A REMARK by U.S. President George W. Bush saying India was partly responsible for rising global food prices has sparked a nationalistic storm across the political spectrum, with India’s defense minister calling it a cruel joke.

    The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India’s main opposition party, threatened Monday to force a parliamentary debate on Bush’s remarks that India’s increasingly prosperous middle classes were helping push up prices.

    “U.S. policies are also responsible for the food grain shortage,” Defense Minister A. K. Antony told local media, saying that official encouragement of bio-fuels in the United States was causing food shortages.

    He added that Bush’s remark was a cruel joke.

    “Bush has never been known for his knowledge of economics,” India’s Junior Trade Minister Jairam Ramesh said.

    “He has just proved once again how comprehensively wrong he is. To say that the demand for food in India is causing an increase in global good prices is completely wrong.”

    Praising the growing prosperity of developing countries, Bush said Friday there were 350 million people in India who were classified as middle class.

    “That’s bigger than America...and when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food. And so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up,” Bush said, according to a White House transcript.

    (SD-Agencies)