STRANGE is the law of unintended consequences.

Nehruvian India with its commitment to a ‘socialistic’ pattern of society made some very fine investments in higher education in science and technology. The IITs are the best known of these investments. The statist economy run by Nehru’s daughter was condemned to the sclerotic Hindu rate of growth. The talent produced by the IITs and their counterparts could not be absorbed by the low growth Indian economy. Where would they go? Luckily for them, the US under President Lyndon Johnson decided to alter immigration rules in favour of talent rather than operate on the basis of racial preferences. This created the ‘brain-drain/brain-bank’ Indian diaspora in the US. The rest they say is history.

Within three years of the fall of the Berlin Wall, India was facing a severe balance of payments crisis. A bunch of courageous leaders and officials pledged our gold but did not default on the country-commitments and with some apprehension took money from the IMF. At the same time, they made the first moves to abandon the dirigiste statist economy that had shackled Indian entrepreneurship. The rest they say is history. A high growth economy is of interest to the world’s richest country in ways that a poor PL-480 wheat-importing country could never be.

Because of a possible glitch in computer programmes, the whole world was worried about what would happen on 31 December 1999. The world in general and the US in particular, discovered that the one magician who could help make this problem disappear was the Indian software engineer who characteristically did not have much to do within India itself. In a matter of a few years, the US discovered that there were literally millions of tasks that the Indian white collar worker could do remotely weaving the world into a gossamer web where ‘out-sourcing’, ‘work flows’, ‘remote management’, ‘collaborative working’ constituted the threads of a global supply chain in services which worked in what is quaintly referred to as ‘real time’... in other words, it is working as we speak. Two countries that were far apart physically have come together in the virtual world and the silken thread that holds them together creates the imperative that each invest in the other, that each purchase some insurance to make sure that the other is a stable reliable partner. Long distance virtual Siamese twins come to one’s mind.

 

When Bin Laden’s shock troops attacked New York city, they were thinking of the ongoing crusade/jehad between Islam and the West. They almost certainly did not think of their fellow-religionists living in a land populated by idolatrous polytheistic Hindoos or of the attempts by the heirs of the much lamented Nehru to create a civic society in this haunting peninsula, a civic society that embraced the separation of church and state and that seemed to have an alternate model where Moslems were not condemned to a collective typecast but where they were viewed as individuals – as cinema actors, cricketers, musicians, scientists, journalists, tennis players, ambitious mothers, hard-working fathers and who despite many being pushed around a bit and being tempted somewhat chose to remain simple peace-loving citizens, not your stereotypical fanatic. India was not perfect, but we were and are working without walls of the Berlin or the West Bank variety and we had our own more textured and agonizing tryst with terrorism and our own humble attempt to deal with the associated issues. Was dialogue with us worthwhile if only to understand the possibility of a societal model which deals with differences, not always successfully but invariably with nuance and sensitivity?

When Indians moved to double and treble their traditional Hindu rate of economic growth, they became petroleum-guzzlers too. They seemed to be imitating their Chinese counterparts in their thirst for oil. Suddenly, the much derided nuclear energy started looking economically and ecologically desirable. The Chinese were going for it as they were inside the tent. But the unreasonably nationalistic Indians were outsiders and would not buy the reactors that the rest of the world wanted to sell them. So they somehow needed to be brought into the tent as late-comers, maybe even as interlopers but with a modicum of legitimacy.

 

For years, we preferred to deal with the ‘Soviet bloc’ on a crude barter basis calling it ‘rupee trade’. For years we preferred to import Soviet designs and equipment for our steel and power plants. But something was happening on the side without many noticing it. The US had become our largest trading partner. Not just software, but textiles, garments, leather, gems, jewels and literally hundreds of services were part of this exchange. And it is the oldest axiom in economics that trade makes friends.

For years, we were scared of letting foreign money in. Memories of Clive and Cornwallis were never quite easily suppressed in our collective unconscious. But suddenly as we struggled to repay the IMF and get rid of our debt burden, we noticed that billions were flowing our way from foreign sources, usually from New York or Boston or San Francisco. This money was being funnelled in by many of our own desi brothers and sisters who seemed to be the managers in all these quaint-sounding Mutual Funds, Hedge Funds, Pension Funds and so on. Suddenly the US was not a lender to us but an investor who had reason to want us to treble or quadruple the Hindu rate of growth, if only to increase their own wealth. Adam Smith’s hidden hand was beginning to work with a vengeance.

Friendships and alliances happen for odd reasons and have odd results. Portugal is Britain’s oldest ally because the Portuguese opposed the French. As a result, Britain lowered import duties on Portuguese wines and the British became a nation of port-drinkers. The French monarchy supported the young American republic although republican ideals were detested, simply because Britain was detested even more. Churchill allied with Soviet Russia despite detesting Stalin simply because he detested Hitler even more. The idea that everything can be explained in simplistic geopolitical terms which have an inexorability about them is a very misplaced idea indeed. There is space for the quirky and the probabilistic in history much more than karmic determinism will allow. Our proximity to the Soviets was not inevitable; neither is our new special relationship with the US. Like all foreign policy happenings it is subject to the vicissitudes and vetoes of domestic politics. For all politics is that of the parish pump or to quote someone who I admire, it is that of the ‘village well’.

