IT has taken India and the United States of America 58 years after Indian independence to talk turkey. To discover this paradox, one must return to the complex web of issues, personalities and illusions that make up the history of Indo-American relations. But the main underlying issue behind the estranged democracies is simple: the Indian leadership, for good reasons, desired autonomy in decision-making that successive US administrations refused to give.

On Indian independence in 1947, the popular Indian perception of America was very favourable. President Franklin Roosevelt had, after all, pleaded for Indian independence with Winston Churchill. And for the Indian elite, the United States represented a beacon of freedom lit by such worthies as Lincoln and Jefferson. Even if the elite was steeped in British liberalism of the London School of Economic variety, American institutions were worthy of emulation.

For Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s one-man foreign policy-making institution, non-alignment was not merely an appealing philosophical idea but, given the newly independent country’s vulnerabilities, also an essential realpolitik instrument to pursue an independent foreign policy. Given this centrality, a clash of wills and interests with the United States, preoccupied with its own agenda and souring of relations with wartime ally Soviet Union, was inevitable.

Once fighting communism became America’s priority not only in promoting relations with a war-ravaged Europe but also with the emerging world of new nation states, there was no place for India in the web of anti-communist alliances it was cobbling. India’s own problems with Pakistan over Kashmir in particular added to an accentuation of Indo-American differences. Pakistan was only too willing to leverage America’s anti-communist fixation to receive economic assistance and military toys and to cock a snook at India.

Then came the Sino-Indian border war of 1962, with China catching a militarily unprepared India off guard, thanks to Nehru’s grand vision of New Delhi and Beijing leading an Asian renaissance and the misreading of Chinese signs. India’s non-alignment wobbled, and in a battle of survival, as the Indian leadership saw it, India would have embraced the US with both arms. But the Americans hesitated and were niggardly with their assistance. Nehru recovered his balance and the moment of weakness passed.

 

Tragically wrong about Chinese intentions as Nehru was, he was not entirely naïve. After the debacle, he set about building the country’s security forces and the Sino-Soviet split that emerged led to a closer relationship with the Soviet Union than he might have otherwise desired. Moscow became a reliable arms supplier even as the United States and Britain gave the cold shoulder to India in refusing the armaments New Delhi required. The great difference in Soviet and American approach to India was that Moscow was quite prepared to see New Delhi pursue an independent regional role. The Indo-Soviet relationship was buttressed further due to the compact that was being built between Pakistan and China.

A second seminal event in the Indian foreign policy calendar was the gathering storm over the then East Pakistan. The Pakistani military regimes’ criminal and foolish policies towards their eastern wing merely fanned East Bengali nationalism. There was understandable sympathy for fellow Bengalis in West Bengal and the rest of the country, and as Islamabad’s persecution of Bengalis increased, with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman giving eloquent expression to Bengali sentiments, the flood of refugees started trekking into India.

 

India gave succour to the Bengali paramilitary Mukti Bahani and helped set up an exile government of sorts. And as the refugee flood became an avalanche, Indira Gandhi took two steps to prepare for the seemingly inevitable clash with Pakistan: she toured western capitals to warn them of the approaching war and signed an Indo-Soviet Treaty to outflank China and ensure diplomatic support at the United Nations. Though non-alignment had obviously been compromised, the treaty served India’s vital purpose in securing the surrender of the Pakistan army in the east while guarding the UN flank. The rest is history.

Unknown to the world, President Richard Nixon and his Sancho Panza, Henry Kissinger, were conducting their own secret diplomacy with China through the good offices of Pakistan. There was thus a purpose in President Nixon’s infamous tilt against India. American warships were sent to the Indian Ocean (though not to the Bay of Bengal, as is the Indian belief) as a show of force, and the level of anti-Indian rhetoric coming out of official Washington was remarkable, as opposed to the American media’s exposure of Pakistani atrocities in its eastern province.

