Indo-US Relations - Giving Away too much for Nothing

(Originally appeared in the 1990s in the Times of India, as published in M. D. Nalapat's book "Indutva", Har-Anand Publications, 1999)

In this age of the cable, when soaps are just a button away, few

can be unaware that one of the rules of romance is to play hard 

to get. Should the maiden reveal her feelings prematurely, the 

swain is likely to take her for granted and, consequently, neglect 

her. This is what appears to have happened in the case of India 

and the United States. 

Nowhere did the collapse of the Soviet Union come as a 

greater shock than in Havana and New Delhi. Cuba, at least, had

the excuse of being far away. India and the erstwhile USSR were 

neighbours. .However, even when the putsch against Mikhail 

Gorbachov took place, one of the few embassies to cosy up to the

team of tired apparatchiks that had temporarily taken over the

Kremlin was the Indian one. After the collapse, India appears , 

anxious to enter into yet another comfortable security relationship, 

this time with. the United States. Hence the flow of conciliatory

gestures to that country.

Henry Kissinger, in his book Diplomacy makes clear the U.S.

perspective on unilateral concessions. These, says Kissinger, are

to be taken as signs of vulnerability, and the effort should,

therefore, be to squeeze out yet more concessions, rather than

reward such naivete by positive gestures. As the book had not

yet come out in l991-93 we may perhaps excuse the authors of

the many unilateral concessions this country gave to the U.S.

Alas for them, this policy was reciprocated by renewed American

pressure on sensitive issues like defence technology and Kashmir.

Security Curtain

Earlier, in 1963, this country had come close to entering into a

security curtain provided by the U.S. S. K. Patil, at that time a

Cabinet minister, had said that there had been informal high-

level discussions within the Congress leadership on working out 

security ties with western countries in response to the Chinese 

invasion of 1962. "However, both the British and the Americans 

then started pressuring us to make concessions to Pakistan on

Kashmir, and as a result the idea got dropped". Three decades

later another move for security ties with the United States had

begun to wither in the face of a renewed U.S. tilt towards 

Pakistan. The recent statements of a U.S. under-secretary for

defence that implied that relations with India were conditional 

on Pakistani approval, has at last, led to an Indian reaction. The 

Indian defence secretary's visit to Washington has been

"postponed".

The interlude not just from 1991 but from 1989 to the present 

may be seen as one when India neglected its security systems 

and, slowed down the development of missile and other 

technologies in order to placate Washington. Ironically, it is  

American policy and allies of the U.S. that have been creating 

security concerns for this country in the form of fundamentalist 

terrorism. Afghanistan is the obvious example. During the 1980s,  

U.S.-funded network of terrorist's was created that is now  

active as a mercenary force around the globe. Bolstering the ISI,   

which focused on religion as a means of generating morale and  

fighting spirit during the Afghan war, led to substantial sections 

of the Pakistan army coming under the spell of fundamentalism.  

Its utility as an anti-fundamentalist fighting force is today — 

questionable. 

Fundamentalist Forces 

The significance of this transformation is that should a government

take office in Pakistan that lays stress not on conflicts but on  

business, fundamentalist elements could well induce the armed ,   

forces in Pakistan to intervene and crush attempts at secularising 

that country's polity. Secondly, should there be an upsurge in  

any of the major Gulf countries on the lines witnessed in Iran 

when the Shah was to led, the Gulf sheikhdoms would no  

longer be able to count on Pakistan to provide a counterforce.    

The cry of jihad raised so often by Benazir Bhutto has the  

potential to destroy the cohesiveness of her country.  

Both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are financing and supporting 

fundamentalist organisations on a much greater scale than the  

other theocracy in the region, Iran. In the process, their ruling  

elites may be in the process of nurturing a monster that will 

eventually devour them. As for the U.S., just as it supplied arms 

to Iran in the Shah’s time, it is doing so in Saudi Arabia and 

would probably like to in Pakistan, but for Congress. In contrast 

to the economics-oriented policy pursued by the Clinton 

administration in most of the world, in the case of the Gulf and 

Pakistan, little U.S. pressure seems to exist to make the ruling  

elites of these countries give precedence to a civilian 

administration over the military. In the case of Pakistan, in 

renewing a military alliance with that state, the U.S. may be 

sacrificing not just the possibility of a strategic alliance with 

India, but also stability in Pakistan. Any injection of arms there

will lead to a response from this country, thus triggering off an

arms race that will debilitate the Pakistani economy far more and 

far quicker than it can India's. 

However, this does not appear to be clear to the individuals 

at the policy planning centres in the Clinton administration.

Watching them at work, one is reminded of those who steered

to the U.S. into the Vietnam war. All the calculations were right but

most of the conclusions wrong. In the decade ahead, the U.S. is

likely to enter into a conflict against a fundamentalist enemy

nourished in the past by American policy errors. Should Benazir

Bhutto have taken a stand against anti-secular laws, and choked 

off the irregular war against India in favour of economic

cooperation with this country, she would have earned the 

epithet bestowed on her by Clinton of "moderate". Today, this

is far from the truth. By ignoring the financial support given by

Saudi Arabia to fundamentalist organisations and the military

help given to them by Pakistan, the U.S. is acquiescing in 

cultivating an enemy not just of stability in the subcontinent but

of itself. 

U.S. Sanction

In the case of Iran, by attempting at quarantine ignored even by

the United Kingdom—the U.S. is reinforcing the siege mentality 

propagated by the religious zealots, thus weakening among the  

Iranian people the only counterjforce to theocracy, the bazaaris. 

Another country where sanctions "have lasted beyond a reasonable 

stage is Iraq, which unlike Saudi Arabia or Pakistan has attempted 

to craft a secular (though repressive) polity. While India has 

refused to follow the U.S. lead on Iran, in the case of Iraq too this

country needs to be more assertive within the international 

community in calling for an end to sanctions. A generation 

should not be allowed to form in Iran and Iraq that sees major 

democracies as tyrannies out to strangle their national existence,

or else future terrorist organisations may find rich pickings 

within these states. 

To predicate New Delhi's policy on the dictates of a country 

that has repeatedly shown extreme myopia in its dealings with

Asia is folly. Should India neglect to create defences against the 

fundamentalism being propagated by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan 

and others, this may prove fatal to its existence. Policy has to be 

formulated not to meet the political demands of those in 

Washington but to answer the security needs of the region in

which this country is situated.