Washington : Former US president Bill Clinton has said India has the potential to outgrow China if it makes peace with Pakistan. This peace between the two countries could lead to a more modern Afghanistan and contribute to a world wide draw down of nuclear weapons, he said speaking at the Indian Institute of Technology’s Global Conference 2009 in Chicago last Saturday. In turn this could even indirectly influence a reduction of conflict in the Middle East, Clinton said when asked how India could play a more significant role in the UN and G 20 in the future. If you [India] did not have to rise defence spending 20 percent a per year and these countries could be working together I think you will grow faster than China,” he said adding, I think this idea that the Chinese are going to dominate the 21st century is not necessarily true.
“If depends mostly what you do and if you can continue to pour money into the development of the people and reduce inequalities in India…not the standoffs along the 1971 line or the fights over Kashmir or what ever,” said Clinton.
“It’s easier to say than to do, I know that especially after what happened in Mumbai, where I watched the hotel room I always stay in burning, I know that, ” he said referring to the stalling og India-Pakistan peace talks after the 26/11 terrorist attacks.
But “I am just telling you if Indian-Americans and Pakistani Americans could find ways to work together it would make a big difference.”
“The same thing is true in Afghanistan. I see this all the time. Every time India does something in Afghanistan, Pakistan thinks it is directed against it and vice versa,” Clinton said.
“But the truth is if the two countries could find a way to work together and do common projects there, it would do more to stabilize Afghanistan and bring it into a 21st century mindset…,” he said. “If that one thing could be done on the Indian subcontinent it would revolutionize the century in ways no one can imagine. It would help to reduce the nuclear threat the world faces,” Clinton said adding, “It would help reduce the rush all these other countries are making to get nuclear weapons.
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The real world is far from being ideal. Very few would be able to sense the hidden agenda of what Mr Clinton has to say. The Americans want to have their cake and eat it too. They are desperately trying to lure India to their camp, while retaining the services of Pakistan, the partner in crime.
What Mr Clinton is suggesting is that India forget the decades of hostility and Pak-state sponsored terrorism and offer Kashmir on a platter to Pakistan, in order to have a dramatic change in its fortunes.
He needs to understand that India and Pakistan are two distinctly different entities, that are charting their own destiny.
Indians have realized that there are no soft options with Pakistan. Therefore it is more important for India to learn from the Israeli experience about how to live with a rogue neighbour, than to buy peace with Pakistan.
Pakistan is destined to continue its policy of asymetrical warfare in order to seek unilateral concessions from India, and India is destined to take Pakistan in its stride.
India is not in a race with China, as it will move in its own pace. India will progress and prosper inspite of Pakistan.
Thanks, but no thanks, for you suggestion to India.