Statue of Debility

The trust deficit between India and the US is unmistakable. What is it about America’s South Asia policy that gives the sense India has been downgraded?

There is disquiet in South Block, the ornate British-made building that is the seat of India’s foreign office. A friendship seen to flower has suddenly turned frosty. Ever since the Obama Administration took charge in the United States, the relationship between the world’s two largest democracies has gone only in one direction—steadily downhill.

And it has been a rapid descent.

No one admits this on record, but the gulf is widening between Washington DC and New Delhi. At the centre of this phenomenon is a trust deficit between the two. India neither knows nor trusts America’s policy intent in South Asia.

The US, on its part, appears supremely focused. Its priority is the War on Terror being fought with a surge of troops on the ground in Afghanistan— and with drones that frequently overfly the border into Pakistan. It is a single-point agenda, and India has nothing to do with it. But worry, all the same, India must.

Any war edging closer to the Subcontinent could spell trouble. But India’s unstated fear is that the US, in pursuit of its self-interest, would be tempted to push for a grand bargain in the region: should Pakistan deliver on the Taliban and Al-Qaida terrorists, the US will get a compromise on Kashmir worked out in favour of Islamabad and at New Delhi’s cost.

“This is the core issue,” says Brahma Chellaney, strategic affairs expert at the Centre for Policy Research, a New Delhi think-tank, “and the Obama Administration has got its Afghanistan policy wrong. It is pressuring India for a solution that threatens India’s core national interest, the Indian position on Kashmir. The US is pushing India on a reduction in troop deployment in Kashmir, it is pressuring a resumption of communications between India and Pakistan, and is also completely ignoring issues such as bringing the Lashkar-e-Toiba to heel or dismantling the terror infrastructure in Pakistan.”

He is not alone in worrying about the link between Afghanistan and Kashmir that the Obama Administration is towing. Recently, MK Narayanan, India’s national security adviser, aired similar concerns in a TV interview in which he said that references made by President Obama did seem to suggest that there is some kind of link between a settlement on Pakistan’s western border and the Kashmir issue. And that this had certainly caused concern for India. Moreover, he added that the Obama Administration “…was barking up the wrong tree in trying to link Kashmir with ‘global jihad’.”

Despite such misgivings expressed by Indian officials, the link remains on top of Obama’s agenda. He made it clear in an interview to Time magazine just before his election. Since then, India has lobbied hard to prevent Kashmir from being drawn into America’s so-called Af-Pak strategy.

It has not worked, plainly. Hillary Clinton, on her first visit to India as US Secretary of State, was categorical that the US believes that the wishes of the Kashmiri people must be part of any eventual settlement of the issue. And she said this in a media interaction, not through diplomatic channels. This is an alarming development.

“The issue is not just the problems between the two countries,” says a senior Foreign Ministry official on condition of anonymity, “but also the manner in which the US has apparently downgraded India as a priority.”

The manner has been blunt. Although India is not on his official agenda, America’s Af-Pak envoy Richard Holbrooke has tried twice to visit New Delhi without a prior appointment. Protocol demands were thrown to the winds and an impression was sought to be conveyed that an American diplomat can visit New Delhi as and when he wants. This created a sticky situation; the envoy had to be told that no one was available to meet him. The result was sour faces on both sides.

“In diplomacy, especially in the India-US relationship, respective personalities of leaders matter a lot,” says PR Chari, consulting professor at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, a Delhi-based think-tank specialising in Indo-US relations, “The US President would surely remember the Indian Prime Minister’s statement during the US election—he said that George Bush is loved by all of India. There is certainly a deficit of understanding between the two leaders. On top of that, Democrats do not share the Republican enthusiasm for a greater partnership with India. They are more focused on a Chinese partnership, as is evident from the fact that Hillary Clinton visited China before India. There is a definite downgrading of India in the eyes of the current administration.”

The world is not unfamiliar with the bullying ways of Uncle Sam. India has had America’s wrath to face all by itself as well, notably in the early 1970s. But recent attitudes towards India reveal a new pattern that is hard to miss. Invariably, every single visit by an American diplomat raises three issues, all of them to do with Pakistan’s security priorities. The first is a push for dialogue with the Islamic republic, the second is to tell India to go easy on Afghanistan, and the third is to widen the scope of American influence over the Indian policy framework, especially on climate change. “All they do is address Pakistan’s concerns,” says a serving Indian diplomat, “They are fighting a war and need help. Indian concerns are rarely raised. All the talk of a new beginning between estranged democracies now looks unlikely.”

