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Arundhati Roy on Massive Protests Against Bush's Visit to India

President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed a controversial deal on nuclear cooperation Thursday between the United States and India. Under the deal, the U.S. would end a decades-long moratorium on sales of nuclear fuel and reactor components to India while allowing the country to substantially step up its nuclear weapons production. India is one of only three countries that has refused to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The deal was criticized by some lawmakers in Washington who said it could lead to the spread of nuclear weapons. House Democrat Ed Markey, who co-chairs the Bipartisan Task Force on Nonproliferation, called the agreement "a historic failure of this president to tackle the real nuclear threats that we face." Meanwhile, John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, defended the deal saying, "India and Pakistan had never signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty and therefore they weren’t in violation of it by having nuclear programs."

Bush arrived in India late Wednesday in his first trip to the country. He was greeted the next day by various branches of the Indian military. After Bush reviewed the troops, he told reporters, "I have been received in many capitals around the world, but I have never seen a reception as well-organized or as grand." But on the streets, Bush was greeted by mass protests across the country. In New Delhi alone, tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets. Crowd estimates varied from 250,000 to 700,000. The president’s three-day stop to India included a visit to Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial in Rahjat.

Bush is due to arrive in Pakistan later tonight, where he is due to hold talks on Saturday. While he is scheduled to meet in Islamabad, the Financial Times reported he may make an unscheduled visit to the southern city of Karachi following Thursday’s suicide bomb attack outside the U.S. consulate that killed an American diplomat and at least three others.

• Arundhati Roy, acclaimed Indian author and activist. She is author of several books including, "The Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire," "The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile" and her Booker prize-winning novel, "The God of Small Things." Her latest article, published on The Nation website is titled "Bush in India: Just Not Welcome."

AMY GOODMAN: We go now to New Delhi to speak with the acclaimed Indian author and activist, Arundhati Roy. She is author of a number of books, including The Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire, The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile, and her Booker Prize-winning novel, The God of Small Things. Her latest article is published in The Guardian in Britain, The Nation in the United States on the website, called "Bush in India: Just Not Welcome." We welcome you, Arundhati Roy, to Democracy Now!

ARUNDHATI ROY: Thank you, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: It's great to have you with us. Your response to President Bush's visit.

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, I must say that it's been one of the weirdest times I’ve lived through, because on the streets, you have these hundreds of thousands of people protesting, and you have -- we have a government that’s been so obsequious that it makes your skin crawl, and we have stories in the corporate press in India which are unbelievable about how Bush arrived with 16 dogs that are staying in a five-star hotel and are not to be referred to as dogs, because they're actually officers of the U.S. Army. We have stories about, you know -- the front-page story today in the major newspaper is about Laura Bush shooting with Boombah the bear and Aanchoo and Chamki, and the front-page story is why Bush missed his dessert at the banquet, and this whole nuclear deal, obviously, which sounds to me a bit like, you know, some -- I mean, I hate to be so rude, but it sounds like sort of like pimps negotiating how somebody should act with their client. You know, you can sort of [inaudible] the girl, but you can't kiss her, because it’s -- and it's all theater, you know? The whole thing about what – whether the fast breeder reactor will be included or not, and so on, because everybody knew that there was no other way but this. And really, it’s a cover for all sorts of other deals that are being signed.

And yesterday on the streets, while I was there, there were, you know, 53 widows, from my state of Kerala, of farmers who have committed suicide because of the closing net of debt around them. Tens of thousands of farmers have committed suicide. And yet, you know, he arrived here with these corporates like ADS and Cogentrix and Unocal. All of them have such dubious records. It's really unbelievable, and yet if you see the way the CEOs and the corporates are falling over him -- and I have to mention this, that they couldn't find a public space in India for Bush to speak, so he ended up -- the meeting was organized in the Delhi zoo, in the walls of the Purana Qila, which houses the Delhi zoo, where he was going to speak to some rich people and some corporate people. But because the Parliament refused to have him there, the Red Fort was surrounded by, you know, a Muslim population. It was too dangerous. Vigyan Bhawan was rejected as being not good enough for him, so -- and you have today, American soldiers on our streets preventing my friends from going into their own homes because Laura Bush is going to drive past to have pictures taken with some orphans. It's just unbelievable, you know. The whole city is shut down. I can hear helicopters flying around over my head.

AMY GOODMAN: Arundhati Roy, you were in the streets in Delhi?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Yes, of course, I was.

AMY GOODMAN: What were you doing?

ARUNDHATI ROY: I was there. In Delhi, there were demonstrations on two days continuously. You know, there was one -- one was basically called by the Jamaat-e-Islami. It was like huge demonstration. And yesterday’s was called by all the independent peoples’ movements, the Left Party and other main political parties. Everyone was just furious, you know.

And yet, if you looked at the Indian news, you know, the major corporate Indian news, it is as if they never happened, because everybody's just so busy, even the heads of television stations who were invited to the lunch with Bush, whether in the garbled journalists or corporate capital, they weren't sure. So they come out of this lunch, and they're being interviewed by their own employees, as if they’re sort of corporate heads. And everyone, on every channel, they are telling you how Bush touched their hand or put his hand around their shoulder -- arm around their shoulder, and it’s as if the demonstrations didn’t happen. It’s unbelievable. In the English press [inaudible].

AMY GOODMAN: If you could explain again, he did not address Parliament because people there would have protested?

