O Bad New World

Then it was the Great Communicator. Capitalism's smartest cowboy, Ronald Reagan took upon himself the historic responsibility of taming the...

Then it was the Great Communicator. Capitalism8217;s smartest cowboy, Ronald Reagan took upon himself the historic responsibility of taming the Evil Empire. With Reagan at the helm. Americans had a great sense of domestic well being, matched by Pax Americana8217;s global confidence. Reagan was the feel-good president extraordinaire. The arrival of Bill Clinton marked a tectonic shift in political culture. There he was, in 1992, the baby boomer-in-chief, clothed in the loose garment of Kennedy, glib-talking his way to the heart of America. A few collapsed domestic agendas, some rare handshakes on the White House lawns, a couple of historic signing ceremonies of peace and one Paula Jones later, Clinton is today a presidentially furrowed wise man. He is the Great Reconciler, eager to 8220;drop a pebble in the pond and have it reverberate all across America8221;. He wants a national conversation on the newly discovered four-letter word: race. He envisions an America washed clean by racial reconciliation. Great idea, noblesse oblige of the millennial man. But the reconciler seems to be a careless communicator. This from his script of a new world of ethnic and racial hatred: 8220;From Bosnia to the Middle East to Northern Ireland to Africa to Russia to India 8212; you name it8221;. You name it 8212; but America won8217;t be there. There will be only stereotypes.

In the presidential rhetoric, India is a vast stereotype. Otherwise, how could it have got a place along with Bosnia in the glossary of badlands? To confuse communal mistrust with ethnic bloodlust is profoundly stupid. Of course, President Clinton, the peacemaker-in-chief, knows a few things about places like Northern Ireland, the Middle East, Bosnia and Russia. Perhaps with the exception of Northern Ireland, these places have a history 8212; sometimes manufactured history 8212; of war and conquest, of shifting borders and disappearing communities, of little holocausts and false harmony. A case of history being subordinated to ideology, of primordial instincts clashing with modern, democratic impulses. In such a scenario, where does India figure? True, India too has a history of hate. India too has an internationally visible problem called Kashmir. And many things are wrong with India 8212; but the idea of India is stronger than the sum total of its problems. That is why India survives 8212; as a nation state. India is not an artificial state, assembled with parts collected from battlefields, unlike yesterday8217;s Soviet Union or Yugoslavia. It8217;s not Bosnia, Mr President.

But this president is busy playing to history. When you play to history, you need sweeping generalisations. And when you happen to be the First Citizen8217; of the world, your vision should be big enough to comprehend the complexities of this big bad world. Sadly, Bill Clinton8217;s historical aspirations are bigger than Bill Clinton. This paradox makes his lecture on the bad world a black-and-white cliche: America, always willing to overcome, against the rest of the world, steeped in irreconcilable oddities. You don8217;t have to be either a professional anti-American or a self-righteous Third Worldist to see the absurdity of this presidential wisdom. Any Indian, or any student of history, knows better than Clinton 8212; that Bill Clinton gets it wrong.