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| March 27, 2000 | ||
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| CLINTON'S VISIT Delhi Spring The American President's yatra holds the promise of a major change in the Indo-US ties By Raj Chengappa
In India it was tough to say who evoked more curiosity: Clinton or his omnipresent but discreet, dark-suited security personnel bristling with hi-tech gizmos. Even Richard Celeste, the lanky, silver haired US ambassador to India, seemed intimidated by the blanket of security enveloping his President. Almost apologetically Celeste explained: "Agreat deal has changed since President Carter visited India 22 years ago. We did not even have walls around the embassy then. Now a major part of the challenge is security."
India has never seen anything like this. ITC's Maurya Sheraton, where Clinton is staying when in Delhi, was converted into a veritable Fort Knox. Powerful electronic eyes in the sky -- satellites that can even read the time on your watch -- kept what is called a 24/7 (for 24 hours/seven days) vigil. On ground the entire hotel was so heavily bugged that even a whisper in the corridors could be picked up by concealed microphones and analysed by scores of listeners in the control room. A dozen choppers wait discreetly on standby at a nearby helipad with orders to whisk the President to the safety of his Air Force One aircraft if the need arose. The presidential jumbo jet itself is equipped with Star Wars type of communications and radar systems. Despite the hurry in which the trip was planned there appears to be a method to the mad rush of engagements that have been lined up for the President. Essentially it explores all the facets of India -- its ancient heritage, its commitment to democracy and growing self-confidence as a nation and the exciting prospects it has to offer in the future (see boxes). Clinton is also bringing a heavyweight team that includes the tough-talking Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Secretary of Commerce William Daley, apart from his daughter Chelsea and mother-in-law Dorothy Rodham. And no, his dog, Buddy, isn't flying down with him. With almost 200 journalists flying in from all over the world to cover the event, India could benefit immensely from the hoopla the visit will generate.
However, fixing the events was not as smooth an affair as the several rounds of advance teams that flew into India had hoped. Initially, some of his team members, who were keen to emphasise his concern for issues such as health, wanted the President to visit a red light district in Mumbai and announce a major initiative on aids research. But White House was reportedly furious on hearing the suggestion and nixed it for obvious reasons. Finally it was decided that Clinton would announce the possibility of an Indo-US joint venture on health at a function in Hyderabad to coincide with the World Tuberculosis Day. To stress the need for universal immunisation, Clinton was to also administer polio drops to a baby. But with Andhra Pradesh reporting a 100 per cent observation rate for the vaccine, officials are having a tough time locating a suitable baby for Clinton to doctor. Meanwhile, the killing of a state cabinet minister by naxalites and the discovery of explosives in the city may have shortened Clinton's visit to Hyderabad much to the disappointment of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu. To give a facelift to the city for the visit, Naidu had even appointed a five-member cabinet sub-committee to oversee the preparations.
Mumbai too seems to have been bitten by the Clinton bug. Road dividers are being painted, lamp-posts are being repaired, lights changed and a silver coating applied to keep Mumbai's shine. Sundar Sharma, a chartered accountant, says, "Thanks to Bill-bhai the roads are being fixed and the streets cleaned." Meanwhile, top industrialists and politicians vied with each other to get to meet the President. Officials of the Bombay Stock Exchange tried hard to woo Clinton to visit its premises. They even got the hawkers association to work out an agreement to stay off the pavements just in case the President does agree to visit it. Clinton, however, hasn't really fixed a hectic itinerary in Mumbai. He is addressing top industrialists on it at a function organised by the FICCI. It will be preceded by a meeting with young businessmen and entrepreneurs -- a forum led by Reliance Industries vice-chairman and Stanford alumni Mukesh Ambani, who along with wife Nita brought in the new millennium with the Clintons at the White House. The Oberoi Hotel, where Clinton is expected to stay, ordered an entire new set of cutlery and crockery and 2,000 new monogrammed glasses for the exclusive use of the President's party. Of course stories of the President's habit of snacking are doing the rounds. A chef quipped: "We may introduce him to the ultimate Mumbai junk food: VADA PAV." Meanwhile, to have a brush with grassroots democracy, Clinton aides have lined up a visit to Nayla, a village 25 km from Jaipur which successfully runs a women's cooperative for milk production which had also campaigned to get rid of alcohol shops. Last week the advance team gathered a crowd of about 30-40 women from the village and briefed them on the kind of questions the white "Neta" from Delhi may ask. When they mentioned his name, most of the faces remain blank except for a middle-aged woman who said: "Haan haan, I have read about him in the papers. Isn't he the Lewinsky guy?" The aides changed the subject.
