Bill `Gotta go’ Clinton arrives in India to expectant welcome

The capacious Air Force One, a custom-designed Presidential plane, touched down at 8.25 p.m and rolled to a stop in the Palam technical area. The Indian chief of protocol Manbir Singh and the US ambassador to India Richard Celeste went up to the airplane to escort the President, his daughter Chelsea and mother-in-law Dorothy Rodham.

Clinton, whose encounters with India have largely involved copious reading and engagement with Indians outside India, beamed as he walked into agreeable weather, with Chelsea at his elbow. They were greeted by External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh, his deputy Ajit Panja, India’s ambassador to the US Naresh Chandra among others, after which they were driven to Maurya Sheraton in a limousine.

Clinton looked fresh and ready for business as he enthusiastically pumped Singh’s hands and exchanged greetings with Chandra. The 15-hour non-stop flight from Washington – with a mid-air refuelling – appeared not to have tired him a bit as he caught up on reading books and briefs. Some, including journalists and staff who arrived ahead of him, watched Attenborough’s Gandhi and Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense on their flight.

Outside, the streets of New Delhi were emptied of people and sanitised beyond regulation as the Presidential motorcade sped to the hotel where there was the usual traditional welcome. Clinton’s only engagement for the night is a private dinner before he leaves for a daylong trip to Dhaka early tomorrow morning. For years now, the US President has been infused with schoolboyish excitement at the prospect of traveling to India. One story – probably apocryphal — goes that when he heard of India’s nuclear tests in May 1998, he clasped his hands in despair and exclaimed, "Dern! I will never get to see the Taj Mahal."

Yet only 20 months later, he has set foot in a berated and bullied country, a development that diplomats on both sides agree is a testimony to the many commonalities between the two differing democracies. Leaving the White House last evening to catch Air Force One, Clinton even dispensed with the usual departure remarks, merely saying “Gotta go” as he bounded out to the chopper that took him to Andrews Air Force Base. The Indian welcome was warm but decidedly low-key in part because of tricky protocol complications. The President’s visit does not officially begin till Tuesday morning, after he returns Monday night from his daylong visit to Bangladesh. Despite the sense that the visit to India is more symbolic than substantive — he spends only a day in New Delhi before hiving off to Agra, Jaipur, Hyderabad and Bombay — there is now a sense of expectancy in the Indian government that this could mark a turning point in India’s relationship with the US. “Don’t hold your breath about any dramatic eventduring the visit, but watch the weeks and months after that,” one Indian official said.

There are skeptics too, including some who say it will all be forgotten once Clinton returns to Washington and begins to pack his retirement bag even as the United States slips into high gear for its Presidential election. Others point out that Clinton is spending precious few hours with Prime Minister Vajpayee before haring off for sightseeing (compare, they say, the talkathons Rajiv Gandhi used to have with Gorbachov, one session going on for six hours).

But the Americans are not very talkative and clearly the highlight of the visit will not be the agreements to be signed in New Delhi, but the brief engagements Clinton will have with India’s burgeoning knowledge economy in Hyderabad and Mumbai. In fact, while the media here is awash with stories about Clinton’s preferred cuisine and the security hassles, the western media has been reporting reams and bytes about the new Great Game — the engagement between world’s two biggest knowledge powers.