The impressions I have had so far rightly confirm the slogan used by the country's tourism publicity office, "Incredible India." It is true that India is a country where countless religions, ethnicities, languages and cultures are intermingled and where this mixture is ready to take you by surprise on any street corner. Already the world's biggest democracy, with its giant 1.3-billion population, India's eyes are now set on the target of having an $1.5 trillion economy. We are talking about a country that would be the sole economic reference point in Central Asia for the current world order if it hadn't been for China right next door with its population of 1.5 billion. India is also an international giant in politics and its name is always mentioned in regard to plans for expanding the membership of the United Nations Security Council.
India has reached an annual growth rate of 8 percent but, at the same time, it is a country that suffers the most bitter of contradictions. While it has business tycoons who can rank in Forbes magazine's top 10, it also has tens of millions of citizens trudging through difficult lives with daily incomes below $1. This fact reveals India's twisted income distribution, which fills the shoes of the country's ancient caste system despite its fertile lands and rich natural resources.
India has an annual trade volume of $2.65 billion with Turkey. Of this amount, $2.25 billion consists of exports to Turkey. The visit Foreign Trade Minister Kürşad Tüzmen made to India last week accompanied by a group of Turkish businessmen was an important step toward eliminating the years-long Turkish disinterest and negligence toward India. We should also remember Foreign Minister Ali Babacan's comprehensive visit to this country in February. Potential economic ties between Turkey and India, which have been gaining significant momentum in the development process, contain possibilities incomparably greater than anything in the countries' current level of relations.
Despite all these potential opportunities, it is really intolerable and incomprehensible that the $1.3 billion giant that is India is still ignored within Turkey. Whatever great efforts Turkey may exert to dwell on this profound disinterest in India, and however much it endeavors to eliminate this economically fatal fault will still not be sufficient. I say this with particular conviction after a meeting in which I made a presentation and witnessed the great knowledge of Indian academics on developments within Turkey and their huge interest in Turkey itself. Having seen this, it is even more difficult to make a sense of why Turkish academic circles are still so indifferent toward India.
Sacrificing our potential friendship with India, with which we have exactly no international problems, for our friendship with a country adjacent to it makes no sense in terms of the principles that ought to regulate international relations, principles of self-control and cool headedness. Turkey, which manages multidimensional foreign policies in many areas, should not focus its foreign policy efforts entirely on the interests of a single country with its policies on the Kashmir region, no matter how good its relations may be with that country, since these policies on Kashmir create misperceptions between the Turkey and India.
With this article, I am acting in compliance with a sentence I saw written on the backs of every vehicle on the streets of New Delhi: "Please Blow Horn." I am beeping my horn to draw the attention of the relevant officials to relations between Turkey and India. I'm sounding the alarm with all my strength so that this unforgivable years-long neglect on the part of Turkish governments and Turkish intelligentsia may come to an end. I am "blowing my horn" to improve our bilateral ties with India.
