On his triumphalist tour of India and Pakistan, where he hopes to wave
imperiously at people he considers potential subjects, President Bush has an itinerary that's getting curiouser and curiouser.
For Bush's March 2 pit stop in New Delhi, the Indian government tried very
hard to have him address our parliament. A not inconsequential number
of MPs threatened to heckle him, so Plan One was hastily shelved. Plan
Two was to have Bush address the masses from the ramparts of the
magnificent Red Fort, where the Indian prime minister traditionally
delivers his Independence Day address. But the Red Fort, surrounded as
it is by the predominantly Muslim population of Old Delhi, was
considered a security
nightmare. So now we're into Plan Three: President George Bush
speaks from Purana Qila, the Old Fort.
Ironic, isn't it, that the only safe public space for a man who has
recently been so enthusiastic about India's modernity should be a
crumbling medieval fort?
Since the Purana Qila also houses the Delhi zoo, George Bush's audience
will be a few hundred caged animals and an approved list of caged human
beings, who in India go under the category of "eminent persons."
They're mostly rich folk who live in our poor country like captive
animals, incarcerated by their own wealth, locked and barred in their
gilded cages, protecting themselves from the threat of the vulgar and
unruly multitudes whom they have systematically dispossessed over the
centuries.
So what's going to happen to George W. Bush? Will the gorillas cheer
him on? Will the gibbons curl their lips? Will the brow-antlered deer
sneer? Will the chimps make rude noises? Will the owls hoot? Will the
lions yawn and the giraffes bat their beautiful eyelashes? Will the
crocs recognize a kindred soul? Will the quails give thanks that Bush
isn't traveling with Dick Cheney, his hunting partner with the
notoriously bad aim? Will the CEOs agree?
Oh, and on March 2, Bush will be taken to visit
Gandhi's memorial in Rajghat. He's by no means the only war
criminal who has been invited by the Indian government to lay flowers
at Rajghat. (Only recently we had the Burmese dictator General Than
Shwe, no shrinking violet himself.) But when Bush places flowers
on that famous slab of highly polished stone, millions of Indians will
wince. It will be as though he has poured a pint of blood on the memory
of Gandhi.
We really would prefer that he didn't.
It is not in our power to stop Bush's visit. It is in our power to protest
it, and we will. The government, the police and the corporate press
will do everything they can to minimize the extent of our outrage.
Nothing the happy newspapers say can change the fact that all over
India, from the biggest cities to the smallest villages, in public
places and private homes, George W. Bush, the President of the United
States of America, world nightmare incarnate, is just not welcome.
Arundhati Roy, the Booker Prize-winning author of 'The God of Small Things' and 'The Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire', lives in New Delhi, India.
© 2006 The Nation
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