American pie

With the valedictory banquet of marbled potatoes and smoked poussin behind it, Team Vajpayee must now be getting down to totting up the positives and negatives of a long and eventful prime ministerial tour to the US. Two weeks is a long time in politics and the fact that Prime Minister Vajpayee was willing to invest so much time and energy on this trip, despite his indifferent health, testified to the great importance the Indian establishment attaches to its engagement with the US. Whether the sentiment is reciprocated at the other end is difficult to say. Certainly, US President Bill Clinton had many warm words to say about his country8217;s new-found ties with India, and his banquet toast on Monday testified to that, but there8217;s no getting away from the fact that come November and his writ will run no longer.

It is for precisely this reason that many have questioned the wisdom of undertaking such an elaborate trip at such an uncertain juncture of US history. What could be said with some measure of confidence is that while the Vajpayee visit hasn8217;t achieved anything startling, it has firmed up a process that began with Clinton8217;s visit to India in March. Indeed, the joint statement that came out of Washington this time was founded significantly on the Vision Statement that had emerged in New Delhi. The big question was whether the prime minister had succeeded in adequately convincing his hosts about the deleterious effects of cross-border terrorism and Pakistan8217;s active promotion of it. Vajpayee lost no opportunity to hammer home the point, whether it was in his address to the Asia Society, the UN, or the US senate. In the end, while the US was willing for talks between itself and India 8220;to deal with our common concerns about Afghanistan8221;, there was little evidence of a significant shift in its stance towardsPakistan. Therefore it may, perhaps, have been more useful to have sounded a higher note and assumed a leadership role in searching for peace initiatives in the subcontinent, rather than persisted with the breast beating, loud complaints of Pakistani perfidy and constant refrain: 8220;terrorism and dialogue do not go together8221;. On its part, the US quietly and firmly reiterated its concern over non-proliferation and the message seems to have gone home, going by the prime minister8217;s comments at his Frankfurt press conference.

So who gained from the exertions of the last two weeks? Without doubt, the Indian American. The prime minister8217;s trip proved to be a magnificent photo-op for Indian entrepreneurial talent abroad. The banquet that Clinton hosted on Monday symbolised the coming of age of the non-resident Indian 8212; from Silicon Valley geeks to winners of the Pulitzer Prize, from Hollywood greats to Manhattan millionaires, they were all there. The prime minister was quick to use this resource to showcase India as one of the ten fastest growing economies. But these are mere atmospherics. The real test of the India-US relationship lies in the future, with a new dispensation in Washington.