Bush in India: Just not welcome
Arundhati ROY
BUSH IN INDIA: On his triumphalist tour of India and Pakistan,
where he hopes to wave imperiously at people he considers potential
subjects, President Bush has an itinerary that's getting curiouser and
curiouser.
For Bush's March 2 pit stop in New Delhi, the Indian government tried
very hard to have him address the Indian Parliament. A not
inconsequential number of MPs threatened to heckle him, so Plan One was
hastily shelved.
DEMONSTRATION: Indian activists of a leftist group beat a burning
effigy of US President George W. Bush during a protest rally
against Bush’s visit to India, in Hyderabad, March 2. AFP |
Plan Two was to have Bush address the masses from the ramparts of the
magnificent Red Fort, where the Indian Prime Minister traditionally
delivers his Independence Day address.
But the Red Fort, surrounded, as it is by the predominantly Muslim
population of Old Delhi, was considered a security nightmare. So now
we're into Plan Three: President George Bush speaks from Purana Qila,
the Old Fort.
Ironic, isn't it, that the only safe public space for a man who has
recently been so enthusiastic about India's modernity should be a
crumbling medieval fort?
Since the Purana Qila also houses the Delhi zoo, George Bush's
audience will be a few hundred caged animals and an approved list of
caged human beings, who in India go under the category of "eminent
persons."
They're mostly rich folk who live in our poor country like captive
animals, incarcerated by their own wealth, locked and barred in their
gilded cages, protecting themselves from the threat of the vulgar and
unruly multitudes whom they have systematically dispossessed over the
centuries.
Hunting partner
So what's going to happen to George W. Bush? Will the gorillas cheer
him on? Will the gibbons curl their lips? Will the brow-antlered deer
sneer? Will the chimps make rude noises? Will the owls hoot? Will the
lions yawn and the giraffes bat their beautiful eyelashes?
Will the crocs recognize a kindred soul? Will the quails give thanks
that Bush isn't travelling with Dick Cheney, his hunting partner with
the notoriously bad aim? Will the CEOs agree?
Oh, and on March 2, Bush will be taken to visit Gandhi's memorial in
Rajghat. He's by no means the only war criminal who has been invited by
the Indian government to lay flowers at Rajghat. (Only recently we had
the Burmese dictator General Than Shwe, no shrinking violet himself.)
But when Bush places flowers on that famous slab of highly polished
stone, millions of Indians will wince. It will be as though he has
poured a pint of blood on the memory of Gandhi.
We really would prefer that he didn't.
It is not in our power to stop Bush's visit. It is in our power to
protest it, and we will. The government, the police and the corporate
press will do everything they can to minimize the extent of our outrage.
Nothing the happy newspapers say can change the fact that all over
India, from the biggest cities to the smallest villages, in public
places and private homes, George W. Bush, the President of the United
States of America, world nightmare incarnate, is just not welcome. |