The Rising East
Half a century ago, during the early days of the Cold War, India's relations with the United States were tenuous at best. India had just got out from under the colonial thumb of the British Raj and was struggling to stand up as an independent nation. The nation had been fractured by Britain's strategy of divide and rule, the economy was poverty-stricken, and South Asia was still bleeding from the badly conceived and executed partition with Pakistan in 1947. India thus sought to escape the Cold War. ‘Fortress’ India seeks
warmer U.S. relations as
it embraces a wider
world roleIndia was then but a blip on the American radar screen as most U.S. foreign policy was seen in the context of the rivalry with the Soviet Union. The secretary of state under President Eisenhower, the formidable John Foster Dulles, saw a world of white hats and black hats as he sought to build a ring of alliances around the Soviet Union to contain its influence and expansion. To him, neutrality or non-alignment was "immoral" and every nation was either for or against the United States.
Today, the Cold War is over and Russia, toward which India had tilted when shunned by Washington, is in political and economic decline. China is coming up, as Rudyard Kipling might have written, like thunder 'crost the bay. India has begun to open its economy and, fitfully, to shuck the bureaucratic regulations that have hampered growth. Trade has become more important.
The security that Indians once felt behind the mountains, jungle, desert and ocean that made the subcontinent a fortress, except for the northwest passes, has begun to fade. India looks beyond the region and aspires to a place at the high table as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council; New Delhi has acquired nuclear weapons as much, if not more, for political as for military reasons.
It was against this backdrop that India's new ambassador to the United States, Lalit Mansingh, came to the Pacific Command last week to meet with Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the commander of U.S. forces whose area of responsibility reaches to India, and to be briefed on the command's operations.
From an Indian point of view, Mansingh said in a wide-ranging interview, a turning point in relations was President Bill Clinton's visit to India in March last year. The warm welcome was in contrast to the cool reception given Presidents Eisenhower in 1959, Nixon in 1969 and Carter in 1978. Said an Indian commentator: "The cooing noises between Clinton and Indian parliamentarians and Indian businessmen were nothing short of deafening."
India, the ambassador said, wants gradually to build military cooperation with the United States. He noted that Blair had visited India twice, that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Henry H. Shelton, had been there once and that Defense Minister Jaswant Singh had met in Washington with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
The ambassador pointed to what he called a "convergence of U.S. and Indian strategic interests." Both nations seek to keep open the shipping lanes that pass through the Indian Ocean, where 5,000 ships may be at sea on any given day. Washington and New Delhi agree that the oil fields around the Persian Gulf must be protected.
A priority for India that is only just coming into American view are the natural resources of Central Asia in the newly independent nations that were part of the Soviet Union until recently. In trade, the United States has overtaken Britain as India's leading export market and Americans have become the leading foreign investors in India. India is a modest market for American goods but that should grow as India's economy expands.
Ambassador Mansingh said that the United States and India shared a common enemy in international terrorism. That is undoubtedly true, but they may differ on who the terrorists are. In India, terrorism can be a code word for Pakistanis seeking to drive India from the disputed Vale of Kashmir.
Despite that, the ambassador agreed that the United States should not try to mediate between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, which has been in contention since partition. "This should be settled by the parties themselves," he said, "and will be only when both are ready to do so."
Richard Halloran is editorial director of the Star-Bulletin.
He can be reached by e-mail at rhalloran@starbulletin.com