Sue H., a Howick-based store owner, travelled to India 10 years ago on an extravagant tour that took her to the palaces, forts and luxury hotels of India. “It’s a unique country and I want to take my children there next time,” says the New Zealand resident.

However, Sue won’t be showing her children glimpses of India’s past glory. And forget about walking tours of Nariman Point; there’ll be no shopping at the glitzy malls bigger than some Auckland suburbs; she’ll also give a miss to the massive space launch facilities in south India and the vast IT complexes of Hyderabad.

No, Sue wants to expose her young impressionable children to the “other side” of India. “I want them to see how the poor live there, so they can realise what a wonderful country we have back here,” she says.

Thomas W., a Belmont businessman, says New Zealand youth should look at the way India’s poor live so they can better appreciate the quality of life available in New Zealand.

A TV3 news crew traveled to New Delhi to check out the Commonwealth Games preparations and the opening shot was of – you guessed it – a slum. No sports stadia were shown. Delhi’s famous boulevards weare given a miss. The reporter then led the chief-de-mission of the New Zealand contingent into commenting on whether the poverty of India would affect Kiwi athletes. Imagine, nothing about the smog, weather or traffic. “Are the athletes being prepared to adjust to the extremes of wealth and poverty they’ll see in India?” she asked. The chief-de-mission said, “Yes, the athletes are being conditioned to handle it and will be given counselling.” Athletes, such softies?

So let’s get the record straight. Is India a poor country? Why not let the facts answer that question? Why publish reams of articles when the facts will tell you what the TV channels won’t. Let’s start with a flashback.

On February 2, 2007, the country erupted in celebration when the Tata Group won a bid for Corus – the Anglo-Dutch descendant of British Steel – for more than $19 billion. Not since that mid-summer day in June 1983 when Kapil’s Devils won the cricket world cup had India seen such scenes of jubilation and patriotic fervour. Headlines spoke of empires striking back, while pundits and industrialists said India had at last arrived as a world power.

The deal followed just a few months after the world’s largest steelmaker Mittal Steel’s $51 billion takeover of Luxembourg-based Arcelor ended five months of corporate battles, an acquisition that created the largest steel entity. Owner Lakshmi Mittal’s triumph in the takeover saga stoked Indian national pride in a big way, even though he didn’t own a single steel plant in his own country.

And if the Tatas were in overdrive, could the Birlas be far behind? Ten days after Tata’s multi-billion-dollar acquisition, the Aditya Birla group announced an agreement to acquire Novelis Inc, the largest flat-rolled aluminium maker in the world, for $9.5 billion. The US-Canadian company operates 36 manufacturing locations in 11 countries and has around 12,500 employees.

The takeover fever that gripped India Inc two years ago shows no sign of ebbing. The deal street is buzzing with companies announcing takeovers or mergers on a daily basis. Almost every listed company is on the prowl – at home as well as abroad – looking for suitable prey. By one estimate, 60% of India’s top 200 companies are looking at foreign acquisitions.

As the value of overseas bids by Indian firms soared to $50 billion in the first 11 months of 2008, the takeover of Western companies by Indians has struck people in India as evidence of a delicious reversal of fortune: a once-proud civilisation, having fallen to the humiliations of colonisation, is now buying out the hallowed corporations of the West.
Grant Thornton, a global consultancy firm, says the number of outbound deals has far exceeded the domestic ones. India is thus a net exporter of capital. For comparison, the amount of money India invests abroad is more than half the annual GDP of New Zealand.

The US remains a favourite destination for Indian companies. According to the Indian Commerce Ministry, from 2004 and 2007 Indian companies created 300,000 jobs in the United States.

India retains its position as the No.2 foreign employer in the UK, after the US. This year Indian investors created 4149 new jobs, with 108 new projects. The most important acquisition in recent times has been that of Axon Group by HCL Tech for $1 billion.

India also replaced Japan as the largest Asian supplier of foreign investment projects in the UK this year, with significant investments in IT, life sciences and advanced engineering. In fact, the first mayor of London Ken Livingstone said he “would not be surprised if India took over a large share of the British economy”.

Singapore and The Netherlands are major beneficiaries of Indian investment; Egypt has received $1.3 billion; and Vietnam will get a $7.8 billion steel plant from Tata.

The Pacific region has so far been outside the orbit of India Inc because of the small size of the market represented mainly by Australia and New Zealand. However, last month it was reported that oil giant HPCL may take over 230 Shell stations in New Zealand. However, that will happen only if Kiwis overcome their fear of investment that doesn’t come from Australia, the UK, Canada or the US.
 
Indian companies have many good reasons for gobbling up companies abroad. For drug makers like Dr Reddy’s, buying the marketing division of an American pharmaceutical firm is a way to buy instantly, rather than build laboriously, a sales force. For an automaker like Tata Motors, acquiring Daewoo of Korea quickly injected expertise in heavy trucks.

While earlier the Indian market was big enough to accommodate everybody and his uncle, the saturation levels are being reached in several industries. Bharti Telecom, which adds around seven million subscribers a month in India, is seeking a 49 per cent stake in South Africa’s MTB in a $78 billion merger deal. This will help it move into the vast untapped markets of Africa (before Vodafone gets a foothold).

As ever more acquisition deals are announced, most of them smaller and less controversial, a kind of takeover nationalism is emerging in India. A survey published by the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs concluded that Indians see their country as second only to the United States in its influence in the world. They also expect the global sway of the United States to wane over the next 10 years while the power of India continues to rise.

India’s foreign takeovers effectively symbolise the former subject’s becoming master. When Jamsetji Tata sought to stay in a British-run hotel in Mumbai in colonial days, he was refused because he was an Indian. He resolved to start his own Taj Mahal Hotel, which opened in 1903 with German elevators and English butlers. And now, as a fast-growing hotel chain, the Taj has taken control of Western properties like the Pierre in New York, the W in Sydney and – most poetically, perhaps – the St. James Court in London.

Actor Amitabh Bachchan puts things in perspective: “A pulsating, dynamic new India is emerging. An India whose faith in success is far greater than its fear of failure. An India that no longer boycotts foreign-made goods but buys out the companies that make them instead.”

So who you calling Third World?
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Rakesh Krishnan is a features writer with Fairfax New Zealand. He has previously worked with Businessworld, India Today and Hindustan Times, and was news editor with the Financial Express.