***With the exception of acrimonious disputes mostly for opening up markets for American widgets, America appear to be disinclined to deal with any problem abroad from an altitude of less than ten thousand feet. Bosnia is a prime example.**

Recently i spent about a month In the United State*. Unlike earlier visits, short or long. It was a vacation — a holiday (nan anv kind of obligation or responsibility I managed to evade even the distractions of sight-seeing Most of my time was spent In a very quiet, leafy suburb of New York. I would like to believe that I was not wasting the time — I was studying the contemporary social and political s« ene in America.

Count Alexis de Tocqueville the French aristocrat and political philosopher made the same study more than a hundred and fifty years ago Tlie |Mluct Democracy In America is still considered unsurpassed in Its understanding of the fast evolving American society and uncanny prescience regarding Its future.

In making the study. I had one advantage over Tocqueville. He had to travel over the length and the breath of United States — although smaller in size than it is today, yet big enough — by most primitive mean* of transportations over some of the longest roads. It must have been physically very demanding and extremely uncomfortable. I could conduct my research" mostly recumbent on a living room couch surfing back and forth across more than fifty TV channels. I witnessed the debates of the House and the Senate and the hearings of various ongressional committees and sub-committees. I listened to countless chatshows. debates, interviews and phone-ins covering almost all aspects of the economy. society, family and personal Ilves. I Joined the audience of the tele evangelists and host of interest and pressure group propagandists including the gun-crazies. Then there was the O.J. Simpson trial simultaneous coverage of which by almost all channels gave me enough time, after the initial novelty wore off. to make leisurely perusal of the newspapers, magazines and current best sellers. Facts and opinions thus gathered were supplemented by a few short visits to New York city. These visits let me view first hand the great American melting pot in all its splendour and squalor.

My first visit to America was also the longest. John F Kennedy was the President Despite the Bay of Pigs episode, it was an outward looking, brashly confident America fully sure of its mission and destiny. It was willing to take on commission anywhere in the world.

Yet. ft was a fractured society. The American liberals" seemed to pretend that the black minority — "Afro-American’' is a much later coinage — was Invisible In my one year in Harvard. 1 don't recall having seen any black faculty member and more than couple of black students. Of course, there were black janitors and waiters in the faculty club. But they are not a part of the university community. Same was true for many governmeni offices I visited. It seemed that the mindset of white America changed very little since the time of Tocqueville despite the civil war. two World Wars and America acting as a promoter and champions of democracy all over the world.

And the red-neck America. particularly in the South, was still practising open segregation sanctioned by law and upheld by the gov ernment machinery.

My personal experience of an encounter with the then segregationist US is worth recounting if only to high light how remarkably the country transformed itself in the following decade or so. During the Thanks Giving holidays of 1961, 1 visited Knoxville. Tennessee along with two my fellow students of the Harvard Graduate School of Public Administration (later renamed John F Kennedy School of government). Both Anna George and Sushitai Bannerjee were member of the Indian Administrative Service. (Anna was the first woman in India to join that covetous service. Both of them rose to rank of secretary in the government of India). Our objective was to study the functioning of the Tennessee Valley Authority

(TV A) — one of the largest ever public sector projects in the USA.

We had booked accom modation. by letter, in the local YMCA When we turned up there the lady at the reception looked at our face and was visibly upset. Soon she gathered herself and informed us that there must have a mistake — It was white YMCA and there is a separate one for the blacks. She was. however, kind enough to advise us to try a hotel — a top range hotel would perhaps accommodate us since we were foreigners

We checked in a hotel and went out. For our evening meal, we entered a small restaurant and sat at an empty

table We were not physically thrown out. but everyone in the restaurant, both the customers and the staff, behaved as if we were Invisible. After a fairly uncomfortable quarter of an hour or so. we overheard someone, possibly an enlightened customer, telling a waitress. "Don’t you see the lady in that dress? (It was a sari). They are foreigners, no harm In serving them." But the waiters would not budge. 'Foreigners or not. we don t serve any niggers’, she shouted.

The very next decade witnessed the crusade of Martin Luther King civil rights movement in which quite a few whites also Joined. Both the executive and Judiciary joined hands to legally dismantle the segregationist edifice built over the centuries. Lydon Johnson, perhaps the most underrated and tragic American President of this century, proclaimed the dawning of the great society, courts, with considerable support from a substantial

section of the white majority, enjoined upon the federal, state and local governments to take positive measures for ensuring Integration in all walks of Me.

