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From Eisenhower to Obama: US presidents who visited India before Donald Trump
Donald Trump’s India visit: High-level exchanges between the world’s largest and the oldest democracies began when India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru visited the United States in 1949.
US president Donald Trump will arrive in India on February 24 on his first official visit to the country.
High-level exchanges between the world’s largest and the oldest democracies began when India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru visited the United States in 1949.
Since then, six American presidents have travelled to India.
Here’s a look back at those visits:
1. Dwight D Eisenhower was the first US president to visit India in December 1959. At the time, India and the US were perceived to be on opposite sides of the Cold War and the warm reception accorded to him helped change perceptions about India in the US.
During his four-day stay, the former US army general joined a rally at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan, addressed a joint session of Parliament and visited the Taj Mahal in Agra.
2. Richard Nixon, best known for his link to the Watergate scandal, was the second US president to travel to India and made a visit almost a decade after Eisenhower.
India was part of a tour of Asia undertaken by Nixon six months after he became president and he spent less than 24 hours in Delhi.
Nixon also didn’t get along with prime minister Indira Gandhi and their relationship and ties between the two countries would hit an all-time low during the 1971 war with Pakistan that led to the emergence of Bangladesh.
3. Jimmy Carter was the third US president to visit India in January 1978. Ties between the two countries still weren’t very warm, mainly due to the 1971 war and India’s nuclear test in 1974, and the visit was aimed at putting the relationship on an even footing.
Carter too addressed Parliament and visited the village of Daulatpur Nasirabad near Delhi, whose name was changed to Carterpuri to commemorate the occasion.
Ties never really took off because the Carter administration continued to pressure India to give up its nuclear programme even as it turned a blind eye to the development of atomic weapons by Pakistan.
4. Bill Clinton, who played a key role in forcing Pakistan to withdraw troops that had occupied key positions in the Kargil sector of the Line of Control in 1999, was the fourth US president to travel to India in March 2000.
Accompanied by his daughter Chelsea, Clinton travelled to New Delhi, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Agra during his five-day visit.
He too addressed a joint session of Parliament and the visit was one the key events that marked a turning point in India-US ties. From India, Clinton travelled to Pakistan but spent only about five hours in that country.
5. George W Bush, whose administration helped finalise the historic civil nuclear deal with India, was the fifth US president to travel to India in 2006. During his visit lasting about two-and-a-half days, Bush and then prime minister Manmohan Singh put the finishing touches to the civil nuclear deal.
However, Bush was unable to address Parliament because of opposition from the Left parties and instead spoke at an event held at Purana Qila.
6. Barack Obama was the sixth US president to travel to India and the only one to visit twice, in 2010 and 2015. During an address to Parliament on his first visit, he described the India-US relationship as “a defining partnership of the 21st century” and backed India’s bid for permanent membership of the UN Security Council.
He also travelled to Mumbai and met survivors of the 26/11 terror attacks.
During his second visit, Obama was the chief guest at the Republic Day celebrations – the first US president to be accorded this honour – and the trip helped further consolidate India-US strategic ties.
