Kanwal Sibal,
Dean, Centre for International Relations and Diplomacy, VIF
The United States of America is, once again, not managing its
relations with India well. Gains made during George W. Bush’s presidency
in building strategic trust between the two countries are being
steadily frittered away by wrong steps taken by the Obama
Administration, which seems to have taken its eyes off the India ball.
Blame for this is being laid at India’s door, with the argument that
India has not lived up to American expectations, that we have been
sitting on the fence, unwilling to grasp firmly the hand extended by the
US because of our non-aligned obsessions resurfacing as “strategic
autonomy”.
Such talk assumes that India has to meet certain benchmarks set by
the US in order to be a valuable partner — that is, to earn favour by
behaving according to the US script. In this equation, the US is not
required to live up to India’s expectations. In reality, if the two
countries have to build a meaningful strategic partnership, it cannot be
a one-sided affair, with one side under pressure to give and the other
expecting to take.
Indian and American critics of India’s lack of strategic initiative
believe that the US’s role in lifting nuclear sanctions on India obliges
us to continually offer rewards to the Americans in our defence and
nuclear sectors, carry out economic reforms in accordance with US wishes
and priorities, and make our foreign and security policies increasingly
congruent with those of the US. Such thinking misses the important
point that, apart from extracting major Indian concessions with regard
to India’s nuclear autonomy, the larger US objective was to win India to
its side in the face of the new strategic challenges facing US power in
Asia with the rise of China, the need for burden-sharing in upholding
the post-1945 international system because of the depletion of its
military and economic strength caused by wars and financial
mismanagement.
Has the US, as part of an equitable strategic bargain, adjusted its
options in dealing with issues that are sensitive for India? It has not
entirely given up balancing its relationships with India and Pakistan,
even though India does not support ideologies and actors that oppose US
values and interests and take the lives of its citizens. The US
continues to provide military support to Pakistan. It is reaching out to
the Taliban with the assistance of the Pakistani military, whose only
instrument of political influence in Afghanistan is the former.
Legitimizing the Taliban’s political role in Afghanistan, even as the
Pakistani Taliban are threatening Pakistan’s internal peace, is to leave
behind acute problems for India, already the victim of jihadi
terrorism.
A positive feature of India-US ties in recent years is the better
alignment of their policies towards South Asian countries (barring
Pakistan). However, the US, in furtherance of its democracy and human
rights agenda, has lately taken a divergent course. Any strategic
partnership has to show particular sensitivity to the regional interests
of partner countries. The US has targeted Sri Lanka in the United
Nations Human Rights Council at Geneva, leaving India little choice but
to go along as the US initiative opened the doors to pressures by
regional lobbies within India on the Central government to support
international moves to condemn Sri Lanka.
More recently, the US criticism of the election process in Bangladesh
— which gives comfort to Begum Khaleda Zia and her extremist allies and
undermines politically the secular-minded Sheikh Hasina — is not in
tune with India’s interests. That the US should be politically
protective of forces in Bangladesh that are unfriendly towards India
betrays a failure of strategic understanding on developments in
Bangladesh that are in the interest of the region. The US has,
surprisingly, lauded Begum Zia and her Jamaat allies in the past as
representing “moderate Islam”. Now that Sheikh Hasina is seeking to
exorcise Islamist elements and build a truly moderate polity in the
country, the US is disapproving of her politics, faulty though it may be
in some respects.
The US ignores China’s strategic links with Pakistan, including their
nuclear cooperation, even as it expects India to be the lynchpin of its
re-balancing towards Asia. This essentially means that the western
Pacific region, where American power is being challenged by China. We
have come under enormous pressure from the US to dilute our already
limited relationship with Iran in a bid to further isolate that country,
disregarding our genuine strategic interests in that country, both in
terms of long-term energy security and transit routes to Afghanistan and
Central Asia.
Another instance of the US assaulting India’s dignity, without
control mechanisms being triggered from the top, has been the Devyani
Khobragade case. The US is unwilling to bring a closure to this issue
even now, despite the huge set-back administered to bilateral ties. On
the economic side, from a political position that the several India-US
economic dialogues were strategic in nature as building Indian
capacities in various fields was intended, we have now the US corporate
lobby targeting India on patents and compulsory licensing issues related
to Intellectual Property Rights as well as those of market access. The
US Chamber of Commerce is demanding that the US trade representative
classify India as a “priority foreign country”, a status reserved for
the worst IPR offenders, which can lead potentially to trade sanctions.
The US International Trade Commission is undertaking a year-long
investigation into the effect on the US economy and IPR protection of
India’s trade, investment and industrial policies — an unjustifiable
case of arm-twisting from the Indian point of view, given that Indian
decisions are compliant with the agreement on trade-related aspects of
IPR, and the US remains unresponsive to many Indian complaints on trade
and services issues. On patent and compulsory licensing, the US that
swears by due process is questioning the legitimacy of our Supreme
Court’s judgments.
The treatment of Narendra Modi by the US also shows the ineptitude of
American diplomacy on a domestic Indian political issue it could have
stayed away from. Rather than dealing pragmatically with the visa issue,
the US has taken a doggedly ideological position; even intensive
investigative and legal processes have failed to incriminate Modi. The
belated good sense shown by the Europeans in ending their ostracism of
Modi has been emulated by the Americans with diplomatic clumsiness. Even
as the US Ambassador to India met Modi, the state department announced
that there was no change in the US position on the visa question. The
statement from the US embassy, that the Ambassador also discussed
human-rights issues with Modi, was intended to signal that this subject
continues to weigh with the US while dealing with Modi — an unnecessary
befuddlement if the idea is to make up with him. It seems that the US
wants to hedge its bets on Modi, making the gesture of reaching out to
him in case he might win, but keeping the visa-denial issue alive in
case he loses. This is hardly serious diplomacy.
If the US had judged the importance of India in its strategic
calculus during Bush Junior’s presidency, and if President Obama’s
rhetoric about the relationship with India being a defining one for the
21st century was meant, then the current inattention towards India shows
the strategic fitfulness of the Americans, who emphasize quick gains
over patience in obtaining returns from a key investment in a
longer-term perspective.