 

The Indian American diaspora, the growing Indian economy, the Infotech connection, the attractive alternative to a fractured dialogue with the Islamic world, the sudden discovery that nuclear is ‘cool’ and giving India nuclear equipment is smart, the burgeoning levels of trade, the high velocity investment scenario – all of these put together in the crucible of unintended consequences are suddenly resulting in an alchemy which experts now claim that they had always predicted. The ‘cunning corridors’ of history cannot be explained away in that easy or facile a manner.

We need to look at the present landscape as one that, unintended or otherwise, gives India a degree of flexibility it never had for the sixty years of its independent existence. This flexibility if used wisely can result in greater safety, security, prosperity and freedom for our citizens. If squandered, we will be left regretting for another couple of generations. Friendship based on rock solid mutually beneficial terms with the most powerful and most prosperous country in the world has to be a benefit. Admittedly, there are risks that the embrace may become too tight. We need to stay tuned to the creative tension that this situation provides. We need to be aware of the advantages, not exaggerate them. If we do that, we run the risk of setting ourselves up for disappointments with the most minor of reversals and of course that implies the risk of the professional opponents getting hysterically upset and urging their constituents to follow their example.

 

The US too needs to get away from its habit of fifteen-minute attention spans and of dealing with complex issues through over-simplified sound-bites on TV. Many ill-educated TV anchors and under-educated politicians do not see the difference between nuclear fuel in the theocratic state of Iran and the secular democracy of India. They spend their time on the small screen appearing worried about proliferation risks because it sounds fashionable and politically correct. They not only needlessly irritate thinking Indians, but do their own country a disservice. They must understand that this is a real opportunity to create a long-standing friendly relationship that must not be squandered due to ignorance or insensitivity.

If wisdom continues to prevail on both sides (a situation which is desirable, but which is by no means guaranteed), we have all the makings of a mutually beneficial relationship that could be as productive as the best in history. But it is unwise to assume that nothing can go wrong. From the US and the Indian sides, the political left is not at all comfortable with the new coziness. Unless one is very intrepid and one chooses to predict that the left in both countries will not have any influence, one must worry about this.

 

The American left represented by the Democratic Party has in its stable vicious anti-free trade voices who are opposed to the growth of India’s Infotech sector and who do not see it as a web that binds but one which hurts specialist constituencies of their own. Not that long ago, Americans who did business with countries like India were accused by the Democratic leadership of being traitorous ‘Benedict Arnolds’. (To call an American a Benedict Arnold is a bit like calling an Indian a Mir Jaffar!). The American left is like its counterparts in other parts of the world committed to environmental extremism when it comes to nuclear energy. Their nonproliferation concerns are so exaggerated that they refuse to see that the alternative for countries like India is to burn coal, preferably of the high sulphur variety. A revival of the fortunes of the Democratic Party in the US may end up being quite problematic for India.

The Indian left in its own quixotic way remains a perennial problem. They seem to have no problem with China being nuclear, with in fact China supplying Pakistan with nuclear technology. They seem to have no problem with Iran going nuclear, using technology supplied by Pakistan. It is only with the Indian nuclear programme that they have a bone to pick. They have been steadfast in their opposition to both Indira Gandhi’s bomb and that of Vajpayee. They do not view India’s nuclear cooperation with any country, let alone the US with favour.

The left has a vested interest in low growth and poverty. High growth which results from energized trade and investment leads to the development of a prosperous middle class which is unlikely to vote for the left. The dismantling of the statist dinosaurs would lead to their rentier union constituency getting further weakened. And such a dismantling is the logical consequence of the distrusted and disliked trade and investment flows. In recent times, the left has also seen an electoral opportunity with Muslims which they feel they can cash in on by indulging in loud anti-Americanism. By bringing in issues like Iraq (which certainly affect all thinking Indians, not just Muslims) and by trying to link it with a spurious Muslim solidarity (which is totally tangential, peripheral and irrelevant to the social and economic well-being of Indian Muslims), they believe that they can do better at the hustings.

 

Clearly the left-wing agendas in both countries are a persistent threat to the growth of the Indo-US engagement. This is an expected danger, so to speak. Apathy on the part of those of us who have a vested interest in the energized growth of the Indo-US corridor is another danger we need to watch out for. The curse of the silent majority is that in fact it is silent. And this gets exacerbated because of the loud rhetoric of the hysterical. It is important that we not let the silence be filled by the noise of the opposition alone. The increasingly close engagement of India and the US is something that needs all our support and nurturing. Its foundation is derived from a realistic assessment of mutual self-interest. Its goals are constructive. We must make sure that the effort fares well and fares forward.