Empty euphoria

Political India's reaction to Obama's visit ranged from kudos for a grand initiative to apprehensions of an embedded agenda.

in New Delhi

EUPHORIA scores over objectivity. For veteran Socialist leader and Janata Dal (United) Rajya Sabha member Shivanand Tiwari, this statement broadly sums up the Indian response to the visit of President Barack Obama. The absence of a sense of realism, either by design or by oversight, was the dominant characteristic of the responses from major parties in the polity, and more strikingly from large sections of the influential media. In all probability, these sections of the media could have been managed by the establishment and the ruling dispensation, leading to a new kind of embedded journalism. The net result of all this is the stark failure to present a composite and balanced picture of what really constitutes national or global interest in the present juncture. A visit where the U.S. President essentially advanced his own country's business, strategic and other interests is being portrayed as a grand, mutually beneficial diplomatic initiative, he told Frontline.

For his part, the JD(U) national spokesperson boycotted Obama's Parliament address, albeit in a personal capacity, pointing out the marked difference between Obama's personality as an individual and his bearing as the President of the United States. According to Tiwari, Obama the individual and his personal achievements command respect, but the policies pursued by him as President are no different from the imperialist, expansionist and profit-mongering policies of past U.S. regimes and have in no way contributed to spreading peace and well-being in the world. By boycotting his Parliament address, I was trying to draw attention to this difference, but in the climate of euphoria and management by the establishment, this action got little attention from the media. In this climate, even those sections of the polity that had raised some questions about the visit and its implications chose to change tack, he pointed out.

Tiwari did not name these sections of the polity, but there was little doubt that he was referring to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the JD(U)'s senior partner in the principal opposition grouping, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The BJP had initially objected to Obama's failure to mention Pakistan in connection with the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks in his first speech on arrival in India. The complaint came not only from BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy but also from the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), the leader of the Sangh Parivar of which the BJP is the political arm. The RSS take on Obama's 26/11 comment was typically communal: it sought to conclude that the West and Islam were colluding with the objective of harming Indian interests. Shatrughan Prasad, the Bihar sanghachalak of the RSS, said Obama's statement marked a renewal of the pre-1946 convergence of Western imperialism and the Muslim League.

However, all these trenchant remarks were withdrawn by the BJP and its Sangh Parivar associates by the time Obama's visit ended. The party formally expressed satisfaction over Obama's three-day visit and stated that the visiting President had successfully removed apprehensions. Several reasons were put forth by the saffron party to justify this change of attitude. Party leaders pointed out that Obama had made amends for the faux pas in the first speech by clearly naming Pakistan in his Parliament address and appealing to it to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack to justice. Through this he had addressed the overwhelming Indian feeling, BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman told newspersons.

Apart from this, several party leaders pointed out to the meeting between Sushma Swaraj, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and Obama. The party had apparently raised a clutch of issues at that meeting, including the demand that the U.S. dispel the notion that it considered India a market and Pakistan an ally. The BJP also expressed its concern over the rhetoric in America against outsourcing and also the U.S. view that China has a great role to play in South Asia. It also made a forceful demand for justice to the Bhopal gas tragedy victims. Obama's response to all these issues, BJP leaders said, was reasonable and hence the party's expression of satisfaction over the visit. However, Nirmala Sitharaman also pointed out that the U.S. needed to walk the talk vis-a-vis the assurances made by Obama, including the support he announced for India's efforts to secure a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council.

The Left stream in the opposition, however, did not engage in the kind of attitudinal somersaults that the principal opposition performed. In a statement issued after the Obama visit, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) pointed out that notwithstanding the praise for the one-sided and unequal relations with the United States in the corporate media, the real interests of the people of India are not served by such a relationship.

