Bush ticks off Indian leaders over food crisis comments

Indian leaders of all political stripes are united in condemning U.S. President George W. Bush for comments in which he appeared to blame India for helping create the current global food crisis.

The American leader’s talent for verbal indiscretions was trained on India Saturday when he suggested that demand for "better nutrition and better food" by Indians was one of the reasons for the looming global food crisis.

"Just as an interesting thought for you," Bush said, "there are 350 million people in India who are classified as middle class. That is bigger than America. Their middle class is larger than our entire population. And when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food. And so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up."

But it was not just a "Bushism' for which he has become famous. He was repeating what his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last week. Rice said, "Improvement in the diets of people, for instance, in China and India" was contributing to a food shortage because of rising demand.

She said in countries like India and China, the food problem is not attributed to declining production but growing prosperity, which she said is putting pressure "to keep food inside the country". India recently banned the export of rice.

Bush’s almost accusatory tones ticked off Indian leaders who felt he was saying Indians have no right to be prosperous and demand better things.

"George Bush has never been known for his knowledge of economics. I think this just proves how comprehensively wrong he is,” said Jairam Ramesh, Minister of State for Commerce. He added, "To say that demand for food in India is causing an increase in global food prices is completely wrong."

Another government spokesman, Manish Tiwari, pointed out that India is a net exporter of food, not an importer. And he said, "The assumption that local prices are increasing because of a changed India is completely erroneous."

The Communist Party of India (CPI) added its comments to the Bush remarks as well, saying Bush was merely trying to shift blames for his own failures to India and other developing countries.

"It is the U.S., which has shifted agricultural production from food grains to bio fuels thereby creating a food crisis and pushing up prices," said the party’s leader, D, Raja. Another party official accused Bush of adding insult to injury "at a time when millions of people in India are unable to get enough to eat and suffer from malnutrition."

A spokesman for the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said Bush was pandering to a domestic audience. "His statement is aimed at serving his own constituency in the U.S. ahead of the presidential elections, rather than having much significance for India," said Prakash Javadekar, adding, "The population in India has not increased overnight, neither has the standard of living improved all of a sudden."