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4) The role of India now
Ezekiel's Prophecy speaks of the Merchants of Tarshish as a class of nations at the battle for the land of Israel. For many years after the gaining of India's independence no one could say that any nation or trading company was a merchant of India. But something strange has happened. Now the nations receive phone calls from India made by representatives of multinational English speaking companies. To explain what has happened expert opinion is referred to. Foreign affairs journal July /August 2006 featured India, and was titled “The Rise of India”. A feature article by Gurcharan Das comments
“after three post independence decades of meagre progress, the country economy grew at 6 percent per year from 1980 to 2002 and 7.5 percent a year from 2002- 2006.....India is now the world fourth largest economy....The notable things about India's rise is not that it is new but that its path has been unique. Rather than adopting the classic Asian strategy- exporting labour intensive, low priced manufactured goods to the west- India has relied on its domestic market more than export..and high-tech more than low skilled manufacturing.....But what is most remarkable is that rather than rising with the help of the state, India is in many ways rising despite the state....
And since 1991 especially, the Indian state has been gradually moving out of the way – not graciously. But kicked and dragged into implementing economic reforms .......and opened up to the rest of the world. (editor's italics).
Of note is the date of the beginning of the change: 1991. This era parallels the new world that was begun with the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the re-emergence of Russia. There may be no coincidence to this as Gurcharan Das blames the Fabian Socialaist policies of Nehru and Indira Gandhi for “combining the worst features of capitalism and socialism” and “foreigners have invested in over 1,000 Indian companies and of the 'Fortune 500' countries 125 have now research and development bases in India. Das continues saying that India's economy is being transformed by “providing white collar services that are outsourced by companies in the rest of the world...Software and business process outsourcing exports have grown from nothing to 20 billion and are expected to reach 35 Billion by 2008.” Who are these outsourcing companies? Das continues “The constraining factor is likely not to be the demand but the abilities of India's educational system to produce enough quality English speaking graduates.” It may be concluded that these international merchants require English and speak English. Since 1991 they are now the Merchants of India.
More recently, in November 2013, India and Israel have been further developing ties.
NEW DELHI: India and Israel continue to silently expand their already extensive ties in the fields of defence and homeland security, with Israeli chief of land forces major general Guy Zur now in New Delhi on a four-day visit...While regional and global security situation figured in the talks, the focus was on bilateral defence training programmes, exchanges, R&D projects and armament deals. "The two countries, which share similar challenges of terrorism, have strong military and defence trade ties," said an officer.
Israel is India's second largest defence supplier, second only to Russia, but the ties are largely kept under wraps due to political sensitivities. articles.timesofindia
Despite 'sensitivities' India is trading with Israel, and Israel is trading with the idolaters of the East (a point we will return to below). India was Tarshish, and is again Tarshish when the merchants trade and find sources of goods and services to trade from there.
So why is it important to know who the merchants of Tarshish are and where Tarshish is now?
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With Britain's PM Cameron visiting Turkey, India and the United States we are seeing a revival of Britain's role in the Middle East, specifically in relationship to strengthening of a historic role in the Gulf states. This is linked to their role as a global merchant nation and the revival of London as the centre of world finance.
Queen Victoria became Empress of India in 1876. In the modern world in 1947 India gained independence or freedom from the British Empire. India's long history shows the poverty and disunity of independence and 'freedom' and the possible glory and peace of kingdom.
