The launch of the Tata Nano car has thrust India, its knowledge economy and manufacturing industry into the spotlight, but has the West already missed the rise of a superpower?
Global newspaper headlines on the Tata Nano have it all figured out. "It costs just $2,500. It's cute as a bug. And it could mean global disaster," the Washington Post recently opined.
This is not a tsunami in the making. Rather, it underscores how India leverages its white-collar strengths in the knowledge economy to exert a powerful force on global blue-collar manufacturing. In doing so, it engages in a diametrically opposite direction from China.
After India succeeded in its quest to "Wal-Mart" the global knowledge economy - through a combination of value and volume, skills and scale - the Indian economy's impact on global manufacturing could prove to be massive.
And yet, like the Nano itself (on which some 40 patents are being filed), none of this should be seen as a bolt from the blue. After all, IT, engineering, design, rapid prototyping, lean manufacturing and mass customisation are all first cousins.
What else explains why companies as varied as GE, General Motors, Alstom, Boeing, Flextronics, Shell and Sanofi have begun making India central to their global R&D efforts?
Engine maker Cummins, for instance, has discovered that its India centre's design strength allows it to turn around new models in half the time taken previously.
Meanwhile, the strengths of the Tata Group as a global technology titan has been in evidence for some time.
For example, Ferrari depends closely on Tata's teams for both IT and engineering design and support.
And for several years already, both Jaguar and Land Rover - due for acquisition by Tata - have counted heavily, like Nissan and several other auto firms, on Incat, the Tata subsidiary dedicated to engineering design.
What all this illustrates are two principles of the 21st-century new economy. Few will be able to compete in the same space as India - least of all those from the high-cost zones of the western world.
In the IT world, such trends have now taken on almost the character of a parody: every rumour of an Indian bid sends the share price of CapGemini, Europe's largest IT services company, soaring on the Paris bourse. And it was Tata Steel that demonstrated exactly this "new India" principle when it swallowed Corus, a European steelmaker several times its size.
This acquisition sent the notion of "big is beautiful" - the cardinal rule of the 20th-century economy - out of the window.
And Tata is not alone. Other Indian conglomerates are following suit. For example, after Hurricane Katrina, Indian Mahindra tractors won laurels across the state of Louisiana for their robustness and reliability.
And yet, all the western media manages to see is that "the planet is doomed" once millions of Indians and Chinese get their own cars - even though there is only one car for approximately every 1,000 Indians, while in the US the ratio is three cars for every four people.
And still, India is encouraged to emulate our "good new" habits rather than our "bad old" ones. Talk about skating on very thin moral ice.
Such ingrained assumptions - having one's cake and eating it too - are, of course, emblematic of the entire debate in the western media about shifting global economic powers.
It ignores the fact that India has its very own "good new habits". It already boasts one of the planet's largest public-transport systems, and Indian Railways' total annual passenger volume equals the entire world population - which it transports at heavily subsidised rates to make it affordable to most Indians.
Also overlooked are India's huge efforts to encourage alternatives to fossil fuels. These include setting up the world's first Ministry of Renewables, accelerating to fourth place in wind power (representing a five-year lead over China) - and distributing 30 million high-efficiency stoves, which have dramatically reduced requirements for wood fuel in rural areas.
In addition, India is imposing EU-derived vehicular pollution standards, converting the entire New Delhi public transport system to CNG - and much more.
Despite all its detractors, India is looking quite good, especially when compared to growth-at-any-cost China - or, frankly, the West's thoughtless legacy and continuity of over-consumption.
As far as the Nano is concerned, its impact on the world car market is going to be dwarfed by the convulsions the little car will herald in the world engineering industry. And such tremors won't end with the car industry.
There are other cases worth noting, such as the Indian space programme, which produces launchers on par with Europe's Ariane-IV and a generation ahead of Brazil's.
And never mind that the Indian space programme costs one-third of Coca Cola's advertising budget.
India also boasts the largest national constellation of communication, remote-sensing and special-purpose satellites, including those for distance education, and the soon-to-be-launched world's first e-Health satellite.
Once again, this monumental technological shift is occurring in the West's "blindspot" - not because India is hiding it, but because the Western powers that be have chosen not to look closely.
They evidently prefer an India wrapped in Gandhi's loin cloth. But the times, they are changing - and rapidly so.
u The writer is a Brussels-based technology consultant and the author of Rising Elephant: the growing clash with India over white-collar jobs and its challenge to America and the world (2004).
He also contributes regularly to www.theglobalist.com
