Hindu Vivek Kendra
A RESOURCE CENTER FOR THE PROMOTION OF HINDUTVA
   
 
 
«« Back
Watch out, Mr Vajpayee!

Watch out, Mr Vajpayee!

Author: M.V.  Kamnath
Publication: Organiser
Date: September 3, 2000

Starting September 6, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee will undertake a 11-day visit to the United States.  He is scheduled to spend a week in New York to attend a special United Nations session and no doubt he will address it, in all probability in Hindi, as he once did, when he attended a U.N.  General Assembly session as India's Foreign Minister.  That would elicit no comments.  He is scheduled to meet President Clinton in Washington on September 15 and a day later he is expected to address a joint session of the Congress.  It will be remembered that Shri P.V.  Narasimha Rao similarly addressed a Congressional joint session when he was Prime Minister.  That address turned out to be a huge joke.

Very few Congressmen and Senators were present and the seats had to be filled by Congressional staff members, much to the embarrassment of the Administration.  One can only hope that this time around Congressmen and Senators would be more respectful.  In the last one decade the United States and India have more or less made up and it would be a poor show if once again empty Congressional seats are filled up with dutiful clerks.  It is no secret that Shri Vajpayee is visiting Washington as a courtesy call and as a reciprocal measure, considering that President Clinton had graced Delhi with his presence earlier in the year.

It could be that as a result of his visit, the United States may lift such sanctions as are presently in force; what remains in the field of guesswork is the price that India may be asked to pay for that concession, such as it is.  That price surely was discussed when Shri Brijesh Mishra held talks in Washington with US officials, including Under Secretary for Political Affairs, Thomas Pickering, and National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, when he visited the US capital earlier in July.  US businessmen-and their counterparts in India-are agreed that lifting of sanctions will make the investment and business climate more friendly and boost trade between the two countries in a host of areas.

But it is one thing for businessmen to dream of billions, but it is quite another for the US Administration to bend to accommodate them.  What, meanwhile, has to be clearly understood is that the Clinton Adminsitration is on its last legs.  Clinton is running a lame duck adminsitration.  The policy for the next five years-the new US President, whoever he is, will take over after the elections are over and the results announced in early 2001-will be made by the new administration which, on current showing, will be Republican.  The Republican Party has chosen George Bush as its presidential candidate while the Democratic candidate is the current US Vice President Al Gore.  In polls Bush leads Gore 51 per cent to 34 per cent and a widely-held belief is that Bush will win in the presidential elections handsomely.

That is why it is important for Vajpayee to keep in touch with the likely policy makers in the Republican Party.  The Republicans have seldom been friendly towards India.  According to published reports, the Republican Party's manifesto seeks to return to parity between India and Pakistan which India despises.  True, the manifesto is in marked departure from the party's stand in 1996, when India was hardly noticed.  But the document adopted at the party covention concedes that "the US should engage India, respecting its great multi-cultural achievements and encouraging Indian choices for a more open world".

The manifesto noted that India was on the way to being recognised as "one of the greatest democracies" soon, but it also said in the same breath that "mindful of its long-standing relationship with Pakistan, the US will place a priority on the secure, stable development of this volatile region where adversaries now face each other with nuclear arsenals".  It is a warning to India not to take Republican friendship for granted.  Pakistan in the past had its supporters from among the Republican Party.  And George Bush is no Bill Clinton.  He will need to be woo-ed again.  It is well to remember that his father, George Bush Senior, who also was a President not too long ago, was the one who devastated Iraq in the Gulf War.  The Bushes, on past record, can be merciless.

Brijesh Mishra reportedly met two Bush aides on foreign policy, Condoleeza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz, of whom one is expected to be the future National Security Adviser.  That does not mean anything, but at least it can be said that India has not lost an opportunity to make its views known quite early in the game to Bush's advisers.  India should expect a tough bargainer in Bush.  According to the Republican Manifesto, "if the time ever comes to use military force, George W.  Bush will do so to win-because for him victory is not a dirty word".  No doubt that the young man takes after his father who did not think victory was a dirty word either when he sent out bombers to destroy Iraq's defences.  Thousands of Iraqi children may die for lack of medical aid but the sanctions against Iraq continued-and no doubt will continue as long as Iraq's dictator is around.

The only hope for India is that even a Republican President friendly towards Pakistan cannot ignore reality.  But that may yet turn out to be a forlorn hope.  And it is said that Pakistan's Ambassador to Washington, Maleeha Lodhi, has already begun kow-towing to the Republican overlords, as in the days of Richard Nixon who was an inveterate India-hater.  George Bush Jr has, at least as of the moment, no particular reason to hate India, but one never knows.  Unlike Nixon, Bush comes from an aristocratic background.  His grandfather, a patrician Connecticut banker and Senator was part of the old Anglo-Saxon Protestant establishment.  People still talk about the gentleman, Prescott Bush, with something akin to awe.  Presumably, then, Bush does not suffer from any emotional hang-ups where India is concerned.

It may not be necessary for Vajpayee on his present visit to the United States to try to build bridges to the Republican presidential hopeful.  In elections one never can tell.  For all one knows the Democratic candidate Al Gore may yet spring a surprise and it won't do India any good to seem so early in the game, to tilt towards the Republicans.  In the ultimate analysis it is the Indian Prime Minsiter's business to safeguard India's interests as best as he can and no doubt he will play it by the ear.  The point to note is that India should not take it for granted that whoever is the next occupant of the presidential chair in Washington will be automatically friendly towards India.  That would be living in cuckoo-land.  But since the privilege of addressing a joint session of the Congress has been given to him, India's Prime Minsiter must present his country's case, especially vis-a-vis CTBT and Pakistan, fully, unambiguously and straight-forwardly.  Such an approach has its own merits.
 


Back                          Top

«« Back
 
 
 
  Search Articles
 
  Special Annoucements