Upswing in Indo-U.S. relations

THE U.S. PRESIDENT, Mr. Bill Clinton's visit to India has inaugurated what could be a brighter and more promising chapter in the history of the relationship between India and the United States which has for long been a troubled and difficult one. The first American President to visit India in two decades, Mr. Clinton's interactions with the political leadership in New Delhi resulted in a decision to upgrade and intensify the diplomatic contacts between both sides - regular summit meetings between the Indian Prime Minister and the U.S. President, an annual foreign policy dialogue at the level of the Minister for External Affairs and the U.S. Secretary of State and other regular foreign policy consultations. The decision to institutionalise the Indo-U.S. dialogue and to create an ``architecture'' of high-level consultations, marks an acknowledgment on both sides, particularly the U.S., of the strategic utility of deepening the engagement between the two countries that were clearly until now conforming to the description of ``estranged democracies''.

However it is undeniable that the sharp gap remains on crucial policy issues, such as India's nuclear weapons and the manner of engaging or not engaging Pakistan. No diplomatic ``spin'' or attempt to finesse these differences, as for instance suggesting a greater convergence between the Indian and American official views on terrorism, will camouflage the actual fact that beneath the veneer of cordiality and bonhomie, the American strategic view of the subcontinent has not changed in essence. Yet the more frequent diplomatic exchanges between India and the U.S. that have now been envisaged should certainly make it easier for both sides to place their differences in a context that is far less strained.

Mr. Clinton proved to be a charming interlocutor and seemed to be at his persuasive best. The third American president to address the Indian Parliament after Dwight Eisenhower in 1959 and Mr. Jimmy Carter in 1978, his address to Parliament got an unusually warm welcome from the gathering of MPs, many of whom in vulgar and unabashed fashion scrambled and jostled to get to shake his hand. But while Mr. Clinton took care to say that he was not attempting to tell India what to do, it was evident that his policy prescriptions for the South Asian region remained unchanged for the most part. It was also very clear, even as Mr. Clinton urged India to sign the CTBT, expressed his disapproval of India's possession of nuclear weapons and repeatedly stressed that India must have a dialogue with Pakistan, that if at all the gap between the positions of both sides on the sensitive strategic issues had been narrowed, it was because of Indian compromises.

Those compromises, which reflect the consequence of the logic that flowed from the May 1998 nuclear tests and the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee's subsequent enunciation of India's nuclear policy, are visible in the language of the ``vision'' document that emanated from the meeting of Mr. Vajpayee and Mr. Clinton on Tuesday. Jettisoning the traditional Indian diplomatic emphasis on disarmament and indicating an acceptance of the American emphasis on non-proliferation, the document affirms India's willingness to ``work together'' with the U.S. to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and their means of delivery.

There was much in Mr. Clinton's remarks and interactions to suggest that he was receptive to India's concerns on terrorism, as for instance, his expression of outrage at the massacre of Sikhs in the Kashmir Valley and the pointed fact of his meeting with the relatives of Rupin Katyal, murdered by the hijackers of the Indian Airlines plane last December. Mr. Clinton's references to the shared democratic values even as he expressed his empathy for India's difficulties as ``a democracy bordered by nations whose Governments reject democracy'', indicated a new and welcome awareness of India's situation. But it must be noted that Mr. Clinton and his officials were careful not to point a finger at Pakistan in the context of their denunciations of terrorism. There were in fact several exhortations to India to resume a dialogue with Pakistan and not to believe that a military solution could work in Kashmir.

The conclusions that emerge at the end of the political part of Mr. Clinton's sojourn in India are unmistakeable. While the upswing and the greater momentum in Indo-U.S. relations is welcome and indeed necessary, its best expression would be found in deepening and expanding economic and cultural exchanges. India which has been insisting that there ought not to be any external mediation in its problems with Pakistan must resist the temptation to use the U.S. as an interlocutor, however well disposed it seems at the moment. The only course forward is to delink Indo-U.S. relations from India-Pakistan ties. The imperative is to deal with Pakistan directly, especially since India would require such dealings to be on India's own terms. The relationship with the United States, which is a promising and potentially multifaceted one, should not be held hostage to India's regional stakes.

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