Obama woos Indians with Manekshaw message

WASHINGTON: When Sam Manekshaw and his victorious Indian Army was sweeping across what was then East Pakistan in 1971 leading to the birth of Bangladesh, Barack Obama was ten years old and had just moved from Indonesia to Hawaii, where he joined fifth grade at Punohou School in Honolulu.

It's unlikely that the Field Marshal's exploits were part of his school curriculum, but with a politician's unfailing eye for the telling gesture, the Democratic Presidential candidate on Monday released a statement condoling Manekshaw's death, describing him as "a legendary soldier, a patriot, and an inspiration to his fellow citizens."

"Field Marshal Manekshaw provided an example of personal bravery, self-sacrifice, and steadfast devotion to duty that began before India's independence, and will deservedly be remembered far into the future," Obama said, offering "deep condolences to the people of India."

The statement, which comes at a time when the Indian government itself is under attack for its lackadaisical treatment of a national hero, is emblematic of the image the Obama campaign has sought to build for its principal -- that of a thoughtful, accomplished, well-read candidate who is on top of world affairs and day-to-day developments. Evidently crafted by an alert aide, the statement also helps hit the right ethnic buttons in the US.

There was no such statement from Republican candidate John McCain, himself a war hero who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam at a camp famously nicknamed "Hanoi Hilton" when Bangladesh was being liberated (and probably missed reading about the momentous events). But his campaign issued four separate statements by US military commanders on Monday defending McCain's record as a military hero from a frontal attack by Gen. Wesley Clark, an Obama advisor, who has suggested it is vastly overstated.

Nor did Manekshaw's death make a blip in the White House, whose occupant famously did not know the names of the leaders of India and Pakistan when he was running for office in 2000. For that matter, a Republican White House may not even want to recall that it's then President Richard Nixon dispatched the nuclear-armed USS Enterprise to the Bay of Bengal to threaten Manekshaw's forces.

Obama, his supporters say, is of a different mettle and tempered at a different time. He is the first presidential candidate who is not an Europeanist or Atlanticist. His foreign policy experience is not contaminated by the Cold War. His roots, upbringing, and experience, although mostly American, have shades of Asian and African - which in part explains his quick response to something as remote, for Americans, as Manekshaw's death. Obama, in fact, has taken active interest in the political developments in his paternal home Kenya, whose Marxist opposition leader Raila Odinga claims to be his cousin.

It is now slowly starting to emerge that an Obama presidency will pursue a foreign policy that will be very different in tone and tenor to that of any previous White House occupant -- both by virtue of his own background and the team of aides and advisors he is putting together. Without reading too much into the Manekshaw statement, it appears that South Asia itself will occupy a significant place on his radar, given the number of aides, advisors, and specialists he has from the region.

The latest to join the Obama team are Neera Tanden, a former Clinton Campaign Policy Director, who will serve as his Domestic Policy Director, and Jonah Blank, a foreign policy aide to Senator Joseph Biden, who is doubling up as Obama's advisor on South Asia.