The outcome of the visit of President Obama of the United States is to further strengthen the strategic alliance with the United States. The joint statement issued after the visit indicates that the main agenda was to prise open the Indian market for the business and commercial interests of the United States and its efforts to draw India into a closer security and military relationship. In the backdrop of the deep recession and high unemployment afflicting its economy, the U.S. is desperately trying to reduce imports and increase its exports worldwide. The framework for economic cooperation contained in the joint statement reflects this agenda: a close defence and security relationship, which will involve also buying U.S. weaponry on a large scale; falling in step with the United States' deceptive and self-serving talk of human rights, democracy and on nuclear non-proliferation. All these are a continuation and reiteration of the Manmohan Singh-Bush joint statement of 2005 and 2006. The joint statement implies that India's two-year term in the Council will be a probationary period as far as the United States is concerned. India is told to behave responsibly' with regard to exporting democracy and human rights interventions by the United States. Given this one-sided interpretation, there can be no mention of the human rights of the Palestinians in Gaza, or the illegal embargo on Cuba, or the slaughter of Iraqi civilians under the military occupation for the past seven years, the statement pointed out.

The CPI(M) further stated that in the name of promoting food security and raising agricultural productivity, what is being pushed is the agenda of opening up Indian agriculture and retail trade for the profiteering of American MNCs like Walmart and Monsanto. The party pointed out that this will be detrimental to the interests of the crores of small and marginal farmers and unorganised retailers in India. It is unfortunate that the Manmohan Singh government has not even raised the issue of justice for the victims of the Bhopal gas leak which is an important matter in India-U.S. relations.

The CPI(M)'s position has been reiterated by other Left parties, including the Communist Party of India (CPI), the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and the Forward Bloc. The Forward Bloc went to the extent of boycotting Obama's Parliament address.

However, according to Congress spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed, the critics of the India-U.S. joint declaration and the Obama visit as a whole were overreacting. According to him, the progress made in India-U.S. relations must be seen in a historical context and the comparison had to be with the context of the 2000 visit of Bill Clinton.

At that time, in 2000, India was facing the burden of sanctions and was isolated. The U.S. was at the head of the sanctions regime and then President Clinton made the first go against the grain and made friendly moves towards India. That process has gathered so much momentum through different regimes in India and the U.S. and has reached the present stage where Obama has stated that the U.S. will march shoulder to shoulder with India.

The National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM), a collective of non-governmental organisations, said it was wary of the idea of shoulder to shoulder march. It pointed out that Obama's visit carried a hidden agenda, to further the profiteering interests of U.S. corporations. It stated: Obama's announcements, in front of the U.S.-India Business Council, of a $10-billion deal for GE and Boeing fuelling the war machine of India and destructive development might generate 50,000 jobs back home, but what about lakhs of livelihoods lost here in India? It is becoming clear that the people's President' has no time for people. Business as usual for businesses seems to be the prime motive.

The NAPM further stated that India's increasing affinity with the global Big Brother was a cause for deep concern for all those who prioritised real democracy, equity and lasting peace in our relations with our neighbours. The NAPM warned of the need for a mature and realistic approach whether on the war on terror' globally or insurgency and Maoism internally, which must be guided by a people-centric decision-making process in India and not pushed by the U.S.

It also pointed to the asymmetry of the U.S' insistence on corporate accountability in the recent Gulf of Mexico oil disaster with Obama's silence on corporate accountability in the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster. This can only be interpreted as successive Indian governments' agreeing to subordinate the economic interests of the vast majority of India's millions to the interests of corporate India, and its commitment to neoliberal economic ideology, the NAPM said.

The Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) also echoed the NAPM's point of view. It pointed out that the Indian government's was not a mature and realistic approach during the Obama visit. It went to the extent of withdrawing permission to even something as simple as a rally calling to save the country from slavery, poverty and unrest'. It was sought to be branded almost as an act of sedition, ostensibly to be in the good books of a VVIP. Clearly, such an attitude will not help the country march ahead in the path of freedom, peace and prosperity, said Nusrat Ali, general secretary of the JIH.

Voices like this do express the widespread concern about the climate and context created by the Obama visit, but the dominant reaction in relation to the event is indeed euphoric.