| Daily Times - Site Edition | Wednesday, March 01, 2006 |
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Bush a ‘friend’ but US a ‘bully’: Indian survey
WASHINGTON: While two-thirds of Indians consider President George W Bush a “friend of India”, 72 percent of those surveyed consider the United States a “bully”.
According to a report in the New York Times on Tuesday, the Pew Global Attitudes Project found Indians last year to be among the most cheerful in their appraisal of both the United States and President Bush. In a survey published this week, two-thirds of Indians “strongly” or “somewhat” regarded Bush as “a friend of India”, even as 72 percent called the United States “a bully”. In the same survey, conducted by AC Nielsen, nearly two-thirds of respondents said that India should go its own way and defy American objections on a natural gas pipeline to Iran. Fewer than half surveyed said that they would want to “settle down in the US”.
The report by the newspaper’s India-based correspondent, an Indian-American, quoted an unnamed Indian official as saying that India can neither be an adversary nor an ally of the United States, being “a very sovereignty-conscious country”. The nuclear talks, she wrote, are moving “neither as swiftly nor as smoothly” as either Washington or New Delhi had hoped.
Nor have the quid pro quo suggestions made by the American ambassador in India, David C Mulford, gone down particularly well. In exchange for nuclear cooperation, Mulford suggested earlier this month that India would have to take a stance against Iran’s nuclear ambitions, cooperation that Washington would like. The remarks caused a “diplomatic tempest”.
The report said that Hyderabad, which Bush is visiting, represents India’s “civilisational” ties with Iran. It has a large Muslim population, one member of which, tailor Abdul Karim, said: “They talk about democracy, but democracy is on their lips. In their heart, it’s bullying.”
However, Prof Kodandaram Reddy of Osmania University said that young Indians are less troubled by the prospect of American domination than those of his generation. He is 50 years old.
“They think one need not be too scared about white people. We can handle them. It’s naïve to think that it’s always possible to talk it over. It’s not possible. Especially not with the Americans,” he said. khalid hasan