I witnessed the Impact of all these changes during my next long visit in 1973 It was amazing. Only in America. I mused such a transformation could take place within such a short time

America in 1995 seem to be reneging from its pledge to end segregations not only In law but also in fact. The poor, who overwhelmingly consist of ethnic minorities are poorer than any time In the recent memory. The white majority on one side and almost all of the various

ethnic minorities on the other appear to be retreating Into separate ghettoes of their own Affirmative action, designed to give a helping hand to the historical disadvantaged and discriminated against ethnic minorities. Is under increasingly virulent attack. The legislatures, the courts and the governments at all levels give the Impression of abetting the process Too many fault lines are developing in the American society. I know that Jim Crow days can never be back. Yet I am afraid that It will be quite some time before the current process of fragmentation of the oldest functioning democracy in the world is halted.

Notwithstanding the tragic misadventure and debacle of Vietnam. America since the World War II has been supremely confident of its leadership of the noncommunist world. Hardly ever there was any hesitation to discharge the obligations such a role entailed although on occasions it meant sup-

porting the worst at tyrants, and complicity In unsavory practices. Yet now when the disappearance of the 'evil empire" made it the only natural contender for world leadership, it seems to be desperately seeking ways to abdicate moot of Its interna tional rotes and obligations With the exception of acri monious disputes mostly for opening up markets for American widgets America i|if« i. • Is di SI I Kilned to ileal with mv proiHem abroad from an altitude ol less than len iIwmisciimI iert Bosnia is a prime example

For mure than fifty years the map* in fact almost the sole — driving force behind live US loreum poke v was the imperatives of the Cold War Sudtlrii oilapse of the Soviet empire caught America un-preparer! Tlie policy estab IisIiiih iii is vet to find a co-liereut new role.

Tills happened al a time when changes in demograph Kal and erononMc balance Is making tlie old "establishment viekl to a new one. The prep school Ivy league iv|»e« wiili links Io east coast okl money and international (MiiliMik are being replaced by Newi G ringrich and his types The latter tend to be inward looking They repre-wni .1 sharp break from long bipartisan tradition. Even Nixihi in his twisted way and Reagan with Ills simplistic a I til tv Ie were visionaries with definite ideas of America’s work! role. There is practi ( ally none now

I had a distinct Impression a majority of Americans are increasingly turning Insular. Hiey are also displaying a tendency to make ethnically different recent Immigrants l lie sc apegoat lor many of its problems — real or imaginary. A significant section of news anti electronic media Is en-couraging the tendency. Nothing could illustrate It I letter than the initial public anil media reaction to the Oklahoma carnage. The Instant verdict was that per-mhin of foreign origin, speci-

fkalh- Muslims, must be responsible lor itl

Hispanics constitute the longesi immigrant fpoup Yet during the last thirty vears or so there have been spectacular increase In the number of iHMi white Asian immigrants They are concent rated In certain parts of some particu Ur cities, in effect each in its i» n ghetto, unlike most of earlier immigrants. excluding those m voluntary ones from Africa, tliev are highly visible bv their physiognomy and skin color Thev tend to cling io i heir own religions, social and cultural values. And quite । lew of them have earned a rcjKiiatkin as over-achievers. Human nature being what it is. some Jealous antipathy could ink l>e unexpected. Yet. I dial t believe that in any other country of the world first or second generation immigrants could have achieved w. much.

It was amazing to see so manv South Aslans, particu larly Bangladeshis, in New York. One would meet Bangladeshi business executives, shopkeepers teachers, students, cab drivers, and even women selling flowers and trinkets on the pave ments They are all exercising the Inalienable right of pursuit of happiness as guaranteed by the US Constitution. In how many cases this pursuit will end in si Kress is another matter

Then there are the numerous Bangladeshi restaurants. What a contrast to my first visit to New York more than three decades ago One day I had an over • powering craving for dal. rice and curry which 1 had not tasted for more than three months. I had to spend hours, consulting yellow pages and making telephone calls before I could locate one of the two such establishments In the whole of New York city.

What impressed Alexis de Tocqueville most about America was the process of the disappearance of class divisions and the spread of social consciousness and humanity. I witnessed some regression and set back in this process this time. Yet. I left with the confidence that It Is only temporary. The openness of the democratic process unmatched in any other country In the world will ensure this.