In a further sign of strengthening U.S.-India relations, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee appeared before a joint session of Congress yesterday to urge closer economic and political ties that he said would help erase the "shadow of hesitation" that still persists between the two countries.

Vajpayee found his audience in a receptive mood. Despite concerns about proliferation, Democrats and Republicans alike have welcomed the Clinton administration's efforts to forge closer relations with India, the world's most populous democracy and a trading partner of vast and largely untapped potential. Their enthusiasm reflects, in part, the growing political and economic clout of Indian Americans, one of the nation's most prosperous immigrant groups and a driving force in its booming computer and software industries.

"The best way to encapsulate this is that the day Vajpayee came to Washington, [Microsoft Chairman] Bill Gates was in New Delhi," said the senior administration official.

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Warming India-U.S. relations
15 Sept 2000, CNN (excerpts)

Vajpayee's speech to both chambers of Congress -- an unusual and rare honor marks a new stage in warming relations with the United States.

For the first time in U.S. history, a Hindu priest (Venkatachalapathi Samuldrala of Shiva Hindu Temple of Parma, Ohio), in traditional dress, opened the congressional session with a prayer, offering a show of respect for the Indian prime minister.

"There was a time when we were on the other side of each other's globes. Today, on every digital map, India and the United States are neighbors and partners. We are at an historic moment in our ties," said Vajpayee, who delivered his speech while seated because of a medical problem with his knee.

India is one of the world's 10 fastest-growing states and the United States is its biggest trading partner and foreign investor. Vajpayee's speech demonstrated his eagerness to encourage more U.S. investment, particularly in infrastructure and high-tech areas.

U.S. President Bill Clinton is preparing an unusually warm reception for Vajpayee, reflecting an improved climate between the two countries. Clinton is scheduled to receive Vajpayee on Friday at a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House that will include a 19-gun salute. A gala dinner is planned for Sunday.

Stephen Cohen, also of Brookings, said the "specter of collapse" that haunted India since independence "has now passed and India is emerging as a great Asian power, joining China and Japan." He noted that economic reforms hold the promise of enabling India to realize its economic potential.

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Gore Meets With India Leader
15 Sept 2000, New York Times (excerpts)
By DAVID E. SANGER and KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

Under the glittering glass chandeliers in a State Department dining room, Mr. Gore basked in an incumbent's perk: acting as host of a state luncheon and talking peace with a world leader. Mr. Gore said India, the world's largest democracy, and America, the world's oldest democracy, shared a special bond.

"As the world's two leading democracies, we bear a special responsibility to take the lead in meeting the challenges that all democracies face," Mr. Gore said. "We must work together to ensure that democracy's promises are realized by all our people, that all benefit from freedom. Quality education, public health, a clean environment — these are the goals we share and which together we can achieve. Threats that undermine democracy, such as terrorism and the proliferation of dangerous weapons technologies, are concerns we also share and will work together to address."

The Indian leader, reportedly also had a phone conversation in recent days with GOP presidential nominee George W. Bush.

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Clinton, Vajpayee Stress Stronger U.S.-India Ties 15 Sept 2000, Washington Post (excerpts) By Ellen Nakashima

In a welcome ceremony at the White House today, President Clinton praised Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. “It is not only India's democracy, but India's manner of achieving democracy that will forever inspire America," Clinton said, standing next to Vajpayee on the south lawn of the White House. "From very different histories, India and the United States have forged a common bond, arising from our common commitment to freedom and democracy. Our challenge is to turn our common bond into common achievements."

Clinton praised India, the world's most populous democracy, as a "rising economic leader, making breathtaking strides in information technology."

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Gandhi Likeness Unveiled by Clinton
17 Sept 2000, Washington Post (excerpts), By Bill Broadway

Washington's newest statue, a larger-than-life figure of Mahatma Gandhi, was officially dedicated yesterday by President Clinton and Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee in a small park across from the Indian Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue NW. The robed, sandaled figure faces north, toward the British Embassy about a mile away.

"It's very important for the United States to make a memorial to Gandhi," Clinton said after the dedication. "Gandhi provided the inspiration to Martin Luther King, which spread to the civil rights movement and brought an end to the business of slavery and brought integrity to the democratic ideal."

The president said he hopes "this chain in partnership goes beyond my service into a whole new era of U.S-India relations".

No other country "has been more influenced by India than the United States," said Clinton.

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At This Dinner, Harmony Is Served
18 Sept 2000, Washington Post (excerpts)
By Rowan Philp and Phil McCombs

India and America clinked glasses in their new whirlwind friendship at an elaborate and exotic state dinner at the White House last night as Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee profusely praised Bill and Hillary Clinton--and also Christopher Columbus, "who set sail for India but landed in America. I wonder where we would be if he had actually reached India."