ARUNDHATI ROY: First, they wanted -- the government wanted him to address a joint session of Parliament, which Clinton did when he came. The M.P.s threatened to heckle him and embarrass him, so that was not possible. Then they said, “Okay, can he speak at Vigyan Bhawan?” which is this sort of official stuffy auditorium in Delhi, but that was considered too much of a comedown for a man of his charm and radical intellect, so then they said, “Okay, can he speak at the Red Fort?” which is from where the Prime Minister gives his Independence Day speech, but that was too dangerous because it's in the old city, and it’s, you know, full of Muslim terrorists.

But then, finally they said, “Okay, he's going to be in Purana Qila,” which is the Old Fort, which has the Delhi zoo inside. It’s a very beautiful old fort, but it was really interesting, because the Ministry of External Affairs denies any responsibility for this meeting. Then, the Chamber of Industry and Commerce said, “We didn’t call the meeting.” Then they found that the meeting had actually been called by the American ambassador, but then the Federation of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said, “No, no, we've called the meeting.” So the ambassador’s cards are invalid, and they will – you know, guests whom we invited only allowed in. So, you know, on the face of it, there’s all these people phoning, and yet they don't know what to do because they're so scared of him appearing anywhere except in these hugely exclusive hotels. He’s booked the whole of the Maurya Sheraton, the most expensive hotel in India, and the Meridian, where his dogs are living. And it's just crazy.

AMY GOODMAN: Arundhati Roy, what about the visit to the memorial for Mahatma Gandhi?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, you know, the memorial for Mahatma Gandhi is now becoming a favorite visiting spot for all kinds of war criminals. You had Ariel Sharon go there. Then you had the Burmese dictator go there. Now, we have Bush, and when Bush went, you know, apart from the fact that even in advance, people were really upset about the fact that he was going there, even though – you know, I mean, some of us, I mean, speaking for myself, I’m not a sort of unquestioning fan of Mahatma Gandhi, but still, many people are, and he is the symbol of nonviolence in India, you know. And to have this man coming there, and then they sent in the dogs, first the dogs went in to sniff out, you know, whether somebody may have buried a bomb in the memorial, and then he went. So, you know, on the whole, I think almost when Bush leaves and the government and the press, particularly the television and the mainstream newspapers, kind of just get a moment to look back and see what they've done and how they've behaved, I think it's going to be shameful, you know, because people are really, really angry.

AMY GOODMAN: President Bush is in India. He says it's the grandest visit he has had in terms of reception. We are going to New Delhi with Arundhati Roy, the acclaimed author and activist. Among her books, Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire, The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile, War Talk, and her acclaimed international bestseller, The God of Small Things. She has written an article in Britain and the United States, one called "Bush in India: Just Not Welcome," and the one in the Guardian in Britain, "Baby Bush Go Home." She, too, was in the streets with -- Arundhati, how many people do you estimate were in the streets?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, you know, actually, it was difficult for me to estimate, because I was in there, you know? I didn't have a perspective, like I couldn't, you know, climb a tree or something to see. So, I mean, the demonstration that I was in, I think there were about 60,000 or 80,000 people, and the previous day, it was even more than that, because, you know, I mean, it's a nice thing about India that there are so many -- there's such a variety of people, and sometimes they have differences with each other, like the Muslim organizations that actually called the demonstration. It's not that they were sectarian organizations, but, you know, they were obviously outraged by the whole cartoon controversy, and it was combined. And some people had slightly nuanced views about it, you know? So, there were different days, different people, but still, at all times there were hundreds of thousands of people out there on the streets.

AMY GOODMAN: And what specifically --

ARUNDHATI ROY: In Bombay, as well as Delhi, as well as everywhere else.

AMY GOODMAN: And what specifically are people protesting about President Bush?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, in many – basically I think it falls in two categories. One is just the Iraq war and, you know, the terrorism that he's unleashed on the world. But in India, you know, the fact is that the economic policies of the Indian government, which this whole neo-con world which Bush embodies, actually has more of a resonance, because, you know, really, I have to say this, that the real impact of all this is in the villages in India, and there people are too poor to even, you know, really miss a day of work and travel to a big city to protest. So, it's just not possible, you know? But the impact of these policies is what the Congress pretended to be against when it was campaigning in the elections. And then, as soon as they won the elections, they just resorted to, you know, the usual corporate policies and privatization [inaudible].

So, you know, that’s [inaudible] that it’s a double-pronged thing, and that's why I think it's very important for us to understand that this nuclear deal that's being talked about is not just that. You know, it's really the umbrella for a million different other kinds of deals that are going on, which will make it impossible. You know, the Indian government is negotiating India into a corner where, you know, you're not going to be able to -- you're trying to pretend that you're making some equal deal, but actually, you’re officially signing a deal with an alligator. You know, it's not an equal partnership by any means.

AMY GOODMAN: Arundhati, one of the ways the media is characterizing this protest is saying hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands of Muslims have taken to the streets. What is your response to that, seeing it as a sort of Muslim protest, that then people can understand what the demonstrations are about?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, it is true that hundreds of thousands of Muslims took to the streets, but that was only one part, you know? There were hundreds of thousands of other people, too, and that's why I’m saying, there was such a diversity of protest, because those were on separate dates. They were on separate days, like the protest I was at wasn't that, you know? And besides, I don't understand why we should continue to be separating them. You know, Muslims are also people on the street, you know, and they're a huge percentage of India's population.