The US government has relentlessly pressurised successive Indian governments to open up the economy to US multinational companies and foreign capital. It uses unfair methods and coercive tactics to capture Indian markets and buy up Indian assets cheaply. The IMF, the World Bank and the WTO are its instruments for economic domination.

The USA has been imposing sanctions on India for long to curb its scientific-technological potential. It stopped the transfer of cryogenic engines from Russia to India. It prohibits American companies from supplying equipment and knowhow for our space technology and other institutions. After the Pokhran tests, this was widened to include 200 organisation and companies.

The Vajpayee government has surrendered one step after another to meet the economic interests of America. It decided on January 31, as an advance gift to Clinton, to allow automatic entry of foreign capital in all sectors of the economy, except for a small negative list of items. 74 percent to 100 percent foreign equity is to be allowed in all sectors.

In December 1999, the BJP-led government arrived at an agreement with the US to lift all quantitative restrictions on imports by 2001 April. This means that by next year all goods including, agricultural commodities, will be freely imported into the country. This will endanger our agriculture and destroy the future of our farmers. It will spell the end of the small-scale industries sector.

The BJP-led government, since 1998 has been holding secret talks with the US. The ten rounds of talks between foreign minister Jaswant Singh and the US representative Strobe Talbott constitute a dark and disturbing chapter in our foreign relations.

The talks have been held clandestinely. The Vajpayee government has never conveyed to the people and parliament the actual content of the talks. The rounds of talks have been held mostly in third countries, not in India or the US - in Frankfurt, in Geneva, London, etc. Why this subterfuge?

Such talks were hidden from the Indian people, because the Vajpayee government has surrendered to the US on all counts. This is being prettified as a "strategic partnership". Can there be an equal partnership between the boss and the subordinate? Between the bully and his victim?

The Vajpayee government agreed to sign the CTBT in 1999 itself. It pleaded for time for creating a "domestic consensus". It was in these talks in 1998 that the BJP-led government assured the US that it would open up the insurance sector to American and other foreign companies.

The Vajpayee government willy nilly accepted the internationalisation of the Kashmir issue by accepting a US role in resolving the Kargil conflict. President Clinton promised to take a "personal interest" in resolving the Kashmir dispute in his joint statement with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

This is what is being touted as a strategic partnership by the BJP leaders. The BJP-RSS combine which rouses ultranationalist chauvinism and jingoism, are the worst betrayers of the national interests. They are mortgaging the country's interests to the world's biggest imperialist power.

President Clinton comes to India at such a juncture. The US is not only acting against India's interests. It is an arrogant and aggressive superpower. It has mercilessly bombed Iraq repeatedly. It used the NATO to bomb Yugoslavia. It tramples upon the national sovereignty of these countries for the only crime of defying its dictates. It wages war on tiny Cuba through economic blockade and subversion as it cannot tolerate any country in the western hemisphere which does not accept "Pax Americana".

According to the United Nations, half the world's population in 75 countries are subject to the unilateral coercive economic measures or `sanctions' by the USA. This is the ugly face of the imperialist superpower.

The chief executive of such a power is coming to India. He must get to know the real feelings of the Indian people, not the fawning subservience of the BJP government.

The people of India present the following anti-imperialist charter to Clinton on his visit:-