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Khush with Bush

It is Bush. And now we are khush!" That comment by somebody at the external affairs ministry in Delhi sums up the Indian reaction. It is, in fact, one of the few occasions where both Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Leader of the Opposition Sonia Gandhi are in broad agreement. That is interesting because the public perception prior to the American presidential poll was that it would not make much of a difference either way.

What then has led to the general glee in Delhi, however understated? It goes back, I understand, to the time when the prime minister paid an official visit to the United States. Both the Republican and the Democratic candidate took time off from the campaign to pay their respects. George W Bush did so through a telephone call, while the vice-president did so by hosting a dinner. It was at this meal that the Indian attitude began to shift, ever so subtly, in favour of the Bush campaign.

Both the prime minister and the vice-president had got along famously as long as they were in the glare of the media. The trouble began when they went off for a private tete-a-tete. Al Gore was very frank about his priorities if he became the 43rd president of the United States. For a start, he insisted that he would send the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty back to the United States Senate for immediate ratification in its present form. (While the United States has signed the pact, it has no force under law until ratified by the Senate.)

The vice-president was equally candid in stating the corollary: that the United States would bring all the force it could bear to make India sign the treaty as it stands. And this runs flat in the face of the Indian consensus that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in its present form is biased and unworkable.

A Bush presidency promised to be a different ball game altogether. It was a Senate controlled by the Republicans that had refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in the first instance. The Republican candidate had often made his doubts about the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty public.

The Vajpayee administration has made it clear that it is not against a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty per se, merely against the agreement as it exists. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, so goes the Indian view, is based upon a reading of the situation as it existed in the late 1960s or perhaps the early 1970s.

As it happens, global security concerns are not the only point where a Gore presidency might have been in conflict with Indian interests. So might trade relations between India and the United States.

The Gore ticket received a large chunk of votes from the American Federation of Labour-Congress of Industrial Organisations. (This in the American context is the equivalent of India's CITU -- the trade union wing of the Marxists.) The trade unionists, whether in India or in the United States have proved to be amongst the most vocal opponents of economic liberalisation.

One specific issue that raises trade union hackles is the World Trade Organisation. India is a member of the body -- a legacy of the old United Front governments that existed with Congress backing. The World Trade Organisation has the power to impose conditions for trade and to punish those nations which do not accept free trade. This is a provision that is absolutely detested by the American labour unions.

American blue-collar workers are scared that the lower wages and other conditions in Third World nations will lead firms to close factories in the United States. They believe that NAFTA -- the North American Free Trade Association -- helped Mexico at the cost of the United States. But free trade leads to lower prices for consumers, which is why American trade unions needed to come up with a different argument for public consumption.

They found one in Seattle. Mingling with students and environmentalists, blue-collar workers found they could make a better case by injecting a dose of humanitarian concerns. What if, for instance, they insisted that all goods imported into the United States should be untainted by "unacceptable" practices. The definition could be suitably vague -- perhaps anything that did not meet up to the benefits of the American welfare state. It is just not possible for an Indian firm to offer the kind of high wages, generous insurance, holidays and so on that his American counterpart does. If nothing else, it would immediately destroy his relative cost advantages.

But a Gore presidency, indebted as it would be to the AFL-CIO would have been honour-bound to speak for the trade unions. (Gore would have wanted their support once again in 2004!) Bush and the Republicans have always had a more laissez faire attitude.

The third and final reason is that India feared that a Gore presidency would have carried on cosying up to China as the Clinton administration did. China's wretched human rights record and its twisted record on economic reform were all given the go-by. Beijing may have adopted the official attitude that the race was between a Tweedledum and a Tweedledee, but there was a clear preference for Gore.

Bush's stated views on missile defence in general, and the protection of Taiwan in particular, run flat in the face of Communist China's aspirations. With the United States moving from open-handed benevolence to a more guarded policy, China will be forced to be more conciliatory to its neighbours. Doubly so since Bush's National Security Advisor designate has said that the United States should move beyond discussing Kashmir when talking with India...

There are lots of reasons why the Vajpayee ministry has reason to be glad that Bush won through. And Sonia Gandhi? Well, Gore would have thrown up several challenges -- and we all know how Signora Gandhi hates making a decision!

T V R Shenoy