Smog is blotting out India’s image
Pollution has diplomats posted in Delhi running for cover
For long, India used to be a preferred posting for senior executives at multinational corporations. This was back in the days when India wasn’t what it is now to these companies and executives posted here could, apart from enjoying the kind of stature they couldn’t have dreamed of back home, also take home hazard pay as it was called. That, though, was long before India became the fastest-growing major economy in the world. Still, thanks to circumstances largely of its own making, India finds itself in a similar position now. Five years ago, an India stint was considered crucial to the resume of anyone who had corner-room aspirations in MNCs. It still is, only, not too many people may be willing to put their own health and that of their families at risk by working in New Delhi and home to most MNCs not in the banking and technology spaces. Diplomats, who are almost exclusively based in Delhi, are more career-minded usually, but even they are likely to baulk at a posting in what becomes, at least for a few weeks every year, one of the most noxious gas chambers in the world.
Recently NASA’s Earth Observatory released images of northern India which showed a thick white blanket of smog over north India. But damaging as that image may have been, India should be more worried by another — its image among diplomats and executives at multinational companies. Their inputs and impressions about India matter. Judging from news reports on how diplomats and expat executives are dealing with Delhi’s annual bad-air problem, their image of India is likely to be unflattering, even frightening. Diplomats posted in India, especially in Delhi, are literally running for cover. Costa Rica’s ambassador to India Mariela Cruz Alvarez has left Delhi for Bengaluru to recover from a respiratory illness. The Thai embassy has requested Bangkok to classify New Delhi as a ‘hardship post’. ‘Hardship posts’ would mean greater allowances and perks.
The winds will eventually pick up and clear away the smog, but they won’t be as effective in clearing the country’s image. Only concerted and well-informed political action can do that.