The line got a big laugh from the nearly 700 assorted political, business and entertainment glitterati lucky enough to snag one of the coveted seats in what was by far the largest--and possibly last--such event of the Clinton administration.

Indian tennis legend Vijay Amritraj cast Vajpayee as an unsung hero. "He is one wonderful human being. Imagine keeping people together in a country with more than a billion people."

Vajpayee said in his official toast, "I'm grateful to Mrs. Clinton for taking time from her campaign" to attend the dinner, a line that brought sustained applause--and an apparently startled and pleased reaction from Mrs. Clinton.

Dinner guests also included Jhumpa Lahiri, this year's Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction; Kalpana Chawla, the first Indian American into space; portraitist Chuck Close; comedian Chevy Chase; Event.com CEO Reggie Aggarwal; U.S. Ambassador to India Richard Celeste; Columbia University economics professor Jagdish Bhagwati; and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who was wearing a matronly blue suit and lamented to a friend, "I wish could have worn a sari tonight."

The evening was an Indian summer indeed, climaxing--in a sense--with these dramatic words of Clinton's toast:

"Together," he said, "India and America can change the world."

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Courtship of India: A Strategic Match
20 Sept 2000, Los Angeles Times, By Jim Mann

WASHINGTON--Is the United States beginning to play an India "card" against China? Or, if not, what's driving Washington's recent and growing fascination with India?

Sure, India is the world's second most populous country--and by far its largest democracy. Sure, it's potentially a huge market for American goods. Sure, Indian Americans (now more than 1.2 million) are an important constituency with growing political clout in California and other states. But you could have listed all these factors eight years ago and, back then, they didn't matter much.

The incoming Clinton administration, like its predecessors, dealt with India shabbily, if at all. India was deemed too distant for travel by presidents or secretaries of State. Its leaders were thought to be too querulous and demanding. In the official Washington viewpoint, Russia and China were serious business; India was a sideshow.

Now the policy is rapidly changing. Last March, President Clinton became the first American president to visit India in more than two decades. And last week, he welcomed Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for a state visit, the second summit meeting between the two governments in seven months.

Indeed, Clinton's overtures to India have been one of the most significant policy shifts of his final year in office.

What Clinton has accomplished, to his credit, is to begin treating India as one of the world's leading powers, rather than thinking of India merely as a rival to Pakistan within South Asia. The new U.S. policy is finally recognizing that India is more important for American interests than is Pakistan. The Indians are delighted.

Ironically, the Clinton administration's romance with India has blossomed forth two years after Vajpayee's government incurred Washington's wrath with its series of nuclear tests.

"This is an acknowledgment that we can't roll back those tests," observes Jonathan Pollack, a specialist on Asia at the Rand Corp.

Still, the nagging question remains: Why is this happening now? And to answer that, you have to look at the broader U.S. effort to foster a balance of power in Asia.

China has the biggest and fastest-growing military in Asia. At the moment, Washington doesn't know how it should deal with China. So far, at least, the official American policy is to "engage" China, not to contain it; Tuesday's vote in the Senate to grant China permanent normal trade relations stands as testament to that fact.

But Washington also is hedging its bets, carefully cultivating ties with the other Asian military powers, just in case engagement with China doesn't work.

"The relationship with India is not a zero-sum game with our relationship with China," said Bruce Reidel of Clinton's National Security Council at a press briefing last week. "We believe that both of these countries are countries we have to have strong ties of engagement with."

Maybe. Yet it's worth recalling that a quarter-century ago, American officials used to make similar claims about the U.S. courtship of China--that it had nothing at all to do with offsetting Soviet power.

"I knew that, publicly, one had to make pious noises to the effect that U.S.-Chinese normalization had nothing to do with U.S.-Soviet rivalry," wrote Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's national security advisor, in his memoirs. In truth, he confessed, he thought about the anti-Soviet elements of China policy "a great deal."

For their part, the Indians also try to downplay the China factor in their warming ties with America. Mishra acknowledged, however, that "India is now regarded as a country that provides a balance in Asia."

China might respond to American missile defenses by rapidly increasing its offensive missile capabilities, the Indians fear. In addition, a U.S. missile-defense system could conceivably deepen the already growing military relationship between Russia and China.

"If Russia and China were drawn into strategic cooperation because of U.S. decisions on missile defense, that's got to be an Indian nightmare," observed Pollack.

In short, there are broad strategic concerns propelling the United States and India into a new relationship with one another.

The last two years, said Mishra, have demonstrated that "even a nuclear India is a responsible India." The Clinton administration seems to have swallowed hard and then accepted, nervously, this new reality.