US fetters strategic ties

It has become ritualistic for American leaders and officials to declare at the end of every bilateral meeting how important India is for the US. During the just concluded strategic dialogue between the two countries, secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, repeated it. She quoted the US president to state, “India is an indispensable partner to the US.” The statement may please many, but the statement conceals an iniquitous US policy aimed at securing India’s cooperation with little regard for the latter’s interests.

India would do well in not taking delight in the statement, rather as a nation whose partnership is indispensable for shaping the 21st century in a manner that George Bush was inclined to see the relationship. The issue is not one of semantics. The former reflects India’s importance in furthering US interests while the latter would imply cooperation to address global challenges including those that are in India’s interests. It appears that in the glare of US attention, the need to demand that the partnership be built on an equitable foundation, is being lost on India.

Insistence by the US that India prove its worth to become its partner by toeing its line on Iran, by understanding its arms supplies to Pakistan, and not pursue its goal to play a more constructive role in Afghanistan are testimonies to this inequitable partnership. Its policy towards Islamabad has led many commentators to even suspect that the US is once again hyphenating its relations with India and Pakistan.

It began with the attempt of the Obama administration to appoint an interlocutor on the Kashmir issue in the hope that settling the problem would free Pakistan to commit more troops in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The US expected India to understand its compulsions without being sensitive about the security implications it could have for India.

The US has also been selective in sharing critical intelligence and less than forthcoming in its cooperation with India in the fight against terror. The US has done little to show that sharing of intelligence has actually benefited India. Intelligence is only selectively shared to protect the US and when it does not embarrass its ally, Pakistan. Some US foreign policy analysts have averred to this dichotomy. Lisa Curtis, senior fellow at Heritage Foundation, whose pro-Pakistani slant is well-known, had testified before the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs on February 26, 2009 that, “Despite general convergence of American and Indian views on the need to contain terrorism, the two countries have failed in the past to work together as closely as they could have to minimise terrorist threats.”

The initial reluctance to give access to David Headley stems from this dichotomy. The US parried Indian efforts under various pretexts including that Headley has certain rights under the US laws. This may be true but when it came to combating terror after 9/11, the US had established secret prisons from the world to torture and extract information from suspected terrorists. When it came to Headley, the difference was that he was responsible for 26/11 and had no role in 9/11. Though under unrelenting pressure form India the US has given access to Headley, how qualified it has been would only be known after the Indian team returns. In all probability, access would have been limited and regulated.

Compare it with the virtually unfettered access that India gave the US to Ajmal Kasab. The US had justified its request on the grounds that it also had an obligation to investigate the killing of US citizens. Does India not have a duty and a right to investigate the deaths of its own citizens and gain access to a suspect in a country that is ostensibly its strategic partner? Should such reciprocity and equity be buried selectively by the US?

The US arms aid to Pakistan is another area where India has been short-shrifted. In the light of the history that the only country against which Pakistan has used US-supplied arms is India, the transfer of sophisticated platforms that have little or no relevance in the fight against terror, is unjustifiable. President Obama signed into law in October 2009 the Kerry-Luger Bill tripling non-military aid to $ 7.5 billion over the next five years to Islamabad though it had dropped all conditions in the ‘PEACE Act’, which had sought to make the assistance contingent on Pakistan taking steps to prevent terror attacks in India.

Similar has been the attempt of the Obama administration to declare China as a stabilising power in South Asia in a clear reversal of the policies of the previous dispensation which had seen cooperation between India and the US as a means to contain the rise of China. When there are several outstanding issues that India has with China, this US stance is against the spirit of the strategic partnership that Washington is pursuing with New Delhi. The US ignoring China’s defiant support for Pakistan’s nuclear programme and its status as Islamabad’s strongest defence partner too cannot be conducive to stability in the region.

So what does India-US strategic partnership bring to the table for India? It cannot only mean gains from India’s lucrative arms market that has already made Washington the largest arms supplier to India in 2008 in terms of the value of contracts signed notwithstanding the fact that India would find it difficult to use them in a conflict that does not have the implicit support of the US. It cannot also only mean greater access to US multinationals to Indian markets and increasing US exports to India.

There is little doubt that increased partnership between the two largest democracies is important for addressing virtually all the global concerns from climate change to providing a stable balance in an emerging multi-polar world. Especially in a world of fast mutating threats, India-US cooperation is critical for securing vital interests of both nations as in the Sea Lanes of Communications. Only such cooperation can give practical meaning to the large number of India-US joint military exercises being conducted to achieve interoperability of forces and India’s shift of reliance to US arms. Further, when the US withdraws from Afghanistan, India is most equipped to consolidate the gains made or contain terrorist threats in the region.

Growing economic relations would indeed provide the bedrock on which a synergistic relationship can develop. The importance of expanding Indian markets would only rise for the US. For India, a stronger relationship would mean greater access to much needed technology. But India would have to stoutly insist that there are certain obligations that the US would have to fulfil if the strategic partnership has to have any meaning. India has done its part. It is now for the US to demonstrate its sincerity in pursuing a strategic partnership predicated on equity with India.

About the author:

Thomas Mathew is joint secretary and deputy director general, IDSA, New Delhi