Frogs in the well. Increasingly that is our approach and attitude towards the rest of the world. This impervious mindset stems from long years of living in seclusion, closing ourselves from external and extraneous forces, and driven by a thinking which is based on a bedrock of socialism.

We don't care, we don't need you, we can do without you is where this warped thinking comes from. For the first time, since the unfettering of the economy in 1991, one sees similarities cropping up. Utter disdain and mistrust of the foreigner, a completely inwardlooking bias, and a general antipathy existed in those dark years. Now it is back.

The recent 'threats' from rating agencies - S&P, Moody's and Fitch, and investment houses Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and BoA-Merrill Lynch, among others - are being taken with a pinch of salt and a casual disregard shown towards their findings. This is after a mirror is being held up in our faces by them. Our warts lie exposed.

Some time ago, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde was in the capital and I had a long chat with her. During the course of discussing the direction that the Indian economy was taking, she exhorted the people of India to raise their voice.

Raise your voice

This collective voice should put pressure on the government into taking proactive action on the economic front. This interface with her came at a time when a few big guns in industry had started voicing their concern at the slew of corruption cases and the slow pace of economic development. Raise your voice was the clarion call given by her.

Now when I read about these daily attacks from ratings agencies and investment houses, I wonder whether there is a concerted effort by the global community to put pressure on India to take affirmative action on its economic woes. Why I say this is a comment from chief economic adviser Kaushik Basu, who dismissed these attacks as being a part of a 'herd mentality'.

That may be true, but the sad part is we continue to live in denial. Read Pranab Mukherjee's remarks on Fitch that went something like this - their negativity on our outlook is based on old data. We have taken measures since S&P raised similar concerns. Pray, what action has the government taken in the last couple of months? Sorry, I missed my mark there. What are the proactive measures that have been taken by this government over the last couple of years?

Another example of this unique living in denial phenomenon is Financial Services Secretary DK Mittal, who made this banal statement on Friday, "The rating agencies are creating a further crisis by shaking the confidence of economies doing good globally, like India." This is a classic example of the pot calling the kettle black, widening the growing chasm between us and them - the only problem is that 'them' seem to be winning hands down, even though we find it irritably unpalatable.

It is well known that India and China are the last two big markets that the western world wants to penetrate. The US has been putting pressure on India to open its economy and key verticals in it - retail, pension, insurance, even media. They have been unhappy with the fact that we have not been able to move on anything.

At the ASEAN summit in Bali, it was clear that President Barack Obama had read the riot act to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, albeit politely, on being unable to open our domestic market. Immediately on his return the PM and his cabinet colleagues ratified multi-brand retail trading - and then all hell broke loose.

Sometimes I wonder whether there is a calibrated, orchestrated and planned effort on the part of the two Bretton Woods sisters - IMF and World Bank - in concert with rating agencies, brokerages and foreign institutional investors to undermine india. Does it sound too far-fetched? Too much of a conspiracy theory? Return of the foreign hand?

Investors fed up

Prima facie, global investors have had it till their gills with the paralysis in India. And I am talking of investors of all hues - foreign direct and foreign portfolio - who are simply disgusted with India's present state of denial. So, even as India takes the high moral ground, making the right noises about how it is seized of the matter and is rolling out the right policy responses, the reality is that the truth lies somewhere in between.

India does not need the global investor community to tell it what it should be doing. At the same time it needs large dollops of foreign capital to transform its infrastructure deficit landscape. We need to open ourselves up, just the right amount, so that the old theorem of capital chasing development is fulfilled.

We need to do more but keeping vital safeguards in place. We cannot ignore foreign capital; it is essential for a developing economy seeking change. Our economy requires more than change; it needs a metamorphosis. Let us look for a meeting ground and get rid of this dogmatic prism that we are viewing our faltering economy through.

Six per cent is good; look at the rest of the world, it is on skid row. Sounds good, but why are we satisfied with this six per cent feelgood? Why can't we be aspirational?

As Basu has been prognosticating, India always rebounds sharply from troughs; there is empirical evidence to back this. Should we wait or put our shoulder to the wheel? And what about a little policy push, Mr Basu? Is that coming too, a helping *hand? Or is that too much to ask from the government?