The Indian foreign office establishment is wistful of the George W Bush days. Regardless of his other foreign policy blunders, Bush had accorded high priority to the Indo-US relationship. For his administration, an India on the rise was a ‘natural ally’ with which America could execute business. It was also a military counterbalance to an increasingly powerful China. For President Obama, on the other hand, India has no such particular role to play in his priority order.

Over the decades, this has been the pattern of Democrats in the White House. “The foreign office fears the worst with a Democrat in power,” says Arundhati Ghosh, former Indian ambassador, “And some of it is happening now in this relationship. This is definitely a very sensitive time for the US-India relationship. The most disquieting development is that the new administration does not seem to acknowledge that the Indo-US Nuclear Deal gives us a different standing in the world vis-a-vis its nuclear capability.”

However, Stephen Cohen, a strategic affairs expert with the Brookings Institution, a Washington DC think-tank, does not agree. “It’s a myth that the Democrats hyphenated the two countries,” he says, “the Republicans did so too, and in any case the India-Pakistan rivalry and antagonism means that there’s no such thing as de-hyphenation. Indeed, India wants the US to pressure Pakistan now, as Pakistan always used the US to pressure India.”

To Cohen’s mind, the broad operating framework of the relationship is administration agnostic. “Growing instability in Pakistan means that India and Pakistan are linked more tightly than ever before,” he adds, “No US administration can (or at least should) ignore this. The Bush Administration was correct (as was Clinton) in identifying India’s new, wider Asian and global influence and role. That will not change.”

Cohen’s assessment, however, wears thin if you look at recent developments. America’s Af-Pak strategy is not the only divergence in views. India and America have problems in several other areas as well. These include major disagreements on climate change, on world trade talks, on end-user certification for weapons India procures from the US, and minor ones on US tax policy.

As India abandons its earlier dependence on Russia for defence supplies, putting American armament makers on top of its new list of vendors, it encounters trouble it has never had before. The prickliest of these issues relates to the US insistence on certification of end usage. Put simply, American arms come with an inbuilt mechanism to block any ‘misuse of technology’. As the service contracts notify it, this operates through intrusive inspections of weapons.

It may be standard US policy, but it sticks in the throat of India’s armed forces. By the new India-specific certification agreement that was signed earlier this year, the US has bent a little, allowing India to bring the equipment to a pre-designated place for inspection and doing away with provisions that would let US personnel make surprise visits to Indian defence installations to carry out checks. The details of these deals are kept secret, but the Indian Government has reportedly made a two-line announcement expressing satisfaction with the revised end user agreement.

That clears the way for the Indian Air Force to equip its fleet of fighters with F-18 Super Hornet and F-16 Super Viper jets. These could add vital strength to India’s defences, but deploying them means first flying them through hoola-hoops of America’s making. Nor has the US really offered India access to top-of-the-line technology. India recently bought an amphibious ship from the US that was built way back in 1966. It promptly had a gas leak that killed five sailors.

Another cause for concern is America’s arm-twisting attitude on matters of economic policy. During her visit, Hillary Clinton surprised her Indian interlocutors with her vehemence on India’s climate responsibilities. Believe it or not, she even set a target for the reversal of global warming—a 2º C decline by 2012—on the expectation that everyone will fall in line, no questions asked. The invocation was blunt, sudden and categorical. Indian officials were taken aback. What happened thereafter was unusual. Environment minister Jairam Ramesh told the media that, “India is simply in no position to take on legally binding emission reduction targets.” The country’s stance is that per capita emissions should be tracked, and India’s pollution levels are far below the global average. Succumbing to US pressure on premature emission caps will burden India in ways that could jeopardise its energy security and industrial development.

Says Sunita Narain, director, Centre for Science and Environment, “US pressure is real and sustained on this. It is also ridiculous, because for the world to reduce global temperature by 2 degrees centigrade, it is the US which has to move first. They are by far the biggest contributors to global warming. The US attitude needs to be resisted and India must consistently point out that it is the US which needs to go to its 1990 emission limits before any real impact on global climate change can happen. The US grasps the fact that these negotiations are not about just environment issues any more, they are about economic choices.”

