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Bush Fired up...
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IN STEP: President Bush inspects a guard of honour in Delhi
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ARRIVAL:
Manmohan Singh receives Bush on his arrival at Palam Technical Area in New Delhi |
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That new stage includes defence and military relations, including joint exercises at Indian army facilities in the jungles near the Burmese border, and at high altitude in Kashmir, and joint exercises between two of the world’s leading air forces. There have also been military sales, including India’s purchase last year of U.S. airborne warning and control aircraft.
India expert Samit Ganguly of Indiana University put it even more dramatically. “It is surprising beyond measure that we are at this stage when we can engage in a serious discussion about the sale of such lethal weaponry to India, given the long-standing distrust on both sides. This constitutes a dramatic shift on both sides,” he said.
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| 15 years ago, Congress came within 3 votes of cutting aid. Today, both Senate and House have large blocks of members devoted to promoting U.S.-India relations |
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At the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, the former top State Department official for South Asian Affairs, Teresita Schaffer, said the changes in U.S.-Indian defence relations, while dramatic, are also logical. “It is driven, I would say, by a recognition that the U.S. and India have very important common interests in Asian peace and stability and security in the Indian Ocean. And that these things make it natural for the two militaries to get to know each other better, and to find areas where they can work together,” she said. Professor Ganguly said there is more long-term potential for U.S.-Indian relations than there is for U.S.-Pakistani relations. “This is a relationship based upon an exigency. The Indo-U.S. relationship is much more robust. It is economic. It is military. It is cultural. It is multi-dimensional, whereas the relationship with Pakistan is one of strategic necessity,” he said.
The frantic negotiations coupled with protests planned throughout Bush’s stay reflected India’s mixed feelings about the visit by the leader of the United States, a country seen both as a loyal friend and a global bully.
Thousands of protesters demonstrated in New Delhi against the visit, marching through the city under the watch of police and soldiers. Dozens of politicians, mainly from leftist parties, stood on the steps of Parliament, just a few blocks from where Bush was meeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, chanting “Bush go back!” and “Down with Bush!”
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While Indians generally have a positive view of the United States, the visit was bitterly opposed by Muslim groups and leftist politicians |
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“All these years, India has prided itself in its independent foreign policy, now we are selling our country to the Americans,” said Usha
Verma, a member of parliament from the Samajwadi Party, which draws much of its support from lower-caste voters. “We don’t need American help.”
While Indians generally have a positive view of the United States, the visit is bitterly opposed by many Muslim groups and leftist politicians who believe the country has grown too close to Washington.
When President Bill Clinton came to India six years ago, he danced to folk music with women in a Rajasthani village, ate bowls of black lentil stew at a posh Delhi restaurant and spotted a rare Bengal tiger at a wildlife reserve south of Jaipur. He was cheered wildly in Parliament.
Bush’s visit this time was less entertaining visually; Mr Bush, after all, didn’t even visit the Taj
Mahal, let alone address India’s legislature, which both nations decided is too raucous to risk an appearance by this president. But Bush’s visit was a far more significant presidential trip, for both strategic and economic reasons. It cemented a genuine and deep relationship between the planet’s largest democracy and its wealthiest democracy. Until now, this has merely been a slogan. It could actually become a reality, and who knows what such a world might look like?
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April 2006
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