Column

I don’t know what LK Advani had to say about it but the Left was mighty pleased that the BJP’s student wing, the ABVP, joined its blockade to stop Washington’s point man for South Asia, assistant secretary of state Richard Boucher, from entering Jawaharlal Nehru University last week. For a brief while, students from the Left and the Right ceased mutual hostilities to sport placards that screamed, “Say No to the agent of killer George Bush” and other such screwy anti-American slogans. Together they swarmed the gates of the building where Boucher was invited to address students of the School of International Studies and threatened to boo him away. The crowd was boisterous and the mood menacing enough to scare JNU authorities into cancelling the lecture at the last minute. They apologetically asked the US Embassy to tell Boucher not to come. But the visiting American official was determined to have his say.

After all, he had solicited an invitation to speak at the capital’s Red Bastion more than a month ago. So he got the embassy to ferry a group of students and teachers from the university to Roosevelt House for an hour long interaction over tea and cookies.
It turns out that the only students who signed up for the exchange were those reading American studies at JNU. The rest opted not to tangle with the politics of their campus.

It’s called bad timing. Boucher couldn’t have chosen a worse juncture in Indo-US relations to come calling. Usually New Delhi’s most favoured guest, this time he ran smack into a maelstrom of frustration and resentment over Washington’s failure to steer the India waiver through the Nuclear Suppliers Group. South Block corridors were rustling with angry whispers about the debacle. Some dubbed it double cross, others sounded off against the Bush Administration’s waning clout. Boucher caught the
flak. When the usual suspects in the top echelons of the government did not line up to meet him, the media speculated about an Indian cold shoulder.

The buzz grew after his surprisingly short, unheralded visit to South Block. There was no-one to receive him at the gate and he spent just five minutes (the waiting media outside actually timed it) in the building. Compare this to the red carpet that is rolled out to receive him otherwise. He usually has appointments lined up with everyone who’s anyone in the government, from the PM to the National Security Advisor to the external affairs minister et al. Responsible sources insist that the government doesn’t play power games with diplomacy. But Boucher must have felt a shiver from the cold winds that blew his way in South Block as well as at JNU.

Sensibly, he spent most of his three days here showing his wife and son the sights and sounds of Delhi.

TAILPIECE

A visit to the Congress party headquarters in the Capital might have brought some cheer to Boucher. In celebration of the yet-to-be-consummated nuclear deal, balloon king Vishwabandhu Gupta has had two giant hot air balloons shaped like light bulbs erected on the sprawling lawns. Nuclear energy is cheap electricity for all, goes the slogan. The party has also just completed a round of parmaanu (nuclear) yatras with tempos dressed up as mini parmaanu raths. The drum beating is done. Now it remains to be seen whether the deal comes through. Over to Washington.

Email: a_jerath@dnaindia.net