Title: Back home,
Clinton sells India to Americans
Author: Chidanand
Rajghatta
Publication: The
Indian Express
Date: March 31,
2000
That might well be the
American lament after hearing their President rhapsodise about India since
his return home earlier this week.
At fund-raisers and on
golf links, in the White House and on the Hill, Bill Clinton has been gushing
about India, clearly smitten by the country after a five-day swing through
it last week.
Catching up on his favourite
game on Monday in Washington, the President did not spare his golfing buddies
either. A storm interrupted the game, and as they clustered inside
a pro shop, one of them asked the rain-soaked President about his trip
to South Asia.
The question ``provoked
a 30-minute presidential disquisition...on the geopolitical significance
of India and Pakistan,'' a local gossip reported cattily.
In fact, the US President
is turning out to be such a good salesman for India that most Indians will
hardly recognise the country he is talking about.
``I went to Hyderabad
in India, which is sort of their high-tech capital, and the head of the
state government there now offers 18 different government services on the
Internet, including getting your driver's licence. Nobody ever has
to wait in a line in the revenue office,'' Clinton said at a Senate reception
on Wednesday night.
Then, amid laughter,
he told the audience, ``Do not move to India just yet. We will get
that done (here in the United States)...''
But it is the visit to
Nayla village in Rajasthan that appears to have left the greatest impression
on him. At a Senate reception in Washington's Hyatt Regency, Clinton
narrated at length his rural India experience to the party's fat cats.
``I'll tell you an interesting
story. I was in this little village in India, one of the hundreds
of thousands of little villages in a country with over 900 million people,
with a per capita income of $450 a year. One of the poorest places
on earth,'' he began.
``So I go to this little
village, and I meet the local government. And it's required now that all
the different tribes and castes have an opportunity to be represented,
and 30 per cent of all the local governments are women elected officials.
And I meet the Women's Dairy Cooperative. And these women took over
the milk business because they got a little machine that tested the fat
content of milk. So they weren't cheating anybody out of good money
anymore.
``And -- now keep in
mind, I'm in one of hundreds of thousands of villages, right, in a country
with a rich and diverse texture, but a low per capita income,'' he continued,
having clearly been impressed with India's plurality. ``Every single
transaction that the dairy cooperative made was recorded on a computer.
Everyone that bought milk in there got a computer printout of what the
fat content was, what the price was that day -- then got an accounting
out of the same computer on who bought the milk and when she got her money.
``Then I go into the
local government in this tiny village. And I see there the computer
in the community center. And every person can come in and get on
that computer in English or Hindi. And many of the things you can
find, you can get even if you can't read, because of the software, the
sophistication of the software. So poor village women can come in
and see how they're supposed to care for their new-born babies in their
first year of life. They pull it up on the screen and then they had
a printer, and they got it out. And it's just as good information as you
can get here or in any other place in America, in the finest doctor's office
in the land.''
The message according
to Clinton? ``This is going to be a very different world in the next
five or ten years.''
But evidently, the President's
delight over his India experience is not shared by the hard-boiled Washington
press corps, which had only one question relating to the trip during an
hour-long press conference Clinton had yesterday. And the question
related to Chelsea and the exposure she got during her India visit.
``I think she was kind
of taken aback by the kind of attention she got in India... I don't
think she sought it out in any way,'' Clinton replied.
He then mused some more
about his daughter, amid speculation in the US media on how she is the
one solid link between parents pursuing their individual courses in life.
While there has been
plentiful commentary and analysis in the US media about Clinton's South
Asia visit, his conservative critics, who have never found anything right
with him in seven years, were at it again.
``President Clinton's
South Asia scrapbook can boast of frequent-flyer ticket stubs, but little
else,'' fumed the Washington Times, describing it as -- at $50 million
-- the most expensive Presidential trip ever undertaken.
According to the paper,
besides Air Force One, 77 Air Force planes were used -- including large
carriers like C-5 and C-17s -- representing more than one-third of the
Air Force's daily inventory.
For all that, the paper
said, President Clinton ``got to be covered in flower petals by Indian
milkmaids, stalk Bengal tigers and watch prancing elephants.''
