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Bush Fired up...
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BUSHSPEAK: “The world benefited from the example of India’s democracy. It is a global power.” |
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The India-US nuclear deal—which hopefully would help India meet its enormous energy needs—may yet face flak in Congress. And status quoists may try to stymie any progress made. However, with Bush becoming an India convert, it’s certain that any significant slide back is unlikely.
Bush managed a home run hit with his fort speech. In the cool evening air, under the orange glow of the floodlights, he said: “When Martin Luther King arrived in Delhi in 1959, he said to other countries, ‘I may go as a tourist, but to India, I come as a pilgrim.’ I come to India as a friend.”
Bush added: “The United States and India, separated by half the globe, are closer than ever before, and the partnership between our free nations has the power to transform the world.” Bush called on India to continue to lift its caps on foreign investment and to continue to open its markets to American goods.
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| As we develop our technology, we look forward to working with India as we want to end dependence on fossil fuels, which results in rising prices in our countries |
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Reactions to Bush’s speech from Indian business and political leaders were positive. “My sense is he has struck an emotional chord,” said Rana Kapoor, chief executive of Yes Bank. “The speech came across as a conscientious recognition of India as a strong democratic ally.”
Sachin Pilot, a member of Parliament, described the speech as “upbeat and bullish”. “It gives you the feeling that things are much more equitable,” he said. Not only was the speech filled with compliments about India, he said, there was also an expectation for India “to play its global role”.
Bush also went on a four-hour trip to the southern city of Hyderabad, where he met Indian entrepreneurs, toured an agricultural university and inspected a water buffalo. His theme was that the United States should welcome rather than fear competition from India.
“People do lose jobs as a result of globalisation, and it’s painful for those who lose jobs,” Bush said at a meeting with young entrepreneurs at Hyderabad’s Indian School of Business, one of the premier schools of its kind in India. Nonetheless, the president said, “Globalisation provides great opportunities.”
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CATCH ’EM YOUNG: First Lady Laura Bush with a posse of schoolchildren
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LADY ACT: Laura Bush with little ones at the Mother Teresa home in Kolkata |
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Bush strongly defended the outsourcing of American jobs to India as the reality of a global economy, and said that the United States should instead focus on India as a vital new market for American goods. “The classic opportunity for our American farmers and entrepreneurs and small businesses to understand is, there is a 300 million-person market of middle-class citizens here in India, and that if we can make a product they want, then it becomes viable,” Bush said at the business school.
While most of the attention was focused on the nuclear cooperation agreement, the president also pursued a broad array of economic and political topics during his visit. Officials and experts say the relatively new and fast-growing U.S.-India military relationship will also be an important part of the trip, including the potential sale of U.S.-made fighter aircraft to India.
It was only 15 years ago that Congress came within three votes of cutting aid to India because of its nuclear-weapons program. Today, both the Senate and the House of Representatives have large blocs of members devoted to promoting U.S.-India relations.
That is only one indication of the depth and breadth of the changes in U.S.-India relations in recent years, a development summed up in a VOA interview by assistant secretary of defence for international security affairs Peter Rodman. “We see India as a strategic partner in the 21st Century,” he said.
Rodman said the old U.S. policy of punishing India for its nuclear programme was not working, and the September 11 attacks in 2001 focused attention on a variety of common U.S. and Indian interests, including regional security and the war against terrorism. “The strategic environment of the new era is really pulling all of this together, and the president’s trip to India is a way, I think, to bring this to a new stage,” he said.
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April 2006
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