shrewd businessmen at the helm of the Star TV soon saw the real picture, saw that the neo-Americans in India do not amount to much in terms of business and money, and reached out to tele-sagas like Chandrakanta and the Hindi news to woo the majority of provinical Indian viewers who are not dazzled by anything American, and have no time for, or interest in, Americana as such.

But things are no more at the harmless level any more. Economic pundits in the Government know of no other language of defending liberalisation other than in the officious Americanese spawned by economists at US universities and by the blinkered American policy officials in the World Bank and in the International Monetary Fund.

The Indian exponents of liberalisation have not even evolved an Indian idiom to defend the new economic course. They end up, like the planningwallah of yore, convincing the converted. Whether it is the question of slashing subsidies or lowering tariffs, the Indian officials in the Economics and Commerce ministries seem to echo American opinion.

It has gone even beyond that now. Last week, the Disney Corporation in India had literally gone berserk in the streets of New Delhi when its employees went around and confiscated the `fake' Disney products manufactured in the country and on sale in the market. And in true Disney fashion, there was an element of the bizarre added to it.

They got an elephant to stomp the confiscated products. And all this was accomplished with the help of the Delhi police, a force which is known for not lifting a finger to help the Capital's own citizens. The matter was reported quite prominently on the business pages of a national daily. There was not a squeak of protest anywhere. The American opium is having its effect.

The Left and its friends may not want to acknowledge the fact, but it is there. It was the illiberal Shiva Sena president Balasaheb Thackeray who showed the manner in which American business houses should be treated. Time and again Rebecca Mark, the Chief Executive Officer of Enron, had to visit the unimpressive middle class home of Thackeray to renogotiate the Dabhol deal. What should have been done by Manmohan Singh and P.Chidambaram was done by the Mumbai reactionary. Liberalism has lost out in the bargain.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.