These events merely served to slot India into the Soviet camp in the American mind. In a sense, non-alignment was tilted towards the Soviet Union because it did not have the colonial history of the West, made the right noises and for many in the new nation states, Moscow’s rise as a power and creed of socialism were compelling. In his impressionable years Nehru himself had been greatly impressed by Soviet economic development, going on to borrow the concept of the five-year plans from the Soviets.

There were, at the same time, some green patches in the Indo-US relationship, particularly in the launch of India’s famed Green Revolution. The United States did help India in its acute food crisis, though President Lyndon Johnson’s ‘ship-to-mouth’ food assistance to keep New Delhi on a short leash caused much annoyance in India and was, in a sense, responsible for doubling Indira Gandhi’s resolve to ensure that the country would produce enough food grain to feed its people.

 

The fall of the Berlin Wall, the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War were climactic moments in the history of the 20th century. India, together with the rest of the world, had to readjust to the new reality of a sole surviving superpower. Old policies stemming from the logic of the Cold War were no longer adequate, and in a world without the Soviet Union, there was less reason for India and America to harbour suspicions of each other.

It is, nevertheless, remarkable that it took so long for New Delhi and Washington to turn over a new leaf in their relationship, despite a pronounced tendency on the part of US conservative think tanks to view India as a counterweight to the growing strength of China. India’s nuclear tests in 1998 were, no doubt, a jarring phenomenon to policy-makers in Washington, and invited condemnation and reprisals. Only France among western nations stood out for its more rational assessment.

Psychologically, the breakthrough in Indo-US relations came during the Clinton presidential visit, the first by a reigning US president since President Jimmy Carter’s less than successful visit during the rather brief prime ministership of Morarji Desai. America did not like India’s bomb – or Pakistan’s for that matter – but larger questions were involved in attuning relations with New Delhi in the post-Cold War world.

 

With the presidency of George W. Bush and the rise of the neoconservatives, the pace of America’s efforts to seek close relations with India increased dramatically, particularly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on American soil. What caused anguish in Delhi, however, was when President Pervez Musharraf took a 360 degree turn to become America’s ally in fighting terrorism in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and Pakistan became a US ‘non-Nato ally’. India’s earlier offer to America of vigorously fighting terrorism (given its own experience in Kashmir and elsewhere) was left on the shelf, as it were.

Like the proverbial elfin, Pakistan had again intruded on the budding Indo-US relationship, evoking a feeling of deja-vu in Delhi. But Washington kept insisting that it had taken the Pakistan hyphen out of its relationship with India. And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came calling to pronounce that it was America’s aim to help make India a major power in the 21st century. Sanctions against Indian space companies were revoked and there was the promise of export of dual use technologies. American warplanes were offered as well as agreements on military cooperation advertised by a rash of joint exercises.

The climax of this mood music came during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Washington visit in 2005 and the July 18 agreement, in particular President Bush’s promise to try to get Congressional approval to relax sanctions against India for helping it with its civilian nuclear energy programme and to ask other members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to do so, despite the fact that India had not signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Washington described India as a responsible nuclear state. The condition was that New Delhi would have to separate its civilian and military nuclear establishments and open the former to rigorous inspections by the international nuclear watchdog, the IAEA.

This agreement has triggered a national debate in India because it raises major questions relating to the country’s foreign policy orientation in a changing world. To begin with, President Bush’s policies of unilateralism and his doctrine of pre-emptive strikes on a country of his choice, leading to the Iraq invasion and occupation, are highly unpopular in India. They go against the grain of India’s policy of multilateralism and faith in international institutions such as the United Nations that American neocons delight in denigrating. Second, Washington has objected to the proposed oil pipeline that would connect Iran to India because Iran belongs to the American declared ‘axis of evil’.

 

It was India’s vote against Iran in an IAEA resolution threatening to refer Tehran to the UN Security Council that led to a major row between the Manmohan Singh government and its left supporters. Besides, there are serious doubts among leftists and many others over the costs of tilting towards the US. A number of respected nuclear scientists too are uneasy over the nuclear aspects of the July 18 agreement – whether it would compromise and cap India’s military arsenals. Besides, the process of separating civilian from military nuclear facilities is bound to be a very expensive and complex process.

