[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 108 (Thursday, September 14, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H7580-H7581]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  ADDRESS BY HIS EXCELLENCY, ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE, PRIME MINISTER OF 
                                 INDIA

  Prime Minister VAJPAYEE. Mr. Speaker, Mr. President pro tem, 
honorable Members of the United States Congress, it is with a deep 
sense of honor that I speak to you today. I would like to thank you, 
Mr. Speaker, and the Members of the Congress, for giving me this 
opportunity.
  In November 1999, a remarkable event took place in the House of 
Representatives. By a vote 396 to 4, the House adopted a resolution 
congratulating India and my government on the successful elections 
completed in October 1999. This display of broad-based bipartisan 
support for strengthening relations with India is heartening. It is a 
source of encouragement to both President Clinton and to me, as we work 
together to infuse a new quality in our ties. I thank you for the near-
unique approach that you have adopted towards my country.
  Those of you who saw the warm response to President Clinton's speech 
to our Parliament in March this year will recognize that similar cross-
party support exists in India as well for deeper engagement with the 
United States of America.
  I am also deeply touched by the resolution adopted in the House 2 
days ago welcoming my visit and the prospect of close Indo-U.S. 
understanding. I am equally encouraged by the resolution adopted by the 
Senate yesterday.
  Mr. Speaker, American people have shown that democracy and individual 
liberty provide the conditions in which knowledge progresses, science 
discovers, innovation occurs, enterprise thrives, and, ultimately, 
people advance.
  To more than a million and a half from my country, America is now 
home. In turn, their industry, enterprise and skills are contributing 
to the advancement of American society.
  I see in the outstanding success of the Indian community in America a 
metaphor of the vast potential that exists in Indo-U.S. relations, of 
what we can achieve together. Just as American experience has been a 
lesson in what people can achieve in a democratic framework, India has 
been the laboratory of a democratic process rising to meet the 
strongest challenges that can be flung at it.
  In the half century of our independent existence, we have woven an 
equisite tapestry. Out of diversity we have brought unity. The several 
languages of India speak with one voice under the roof of our 
Parliament.
  In your remarkable experiment as a Nation state, you have proven the 
same truth. Out of the huddled masses that you welcomed to your shores, 
you have created a great Nation.
  For me, the most gratifying of the many achievements of Indian 
democracy has been the change it has brought to the lives of the weak 
and the vulnerable. To give just one figure, in recent years it has 
enabled more than a million women in small towns and distant villages 
to enter local elected councils and to decide on issues that touch upon 
their lives.

                              {time}  1015

  Two years ago, while much of Asia was convulsed by economic crises, 
India held its course. In the last 10 years, we have grown at 6.5 
percent per year. That puts India among the 10 fastest growing 
economies of the world.
  Economic activity gets more and more diversified by the year. 
President Clinton and many among the friends gathered here have had 
occasion to glimpse our advances in information technology.
  We are determined to sustain the momentum of our economy. Our aim is 
to

[[Page H7581]]

