George Bush implied over the weekend that one reason for the global food crisis is Indians are eating too much. The comment didn’t get much attention in this country, but apparently it has in India. Buried way back on A18 of the Washington Post is this small story:
Overnight, Indians reacted with outrage at what they saw as a suggestion that they were to blame for inflation. Politicians lashed out at Bush. Newspapers excoriated him.
“India is not a net food importer. It is a food exporter. The assumption that prices are increasing because of a changed India is completely erroneous,” said Manish Tewari, a spokesman for the ruling Congress party.
Defense Minister A.K. Antony called Bush’s remark a “cruel joke,” while an opposition member called the president the world’s new “bread inspector.”
The White House tried to make things right, with spokesman Scott Stanzel insisting that Bush meant it as a “good thing” that developing countries have better standards of living. But apparently India is not buying it. The story adds:
A cartoon in the Times of India on Tuesday showed a couple of overweight American tourists looking at emaciated Indian men rummaging for leftover food in a trash heap. “No wonder we’re having food shortages back home in the States — these guys in India have started eating way too much,” they say.
The Washpost story does not mention one possible implication of the comment: It may be another setback for the Bush Administration’s effort to complete a US-India civil nuclear cooperation deal. The Bush Administration promised the deal would open a new era of cooperation between the countries, and were counting on it as a major foreign policy accomplishment. But it has been stalled by resistance from Indian leftist parties, who have India’s traditional wariness of alignment with the United States. This is not likely to help things.