Even as the debate continues, it would be useful to recognise that India is entering uncharted waters – the Vienna vote against Iran was, by all accounts, a sacrifice at the altar of the July 18 agreement. Indeed, American legislators were warning India of dire consequences if it did not support the US position, which was also endorsed by the Europeans. Obviously, a radical departure in policy, as envisaged, inevitably meets opposition but it is moot to consider the costs India would have to pay in seeking a close relationship with the United States.

 

The well-worn conventional saying has it that there are no permanent friends in diplomacy, only permanent interests. The post-Cold War world is a dramatically changed one, with one power having reached the pinnacle of power. True that the same power has been brought down a few notches once it got bogged down in Iraq after its insolent invasion and occupation of the country. But the United States’ power will need time and concerted action to counter. In the meantime, there are obvious advantages in evolving a close and cordial relationship.

There are no free lunches in any set of relationships. At this historic moment in the Indo-American relationship, the question to ask is whether India can be true to itself and its interests in promoting the kind of relations the Bush administration desires. If India discovers that the task of satisfying the US on the separation of civilian and nuclear installations is too onerous and not worth the prize of receiving civilian nuclear help, New Delhi should have the courage to say so.

The tenor of US congressional debates suggests that America would expect Indian support for its foreign policy actions. Iran, for instance, is a striking example. The US frowns on the Indo-Iranian oil pipeline project because it wants to isolate the Tehran regime. Offering reciprocal support on some questions of foreign policy is par for course in international relations, but India would be betraying itself if it were to offer Washington a blank cheque. To sing the song of non-alignment in today’s world would be as much of an anachronism as it would be to become a camp follower of another country, however powerful it might be.

 

It should remain India’s endeavour to retain as much autonomy in policy-making as it can, surely the basic idea behind Nehru’s understanding of non-alignment. This does not imply that New Delhi should shirk from exploring new avenues in a vastly changed world. Let us by all means seek good relations with the US within the ambit of the country’ interests, a phrase often prone to abuse. Never before has the need for the widest range of relationships been more urgent as others too are seeking to promote their national interests through new alignments.

America’s interest in befriending India and promoting it as a major regional, if not world, power stems from its desire to checkmate China, a policy that has also led Washington to strengthen its military relationship with Japan. New Delhi is plainly uninterested in being used as a crude instrument to contain China. At the same time, New Delhi should have no qualms about employing the American China fixation to its advantage. Symbolically, the democracy venture India and the US have launched can do no harm although the Bush administration is using democracy as an instrument to achieve its realpolitik goals. And it is, of course, easier for two democracies to do business than it is to deal with a dictatorship, of the proletarian or another variety.

What then may we expect of the Indo-American relationship in the coming year? For one, the 1.8 million-strong Indian American community resident in America should not be underrated. It implies a much larger number of very close relationships straddling the two countries. The United States will retain primacy in India’s relations with the outside world as it will for most other countries, in view of its power to do good or mischief. There will, no doubt, be hiccups in the relationship, which will need statesmanship to resolve.

 

It would be well to recognise that if India stands on the cusp of becoming a major power of sorts, the demands on the national leadership and its maturity in decision-making can only increase exponentially. Perhaps the biggest hurdle in achieving these desirable goals lies at home, in evolving a new national consensus on foreign policy. This question goes beyond the limitations of a coalition government. It concerns what is generally acceptable by the country at large.

The Communists are exaggerating their views to make their point, though it is, in essence, a legitimate one. But there is no need to go overboard on one issue such as Iran to frame an overall policy. And the Samajwadi Party’s attempt to conduct something of a jihad against the government on Iran is reprehensible. It is time to put sober heads together to frame a new consensual policy in the framework of retaining maximum autonomy in policy-making while taking advantage of the fair winds that are blowing India’s way.