double our per capita income in 10 years, and that means we must grow 
at 9 percent a year.
  To achieve this order of growth, we have ushered in comprehensive 
reforms. We are committed to releasing the creative genius of our 
people, the entrepreneurial skills of the men and women of the country, 
of its scientists and craftsmen. At the same time, we in India remain 
committed to the primacy of the State in fulfilling its social 
obligations to the deprived, the weak, and the poor.
  Important sectors of the country's infrastructure, power, insurance, 
banking, telecom, are being opened to private initiative, domestic and 
foreign. Trade barriers are being lowered.
  Mr. Speaker, ladies and gentlemen, there are forces outside our 
country that believe that they can use terror to unravel the 
territorial integrity of India. They wish to show that a multi-
religious society cannot exist. They pursue a task in which they are 
doomed to fail.
  No country has faced as ferocious an attack of terrorist violence as 
India has over the past 2 decades. Twenty-one thousand were killed by 
foreign sponsored terrorists in Punjab alone, and 16,000 have been 
killed in Jammu and Kashmir.
  As many of you here in the Congress have in recent hearings 
recognized a stark fact: no region is a greater source of terrorism 
than our neighborhood. Indeed, in our neighborhood, in this, the 21st 
century, religious war has not just been fashioned into, it has been 
proclaimed to be, an instrument of State policy.
  Distance offers no insulation. It should not cause complacence. You 
know and I know such evil cannot succeed. But even in failing, it could 
inflict untold suffering. That is why the United States and India have 
begun to deepen their cooperation for combating terrorism. We must 
redouble these efforts.
  Mr. Speaker, ladies and gentlemen, there was a time when we were on 
the other side of each other's globes. Today, on every digital map, 
India and the United States are neighbors and partners.
  India and the United States have taken the lead in shaping the 
information age. Over the last decade, this new technology has 
sustained American prosperity in a way that has challenged conventional 
wisdom on economic growth. We are two nations blessed with 
extraordinary resources and talent. Measured in terms of the industries 
of tomorrow, we are together defining the partnerships of the future.
  But our two countries have the potential to do more to shape the 
character of the global economy in this century. We should turn the 
example of our own cooperation into a partnership that uses the 
possibilities of the new technologies for defining new ways of fighting 
poverty, illiteracy, hunger, disease, and pollution.
  Mr. Speaker, ladies and gentlemen, we believe that India and America 
can, and should, march hand in hand towards a world in which economic 
conditions improve for all. A situation that provides comfortable 
living standards to one-third of the world's population, but condemns 
the remaining two-thirds to poverty and want is unsustainable.
  The foremost responsibility that the 21st century has cast on all of 
us is to change this unacceptable legacy of the past. It should be our 
common endeavor to overcome this legacy. I, therefore, propose a 
comprehensive global dialogue on development. We would be happy to 
offer New Delhi as the venue for this dialogue.
  In this Congress, you have often expressed concern about the future 
contours of Asia. Will it be an Asia that will be at peace with itself? 
Or will it be a continent where countries seek to redraw boundaries and 
settle claims, historical or imaginary, through force?
  We seek an Asia where power does not threaten stability and security. 
We do not want the domination of some to crowd out the space for 
others. We must create an Asia where cooperative rather than aggressive 
assertion of national self-interests defines behavior among nations.
  If we want an Asia fashioned on such ideals, a democratic, 
prosperous, tolerant, pluralistic, stable Asia, if we want an Asia 
where our vital interests are secure, then it is necessary for us to 
reexamine old assumptions.

  It is imperative for India and the United States to work together 
more closely in pursuit of these goals. In the years ahead, a strong, 
democratic and economically prosperous India standing at the crossroads 
of all of the major cultural and economic zones of Asia will be an 
indispensable factor of stability in the region.
  Our cooperation for peace and stability requires us to also define 
the principles of our own engagement. We must be prepared to 
accommodate our respective concerns. We must have mutual confidence to 
acknowledge our respective roles and complementary responsibilities in 
areas of vital importance to each of us.
  Security issues have cast a shadow on our relationship. I believe 
this is unnecessary. We have much in common and no clash of interests.
  We both share a commitment to ultimately eliminating nuclear weapons. 
We have both declared voluntary moratoriums on testing.
  India understands your concerns. We do not wish to unravel your 
nonproliferation efforts. We wish you to understand our security 
concerns.
  We are at a historic moment in our ties. As we embark on our common 
endeavor to build a new relationship, we must give practical shape to 
our shared belief that democracies can be friends, partners, and 
allies.
  In recent years, through all of the good and difficult times, we have 
spoken to each other more often than we have ever done in the past. I 
thank President Clinton for his leadership and vision in steering this 
dialogue. I sincerely thank Members of this Congress for supporting and 
encouraging this process.
  As we talk with candor, we open the doors to new possibilities and 
new areas of cooperation, in advancing democracy, in combating 
terrorism, in energy and environment, science and technology, and in 
international peacekeeping. And we are discovering that our shared 
values and common interests are leading us to seek a natural 
partnership of shared endeavors.
  India and the United States have taken a decisive step away from the 
past. The dawn of the new century has marked a new beginning in our 
relations.
  Let us work to fulfill this promise and the hope of today.
  Let us remove the shadow of hesitation that lies between us and our 
joint vision.
  Let us use the strength of all that we have in common to build 
together a future that we wish for ourselves and for the world that we 
live in.
  Thank you.
  (Applause, the Members rising.)
  At 10 o'clock and 28 minutes a.m., the Prime Minister of India, 
accompanied by the committee of escort, retired from the Hall of the 
House of Representatives.
  The Assistant to the Sergeant at Arms escorted the invited guests 
from the Chamber in the following order:
  The Acting Dean of the Diplomatic Corps.

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