The world's most powerful man in the world's most dangerous place
The Coming of Bill Clinton
US presidents had graced the People's Republic of China five times with state visits between 1971 and now, whereas the one earlier time India was accorded the privilege was when Jimmy Carter sipped chai with Morarji Desai in 1978 (Richard Nixon visited Rawalpindi in 1969). This tidbit is interesting as we proceed to analyse the coming and going of President Bill Clinton in the Subcontinent.
There were a couple of reasons why a lame duck president finally decided to pay us a visit. The first was economic. The monolithic might of undemocratic Red China has always stood as a proximate economic challenge to the US, whereas diverse and much more democratic South Asia has taken much longer to evolve as an economic powerhouse (well, at least in IT). The home-grown billionaires of Bangalore and Bombay can now no longer be ignored, and even Bangladesh is no longer Henry Kissinger's "basket case"—all set as it is to export gas,
to India, if American multinationals have their way.
The second reason is, and we are in full agreement with the president, that South Asia is presently the "most dangerous place" on Earth. How can it be otherwise, when the tom-tomming of using the ultimate weapon is accompanied by the powder keg called Kashmir? Add to that the nationalist jingoism being orchestrated by unthinking satellite and print media…
But so far as the economic rationale behind the trip is concerned, let us understand that President Bill did not come over to be nice to Indians, Bangladeshis or Pakistanis. He was here to ensure that the larger slice of the South Asian market and productivity remains within the grasp of US business, be it in software production or natural gas. As long as this is understood, certainly, there is no harm in exploring how the economies of South Asia may themselves take advantage of the US economic juggernaut, whose boomtime just seems to go on and on and on.