Column

Memonics

Washington’s mellow autumn sun is sometimes known to have a strange reaction on the most stable mind, but even so prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s profuse expression of admiration and love for president George W Bush in Friday’s meeting at the White House must appear extraordinary.

Since this came not many hours after Pakistan’s new president Asif Ali Zardari had unabashedly flirted with Republican vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, there might be a reason for a case study about the link between autumn and irrational behaviour in politicians from the Indian sub-continent. But that’s for another day’s debate.

Let’s get past Mr Zardari first. As seen on television, he appeared all excited on meeting Ms Palin, like a country bumpkin (which he is not) meeting a famous star (which she is not) for the first time. After shaking her hand vigorously, he was apparently also straining at the leash to give her a hug.

Perhaps all of (Republican at least) America feels the same way too, for Ms Palin was plucked out of oblivion to become John McCain’s running mate as much for her youthful good looks as her work at the ground level. But for a newly appointed president who has had a major bomb blast in his country claim over 60 lives only a few days earlier, Zardari’s demeanour was unusually frolicsome to say the least — even if he was just trying to ease the tension.

Since not too much is known yet about him as a head of state, I will reserve comment on Zardari’s political capabilities, save to say that Mr Ten Per Cent appeared Cent Per Cent silly in his first major public appearance. But Dr Singh is an entirely different kettle of fish. He is not only one of the world’s most renowned economists, but also prime minister of the largest democracy on this planet, and by all accounts, a man given to sobriety, not hyperbole. What made him drop his guard and gush as he did is intriguing.

By all means, Prez Bush is worthy of Singh’s accolade and gratitude for his unstinting support in the nuke deal. In many ways, that reassurance helped save the Indian prime minister his job when Parliament went to vote on the issue a couple of months ago. One good turn deserves another, and Singh is not known to be exploitative in friendship. But for him to say to Bush, among other things, that “…The people of India deeply love you…’’ is neither skilful satire nor expedient politics.

Prakash Karat, for one, will have a few things to say on this score — if he has not already worked out yet another fulminating speech on the UPA government’s sell-out to the Yanks. As is well-known by now, Mr Karat loathes Dr Singh as much as he does the United States, so this works out into a wonderful double whammy for him.

But Dr Singh’s detractors will not come only from the Left: to deploy the imagery from an immortal Lord Tennyson’s immortal Charge of the Light Brigade, cannons will be readied also from the Right, the Centre, and from whatever comes from front and behind in the melee of Indian politics. And I am not even discussing the resentment that the vast majority of Muslims in India and across the world would feel at seeing the American president being raised to this pedestal.

So tell me that Dr Singh was only joking.

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Undeniably, George W Bush has immortalised himself — as much for his cowboy politics which has brought us closer to another World War as for his foot-in-the-mouth syndrome. Since the War has been thankfully staved off (as yet), there is reason to still regale in the Bushisms that have lit up modern political reportage like little else.

A perfunctory Google search threw up the following and tells us why Mr Bush made us laugh even when he didn’t joke:

“You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.” — in an interview with CBS News’s Katie Couric, September 6, 2006.

Email: ayaz@dnaindia.net