Earlier this year, there were reports of a party thrown by America’s trade delegation at the World Trade Organisation in Geneva. They were said to be celebrating Manmohan Singh’s new Cabinet; Kamal Nath, who had resisted US pressure on the Doha Round of trade talks, had been replaced as commerce minister by Anand Sharma. Whether or not this is true, a softening of India’s trade stance would certainly please the US. Close observers detect a subtle shift in the atmospherics. The emphasis now, it seems, is on striking a Doha deal without much ado.

The US and EU together account for 40 per cent of India’s foreign trade, so pragmatists say that India would have to give in at some point. India’s official line, however, is tough: the future of Indian farmers cannot be bargained away at the trade table. Agriculture in the US and EU is highly subsidised and barricaded by import barriers, effectively denying foreign suppliers access to their markets. They refuse to slash these subsidies beyond a few token measures, making a mockery of the principle of free trade. But India is expected to throw gates open to varied imports.

“Trade diplomacy will need a fine balance now,” says A Saktiwal, president, Federation of Indian Exporters Organisation, “The issue centres around how much the West cuts its agriculture subsidy, and the signs are it won’t be by very much.” Clearly, a stiff battle lies ahead. India would need to make up its mind whether a bad agreement is better than no agreement.

Trade isn’t all. President Obama has made it a personal mission to discourage business outsourcing from America. He has said as much. Jobs must stay in Buffalo, New York, not move to Bangalore. This has made India’s business process outsourcing (BPO) sector sit up. President Obama has proposed restricting about $190 billion in tax breaks (over the next decade) given to American companies that plough offshore earnings back into their overseas operations.

But business is already much too globalised. “Business groups in the US have assailed the proposal, arguing that it would subject them to far higher taxes than what their foreign competitors must pay and will ultimately endanger US jobs,” according to a spokesperson of Nasscom, an organisation which represents Indian software exporters, “It is important to note that most large American companies have more than 50 per cent of their revenues coming from markets outside the US, and would be affected by the proposed tax reforms, if implemented.”

While Obama’s tax proposal is clearly a matter of US fiscal sovereignty, on which India has no locus standi—and could even boost the earnings of Indian firms facing competition from US firms operating here—it also means fewer American jobs being sent to Bangalore and Gurgaon.

The tax proposal could have another unintended consequence. If American firms decide not to send their profits back to the US, as Obama has demanded, and they localise the ownership of their captive BPO units instead, it could be a business opportunity for Indians. Says Raman Roy, a businessman who pioneered the BPO industry in India, “To do tax arbitrage, the US firms will have to contract Indian firms to run their currently captive units. This way, they escape the tax net neatly. Those firms that can convey a level of trust and comfort for US firms to shift business to India will therefore be winners.”

So, whatever President Obama’s views, the logic of business profits would still make globalisation impossible to reverse. It’s a big ship that is in no danger of falling off the edge of the world.

America’s stock as the world’s policymaker-in-chief is low just about everywhere in the world. If there is an airport security profiling case, few are willing to give US immigration officers the benefit of doubt. This is only a small example that serves to make the point of how American policy ends up depriving it of friends. In spite of that, there is strong admiration in India for the spirit of democracy American citizens often display, even among those for whom memories of the Indo-US musical bonhomie at a concert near New York 40 years ago are hazy at best.

At the official level, mutual suspicion has marked Indo-US relations in the past, and will continue to. Even sudden changes take a long while in global diplomacy. The difference is that both realise that the relationship is important if this century is to turn out better than the last one, the bloodiest in world history. Statesmanship in today’s world means making sure, through all means at one’s disposal, that nothing even half as ghastly can happen on this planet ever again. Diplomacy has its problems, but it is also an important means to securing peace.

Barack Obama is an ambitious man. Manmohan Singh has his own sense of destiny. If one wants to push for a quick and convenient Kashmir resolution so that the rest of his Asian jig-saw can fall neatly into place (for a Nobel Peace Prize perhaps), it is for the other to expose the futility of artificial impositions and espouse the need, in truth, for a confluence of views.

That means a genuine dialogue among equals, not some Camp David sort of arrangement under US sponsorship. India is open to new thoughts and ideas on varied issues. It is an age-old civilisational trait that Indians are proud of.

But nothing—repeat, nothing—can be forced upon the country either. The usual mumbles will not do. India is no pushover. It’s about time India stood up to the US and made this clear.

About The Author

Ninad D. Sheth