India's mixed feelings for U.S.
Demonstrators show resentment for Bush, war in Iraq; others want to expand economic ties

BY MIKE McPHATE
SPECIAL TO NEWSDAY

March 3, 2006

NEW DELHI -- As the United States and India toasted a new milestone of friendship, a nuclear energy pact, tens of thousands of protesters marched yesterday in the streets of New Delhi and Calcutta, waving "Killer Bush, Go Home" placards.

Protesters have packed the streets of every major Indian city this week, galled, they say, by American heavy-handedness overseas. While India is generally pro-American, in a new poll by A.C. Nielsen and the Indian magazine Outlook, 72 percent of respondents said they view the United States as a bully.

AP PHOTO

Muslim women shout anti-U.S. slogans and hold a picture of Osama bin Laden during a demonstration protesting the visit of President George W. Bush in Hyderabad, India.

U.S.-India relations suffered during the Cold War, when India sided with the Soviets, and took a hit in 1998, when India declared itself a nuclear state. Ties between the two democracies have warmed, though, and President George W. Bush pronounced yesterday that "the relationship is changing dramatically."

At the New Delhi demonstration, college student Sumi Saki, 20, held a poster showing a photo from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal with the heading "Liberty of the Colonized."

"Bush is a maniac," she said.

Such sentiment here is greatest among Muslims and communists, a major partner in the ruling coalition. Their main grievance: the occupation of Iraq.

"Basically, the U.S. is now being seen in India as trying to expand its informal empire," said Kamal Mitra Chenoy, professor of international studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University here.

A rally on Wednesday led by Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind, an Islamic organization, drew one of the week's largest crowds. As many as 100,000 Muslim men in white prayer caps assembled in Old Delhi, some perching from trees for lack of space, as speakers described Bush as the world's leading terrorist.

"The people who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, were they involved in 9/11? What the law says is that if you commit a crime you punish the person, not an entire family, not an entire country," said Mohammed Anwer Hussain, a member of Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind.

Yesterday, in a scene protesters ridiculed as hypocritical, Bush slipped off his shoes and placed a wreath at a memorial for Mohandas K. Gandhi, the great Indian pacifist.

Y.P. Anand, director of the National Gandhi Museum, said Indians have been troubled by the seeming rush to war.

"Our system has been Gandhian," he said. "When we have a problem, it must be resolved slowly. With Kashmir, for example, we are not in a hurry to finish Pakistan," he said, referring to the longtime territorial dispute.

Still, despite Indians' opposition to the Iraq war, most do not see it as a barrier to economic links. In the Outlook poll, 74 percent said India should strengthen business ties with the United States. For India's new middle class, such ties are seen as key to rising fortunes.

"Bush is a brilliant personality," said Amit Phogad, 24, a theater manager in jeans and Nike shoes hanging out at a local mall. "He has a good sense of humor, great leadership. It's a very big opportunity that he is in India."

But those left behind by the economic boom have hardly noticed. They know little of the United States and less of Bush.

At a fly-infested slum in south Delhi not far from Bush's high-power meetings, paupers picked through garbage for recyclables.

Shambhu Giri, 35, had heard that a man named George Bush was coming but didn't know who he was. "Maybe he's some notorious criminal," he offered.

Giri brightened when he learned Bush's real profession. "Then he's a good man," he said. "America is very popular."

Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.