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News Analysis
India, U.S. bury the ghosts of 1971
By C. Raja Mohan
NEW DELHI, DEC. 6. When the American aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson, docks at Mumbai in the next few days, India and the United States will have finally buried the ghosts of the 1971 war for the liberation of Bangladesh.
Just exactly three decades ago, when the Indian armed forces were in full cry in East Pakistan racing towards Dhaka to help create Bangladesh, the American aircraft carrier USS Enterprise had set sail towards the Bay of Bengal.
If the movement of the Enterprise then captured the clash between the geopolitical interests of India and the U.S. during the Cold War, the arrival of Carl Vinson now reflects the new convergence of Indian and American goals in the region.
Although the Enterprise could do little to deter or delay India's finest hour, its entry into the 1971 Indo-Pak. war became part of the mythology about India's difficulties with the U.S. If diplomats were asked to choose one event that did the most damage to Indo-U.S. relations over the last five and a half decades, the majority would inevitably settle on the Enterprise incident.
Now India is all set to host an American aircraft carrier - for the first time ever. The docking of Carl Vinson at Mumbai reflects the changed regional and global context, the improvement in bilateral relations in the 1990s, and the transformation of ties in recent months.
The dispatch of Enterprise towards India by the then U.S. President, Richard Nixon, and his national security adviser, Mr. Henry Kissinger, around December 10, 1971 became, in New Delhi's eyes, the symbol of American strategic hostility towards India.
It was part of the now infamous American tilt towards Pakistan in the subcontinent at the turn of the 1970s. Although New Delhi and Washington have drawn closer over the last decade, the bitter legacy of Enterprise lingered over military relations.
In contrast, the U.S. and Chinese armed forces were quicker adjusting their relationship to changing circumstances. They had fought against each other in the Korean War of the early 1950s; yet by the 1970s, they were de facto military allies. Slowly, but surely, New Delhi and Washington now appear ready to discover similar flexibility.
The arrival of Carl Vinson signals the new political commitment in India and the U.S. to build a substantive military partnership in the pursuit of common objectives in Asia and the Indian Ocean region. The port call follows a decision here at the bilateral Defence Policy Group earlier this week to step up interaction between the armed forces of the two nations.
In the renewed Indo-U.S. defence engagement, the navies are likely to corner most of the immediate action. In the early to mid 1990s, the two navies had conducted a few joint exercises under the so-called Malabar series. With the U.S. nuclear sanctions that interrupted this interaction behind them, the navies are drawing up an ambitious programme for future cooperation.
There will be a couple of exercises in the Arabian Sea over the next few days. One is said to be a simple `pacex' manoeuvre and the other a search and rescue mission involving an Indian submarine and an American maritime reconnaissance aircraft.
The Carl Vinson has been in the Arabian Sea in recent weeks taking part in military operations against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
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