Bush-man sees world

Cohen said that question gave Bush crucial cover. Because the leaders in the question were 8216;8216;obscure8217;8217; and it was 8216;8216;somewhat understandable8217;8217; that Bush could not name them. Had Hiller asked the same question, instead, about France, Germany, Canada and China, Bush might have flunked those too. And that, said Cohen, would have been a different matter. 8216;8216;Hiller,8217;8217; therefore, 8216;8216;not only held Bush to an unrealistically high standard, he inoculated him against further suggestions of intellectual insufficiency. The presidency was his.8217;8217;

Cohen was merely rubbing it in 8212; Bush has had a very bad foreign policy week. There were many acerbic comments in the US media as the Bush administration appeared to flounder abroad, especially in the Middle East, where Secretary of State Colin Powell8217;s peacemaking mission was pronounced by all to be a flop.

But to return to Andy Hiller8217;s question. September 11 really has changed the world. Post-WTC, presidential hopefuls in the US will no more be excused for not being able to reel off the names of the prime minister of India or president of Pakistan. In the new global setting, the subcontinent is no longer obscured from American view.

Gujarat8217;s ghost

Obscurity had its uses, though. Today, it may have saved India the acute embarrassment of the insistent international spotlight on Gujarat.

NEWSWEEK did a cover story on Indian Muslims this week.

The question: Can India handle its Muslim minority? Its answer was chilling. Religious violence in India, the magazine was certain, is pushing its Muslim population deeper into the ghetto and endangering the nation8217;s secular dream.

Brook Larmer trailed 32-year-old Mohammed Rafiq Lalmiya as he went back to his old neighbourhood in Naroda Patia. After the orgy of violence, nothing is left for Lalmiya to return to.

What has also gone from Naroda Patia, according to the report, is the possibility that Hindus and Muslims can live together in peace.

NEWSWEEK pointed out that, outside of Kashmir, the second largest Muslim community in the world has been nearly invisible on the global stage. Even after September 11, Indian Muslims have been easy to ignore. Because the Islam that flourishes in India is 8216;8216;a gentle strain that seems resistant to radicalisation8217;8217;.

But, the magazine warned, the world can no longer afford to look away. The 8216;8216;religious cleansing8217;8217; in Gujarat has exacerbated the 8216;8216;ghettoisation8217;8217; of the Muslim community. As mosques 8216;8216;are starting to overflow8217;8217; and there is a 8216;8216;reinvigoration of Islamic religious schools8217;8217; in India, the situation spells bad news for the West. And for what 8216;8216;was8217;8217; the 8216;8216;glittering dream of Indian democracy8217;8217;.

Where8217;s Gandhi8217;s India?

THIS was the week when a leaked report of the UK High Commission in New Delhi estimated the number of dead in Gujarat as 2,000 8212; more than double India8217;s official figure.

And Britain8217;s FINANCIAL TIMES was provoked by Atal Behari Vajpayee8217;s Goa speech to write what is perhaps the most scathing comment so far in the foreign press on post-Gujarat developments. 8216;8216;In blaming the latest outbreak of communal violence in Gujarat on the country8217;s 130m Muslims8230;India8217;s prime minister has crossed a lethal line in his country8217;s politics.

His remarks threaten to shred the vision of a tolerant and multi-cultural society articulated by Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. They have alarmed all those in India who believe the country should celebrate, rather than be divided by, its diversity8230; His incitement to religious hatred has no place in a civilised world.8217;8217;

Hindu extremism, wrote Sunil Khilnani in the same paper, aims to convert India into a kind of 8216;Hindu Pakistan8217;.

From the Gujarat experience, Khilnani culled a thought-provoking paradox: Multi-cultural India8217;s stability currently depends on relatively weak coalition governments.

It is too simplistic, argued Khilnani, for foreign investors and governments to gauge political stability in India in terms of single-party rule or dominance. 8216;8216;The case of Gujarat exemplifies what can happen when a single party, committed to the ideology of Hindutva, rules unchecked8230;It would recreate 8212; magnified many times over 8212; the same mayhem that Gujarat is suffering today.8217;8217;

But coalitions, he said, are not ideal when it comes to economic policy and reform. Coalition pressures have been largely responsible for the NDA Government8217;s unwillingness to address fiscal reform.

So there it is: Given religious extremism, coalition governments are most likely to bring political stability and prevent Gujarat from spilling into the rest of India. But they are least likely to formulate and implement the economic reform India needs. Khilnani8217;s comments deserve a debate.

George again

Vajpayee was not the only one to make a speech that called for urgent damage control this week.

In the US, speaking on his community-service initiative in Bridgeport, Connecticut, NEWSWEEK recorded the unvarnished George W. Bush: 8216;8216;And so, in my State of the 8212; my State of the Union 8212; or State 8212; my speech to the nation, whatever you want to call it, speech to the nation 8212; I asked Americans to give 4,000 years 8212; 4,000 hours over the next 8212; the rest of your life 8212; of service to America.8217;8217;

Vajpayee issued a clarification in Delhi on what he said in Goa. But Bush8217;s speech was sanitised by White House stenographers. Official White House transcripts, noted THE WASHINGTON POST, seldom mention Bush8217;s goofs. Or the accompanying laughter.