by
Girish Nikam
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“Deflated and disappointed, I wondered how much I was to blame for the debacle: whether we had lost the election over health care; whether I had gambled on the country’s acceptance of my active role and lost. And I struggled to understand how I had become such a lightening rod for people’s anger. Bill was miserable, and it was painful to watch someone I loved so much hurting so deeply” — Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In her autobiography, “Living History”, Hillary recalls how she and her husband President Bill Clinton felt on that night, in November 1994, when the Democrats lost control of both the House and the Senate to the Republicans. It was therefore most interesting to watch Bill and Hillary joyously celebrating the other night, when the democrats regained control over both the Houses of Congress, after a 12 year hiatus, during which Clinton himself had to wage many a battle with the Republican-controlled Congress including shut down of the Government thrice in 1995.

The difference between 1994 and 2006 in the United States is that despite the loss of majority for the Democrats in 1994, Clinton as the President enjoyed a clear majority support among people.
The loss of majority for the Republicans now is however a direct consequence of the rage, anger and frustration of the majority of American people against its President, George Bush.

What is interesting for us in India while following what happened in America was that how the neo-conservative right wing is losing steam there. In fact what Americans did last week by voting the Republicans out, was done in India two and a half years ago, when the NDA was voted out.

The politics of Republicans and the BJP has been so similar, that the BJP can draw a lesson or two from the Republican loss (since it refuses to learn lessons from its own defeat even now).

It is interesting that Bush who had won his second term in 2004, by invoking the “war on terror”, and his “macho interventions” in Iraq, just like the BJP in 1999 used the Kargil war to whip up a patriotic fervour in its favour, found himself just two years down the line, being defeated for the same reasons.

Like the BJP, Bush also had used the religious idioms and drew people’s support, but this time around, his Republicans found the same techniques didn’t work, just like the BJP found out in 2004.

Is the world moving away slowly from the right-wing conservatism and the globalisation and economic policies associated with it?

Going by the victory of the leftist oriented leaders in many parts of South America and also Europe, latest being Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, it seems that the world is slowly questioning these economic concepts, pushed most vehemently by the Republicans in America.

In fact even those who were the evangelists for the so-called globalisation, like American John Perkins, have started coming out against it. In fact, it is becoming increasingly clear that globalisation is a mask for promoting the US big time commercial interests.

Perkins in his book, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”, points out how people like him were used to “encourage world leaders to become part of a vast network that promoted US commercial interests.

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In the end, those leaders become ensnared in a web of debt that ensures their loyalty. We can draw on them whenever we desire— to satisfy our political, economic or military needs “.

The victory of the Democrats in America is bound to change some of these, though how far-reaching it would be for the rest of the world, caught in the vortex of the sole super-power juggernaut, is anybody’s guess.

Of course as far as India is concerned, its immediate concern is what will happen to the nuclear deal, which is pending before the US Senate. Opinions are divided, with Bush expressing hopes and making a last ditch effort to get it through the lame duck session beginning next week.

If it indeed comes through, it will be some relief for the beleaguered US President reeling under the loss of the House and Senate majority. But if it doesn’t, both he and India have another uphill task ahead to push the deal through in the new Democrat-majority Senate next year. This would mean re-working the deal, and it may not be entirely to the satisfaction of India, which has put many conditionalities.

On the face of them, these conditionalities are discriminatory to the other nuclear nations, which have already protested against the favourable treatment to India.

So will the Democrats decide not to go ahead with these favourable conditions, and revive the CTBT and insist on India signing it? There are several questions that will crop up if the deal does not get through the Senate next week.

It will also mean a lively and interesting debate in the winter session of the Indian Parliament later this month on the entire issue. But the silver lining in the dark clouds surrounding the nuclear deal is that Hillary Clinton has become a very important voice in the Senate and the Democratic scheme of things. And what does she think of India?

“I had wanted to visit India ever since I was a freshman in college—–Before I decided to enter Law school, I had considered going to India to study or teach. A quarter century later (March 1995), I was making my first trip there, representing my country. Bill had asked me to go because he wanted to oversee the development of good relations with India after forty years of the Indian policy of non-alignment and its ties with the Soviet Union during the Cold war “. Hillary’s visit as she describes in her book was “overwhelming and uplifting”.

And what she had begun in 1995 was followed up by that incredibly successful and epoch-making visit of her husband Bill in early 2000. So with both of them continuing to have a sway over the Democrats’ policies and programmes, India can indeed hope for the continuation of the good relations on all fronts.

Maybe, after all, the Democrats’ return to power in the US Congress would actually be more beneficial than Bush’s Republicans for India. Meanwhile, for Hillary and Bill, they have come a long way from the pain, the misery and disappointment they felt 12 years ago, and it is now time to look once again at the White House in 2008.

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12-11-2006