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No big deal

NOW THAT THE Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee's visit to the US has concluded, it is time for stocktaking, and it must be said that, despite the predictable official protestations to the contrary, nothing much has been achieved. While the Clinton Administration's undisguised objective was to utilise the visit to garner as much support as it could from the affluent American-Indian community in the run-up to the Presidential election, the Vajpayee Government's unstated target was to create a public ity wave hoping for a strong fallout on a fragile political scene back home. It is against this background that hyper-emotive statements made by both the sides during the visit will have to be seen: While a senior US Administration official (who is expec ted to keep his feet more firmly planted in the ground than the effervescent Mr Clinton) is reported to have said that: ``On every issue that matters to Americans in their foreign policy in the 21st Century, India will be an important if not a critical p layer'', Mr Vajpayee was hopeful of seeing India-US relations ``grow, imbued with new content, greater understanding and enhanced cooperation.''

Even so, it would have been so much better if the Prime Minister could have returned home with a slew of economic decisions benefiting India, which would not merely have embellished his political image but also materially helped the country in its quest for faster growth. Some agreements were signed relating to the power sector -- adding up to a respectable $7 billion -- with, however, the caveat that, going by actual experience with other power sector schemes in the recent past, the ultimate fruition o f the projects is still very much up in the air (in the normal course, the financial closure of the $4.5-billion 3,960-MW Hirma project in Orissa is not expected before June 2002, the commissioning of the first 600-MW unit being scheduled for 39 months l ater). Indeed, as Indian officials themselves pointed out during the visit, of the $14 billion in American investment proposals approved during the past decade, only $2.5 billion has actually flowed in. What potential US investors would have been far mor e interested in is a specific, time-barred commitment by New Delhi to reduce the `hassles' faced by investors in implementing their projects, on which the visit produced precious little except for the announcement on the setting up a Strategic Management Group within the PMO, the effectiveness of which could, in fact, be sharply curtailed by errant States.

Another subject on the visit's agenda was the increase in the number of H-1B visas released by the US Administration, a substantial portion of which is availed of by Indian IT professionals. Mr Clinton has said that an increase will, in fact, take place ``in the near future'' without, however, specifying the quantum of the increase, offering little comfort to the IT sector, which is straining at the leash to sell its services in the US. (Indeed, this should be seen against the recent move limiting the v alidity of the visas to just one term.) Similarly, nothing concrete has emerged on the taxation problem being faced by these professionals, an issue which was well publicised before Mr Vajpayee left on his trip. It will, of course, be argued, and rightly so, that such decisions cannot be taken overnight (in some cases Congress is involved), which only means that there was nothing extraordinary about the visit's success, contrary to the claims being made. There was also no great progress in easing the te xtile trade from the Indian point of view; on the contrary, a hardening of the US negotiating position was reported with Washington seeking greater access for its products vis-a-vis the Indian market.

In short, the Americans have given nothing away in the economic sphere. Indeed, one cannot blame the US Administration for failing to take the initiative in this direction because of the strong pressure being exerted by American labour interests for job- protection (a case in point is the full-page advertisement, released by the US steel industry in a Washington daily during the Prime Minister's visit, which urged the Administration not to allow cheap imports). If Mr Vajpayee's visit has been `extraordin arily' successful, it has been so in the sphere of diplomacy, particularly as regards the Kashmir issue, an important fallout of the trip being the widespread perception that Washington is today more inclined towards New Delhi than Islamabad. Undoubtedly , this is substantive progress, as is also the case -- to an extent -- with the nuclear non-proliferation issue (CTBT, etc.) although, from the economic point of view, it would have been so much more useful if the remaining post-Pokhran US sanctions had been lifted.