So tight is Clinton's security that they
have cut his travel by road to the bare minimum. In Jaipur, the President
will cover exactly 2 km by road: from the helipad to Nayla. After that,
it's another chopper ride to the Amer Fort and on to Ranthambore sanctuary
where, an mea official jokes, "We are keeping track of tigers pug
marks to make sure he gets to see one of them." Everything that the
President might need is being flown in from the US. And of course there's
a flying hospital -- one chopper equipped with life-saving drugs and
equipment. Just in case. AT Agra, where the President is making a three-hour halt, the district administration has launched a massive cleanliness drive. The 10-km stretch that Clinton drives on -- from the air force base to the Taj Khema, where he is staying, has been relaid. Including fixing street lighting and doing other repairs, the cost is estimated to be around Rs 80 lakh. And to make sure that the Clintons don't think Agra is a dead city, folk dances are being planned at intersections along the 10-km drive. The Secret Service, though, still has to clear this.
Clinton will make a 20-minute speech on the environment at a function hosted by the CII near the monument. Though the eastern gate of the Taj Mahal is only a five-minute walk from the meeting, the Secret Service is taking no chances and want him to go by a limousine. But because of the ban on petrol or diesel vehicles plying inside the monument, battery-operated vehicles have been hired for the President. Clinton's tight schedule has raised serious doubts as to how much the US President and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee could really move forward on discussing bilateral ties. Clinton will be spending barely two out of the 64 waking hours he is in India with Vajpayee. His Delhi end of the trip begins with a ceremonial welcome at Rashtrapati Bhavan, then the dialogue with Vajpayee followed by a lunch. In the evening there is a banquet hosted by Rashtrapati Bhavan and the next day Clinton addresses a joint sitting of Parliament. Of course, some Indian strategists are relieved that the two leaders will have little time to discuss such contentious issues like curbing India's nuclear prowess and getting India and Pakistan to talk over Kashmir. However, Celeste says with diplomatese: "What is significant is that no single issue will determine the failure or success of the visit." The vision statement the two leaders will sign will set the tone for the future but may be couched in banality. Yet it would be unwise to dismiss the visit as one of little consequence especially because it comes at the fag end of Clinton's tenure. For, apart from the degree of continuity that the US maintains in foreign policy despite changes in administrations, it is important that India engages in a dialogue with the world's most powerful nation. After all, the US is India's largest trading partner, it has a wealth of technology that India could do with and the visit holds the promise of a significant shift in relations between the two countries. As Foreign Secretary Lalit Mansingh says, "We are now seeing each other with clarity. We are less suspicious and more hopeful of the future. The main achievement will be to establish the milestone of this new relationship." Already there are signs that Americans are changing their long-held image of India as a bizarre, backward and bombastic nation of a billion plus. Now as Francine Frankel, director, Centre for the Advanced Study of India, Pennsylvania University, says: "We have no doubt that India is going to be a global powerhouse. The President's visit signifies a serious effort by the Administration to work out a policy that gives central importance to this growing reality." Yet such optimism received a setback with Clinton deciding to head in a "westerly direction", as an mea official says with a smirk, after he is done with India. Though Clinton will spend barely five hours in Islamabad as compared to the four full days in India, old suspicions abound as to the US' real gameplan. Clinton may after all just be trying to play peacemaker. If the promise of the Spring of 2000 has to blossom then both sides would have to learn to trust each other a lot more. Meanwhile, during the visit, apart from a moratorium on nuclear tests, MEA officials have decided to hold back on all Clinton jokes till the US President's jet leaves Indian skies on March 25. - with Harinder Baweja, V. Shankar Aiyar, Amarnath K. Menon and Sayantan Chakravarty
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 © Living Media India Ltd |
I
see like a hawk. I buzz like a bee. I am Mr Clinton's Securiteeee,"
is the song on the lips of the 100-odd marines specially flown in from the
US to be part of a mini army for President Bill Clinton during his
week-long official sojourn in the sub-continent.