The US and South Asia

THE recent visit by US President George W. Bush to India and Pakistan, points to the growing importance of South Asia in US foreign policy thinking and practice.

Often described as an "arch rival" of Pakistan, India apparently, is now beginning to figure prominently in the list of Asian states with whom Washington is seeking to upgrade its relations. In fact, the US may be beginning to treat both India and Pakistan on equal terms.

We say this because, historically, Pakistan has proved more of a "natural ally" of the US than India. In the Cold War years, for instance, India was seen as being closer to the Soviet bloc than the West.

This was on account of India favouring more, the Socialist path to development in the first few decades after independence.

Besides, Pakistan was sucked into the US sphere of influence in South Asia in the Cold War years. Growing differences between India and Pakistan in those years did not make things any easier because these came to be exploited by external powers.

However, the failure of the "Command Economies" of the Eastern bloc in the late Eighties and the collapse of the Cold War, brought a sea change in international politics which left its imprint on South Asia too.

A Congress government in India in the early Nineties, under the guidance of Dr. Manmohan Singh, who was Finance Minister at the time, experimented boldly but gradually with economic liberalization and this marked a turning point in the post-independence economic history of India.

Consequently, today, India is turning out to be an economic power house of Asia and is fast catching-up with China as a growing economic giant in the Eastern hemisphere.

This vast change in economic outlook has helped India to establish common ground with the US in the sphere of material advancement.

September 11th only helped in consolidating these commonalities between the US and India. Today, the terror threat has convinced India of the advisability of cooperating with the US-led "war on terror".

Likewise, Pakistan has proved an important ally of the West in the fight against terror. The traditional military ties Pakistan has been enjoying with the US, have made this task easy.

In a very vital sense, therefore, the US, India and Pakistan are having a commonality of interests and this factor is likely to figure prominently in defreezing Indo-Pakistani relations and in speeding-up the process of normalization between them.

Although military ties are bound to figure prominently in future Indo-US and US-Pakistan relations, the prospect of benefiting individually through a process of improved economic relations among the three powers is also bound to be a strong consideration in the foreign policy perspectives of these states.

The Indian consumer market, for instance, offers vast economic benefits which are waiting to be reaped by both the US and Pakistan.

From Sri Lanka's point of view, the economic and security factors carry equal weight. Sri Lanka and the rest of the SAARC region, would, no doubt, stand to gain from improving Indo-Pakistan ties.

But the terror threat is of equal concern to us, who have experienced the horrors of a longstanding separatist conflict. Added solidarity with India and Pakistan would, therefore, accrue to Lanka's interest.