Making A Difference

Read Their Lips

Anti-Bush protests—mainly by Muslims and the Left parties—were loud and clear

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Read Their Lips
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It was quite a motley collection of speakers who had responded to the Jamait’s call. From ex-PM V.P. Singh to Communist leader A.B. Bardhan and former BJP MP J.K. Jain, they were all there. Jain, whom the BJP had expelled for his ‘pro-Muslim’ attitude, had come with a resolution protesting Bush’s visit, hoping to get it passed. It was, but not before Bardhan got his own take in, calling Bush an imperialist dictator. In between, expelled SP member Raj Babbar roared, "The dog is man’s faithful friend. Bush is not." The Maidan reverberated with tremendous applause from a crowd holding aloft posters of Bush resembling a blood-thirsty animal.

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If Bush stokes the fury of some, he fuels creativity in others. Celebrated writer-activist Arundhati Roy not only penned a scathing piece against Bush, but also wrote a satirical play on him, staged before an approving audience at the Left-dominated Jawaharlal Nehru University. And the lead singer of Indian Ocean, Rahul Ram, parodied popular Hindi songs to belt out, "Leke hathon mein hathiyar, Kare sare duniya pe vaar, Washington nagri se aaye hai Bush besharam."

At the time of writing, Hyderabad was preparing to vent its fury during Bush’s day-long visit to the city. Lok Sabha MP Asadullah Owaisi said he wasn’t welcome, irrespective of the red carpet the state was rolling out for him. The Muslim United Council, an umbrella outfit of the community, had given a call for shops to down shutters. Owaisi had a chilling message for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh: "There will be a political price to pay. Manmohan Singh is sending mixed signals to its allies by aligning with the US—be it on Iran or through studied silence on what is happening to Iraq."

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Protesting the Bush visit was also the Left, from a perspective quite different from the Jamait’s. Its anger arose from Bush’s inclination to turn the United States into a world hegemony, taking unilateral military action against Third World countries—and not just the Islamic nations. Eightysomething CPI(M) rallyist from Bijnore Jaswant Singh said: "They have planted their armies everywhere to keep a watch on those who don’t agree with them. All the resources are at America’s command now."

On March 2, as Bush and Manmohan stood together before the media, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat pointed to the anti-Bush crowds before him to say, "The government of India may have welcomed Bush, but India has not and we have shown him how." Though not as impressive a show as the Jamait’s, the Left brought together on the podium a string of leaders, from the SP, the JD(S), the CPI-ML to decry Bush—and float black balloons with ‘Bush Go Back’ slogans, hoping they would drift to Hyderabad House where Manmohan and Bush were engaged in bilateral discussions.

Indeed, these are early days to predict the outcome of the Manmohan government’s courting of the US on Congress fortunes. The Left’s anger is symptomatic of the widening chasm between them and Manmohan. More worrying for the Congress is the large numbers in which the Muslim community has taken to the streets countrywide to protest the Bush visit. This anger will be fanned as the US, in months to come, persists in cornering Iran on the nuclear issue. As Omair Anas, of the Students Islamic Organisation of India, explained, "I’m here as an Indian who is worried about the policies of the upa goverment. The fear Bush has whipped up against Muslims is worrying all of us." Anas then turned around to ask: why isn’t the media strident in its opposition to Bush? He went on to answer it himself, "It’s about ‘manufacturing consent’." Even that consent may be withdrawn by the time four states go to the polls in April-May.

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