US on a tight rope in South Asia

Lynn OCKERSZ

There is certainly a qualitative change in US-India relations and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was not understating the case when she said in India recently that her country’s ties with India were ‘One of the defining partnerships of the 21st century.’ This change is best appreciated by those who have been watching India’s ties with the West over the decades since 1947, when India gained political independence from Britain.

The Non-aligned Movement which is somewhat back in the news these days was a crucial factor in India’s evolving ties with the Western world. NAM’s historic importance could be best underscored by saying that the perceptions on world politics of post-independence India’s principal political leaders and especially their policy pronouncements favouring neutrality in Cold War politics, proved decisive, initially, in shaping India’s ties with the West.

For the founding fathers of post-independence India, the policy of Non-alignment or of strategic neutrality in global politics was of inestimable value because it enabled India a degree of independence in her efforts at national development. It was perceived, rightly, that getting embroiled in Cold War politics would have robbed India of the independence required to steer a self-determined path to economic and social betterment.

US foreign policy

But the Western leaders of those times did not read India right. The US political leadership of the late forties and the fifties tended to interpret NAM more as a statement of opposition to the basic tenets of US foreign policy of those early Cold War years. And confronting USSR military, political and economic power worldwide was a predominant preoccupation of the US. Indian foreign policy, a cornerstone of which was Non-alignment, came to be seen as a veritable expression of non-cooperation with the West in achieving its political and strategic aims in particularly South Asia. This set the stage for the mostly strained relations the US had with India over the decades until the nineties when economic liberalization in India helped to some extent in bringing about relatively constructive ties between the US and India.

It cannot be argued that by liberalizing her economy to a degree and repairing her strained ties with the US, India is in a relationship of subservience to the West in general and the US in particular. Suffice it to know that the ‘World’s two largest democracies’ have more things in common now than before and these commonalities are enabling the two states to enter into a relatively constructive relationship.

But it does not follow from this premise that India is what could be called a member of the Western camp. On the contrary, she remains essentially a social democratic state and it is this ideological orientation that, perhaps, makes her see some commonalities between herself and the BRICS bloc of states, which currently poses a threat to Western economic hegemony. The BRICS are: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, the up and coming economic powers.

It is the emergence of India as a predominant economic power which is figuring prominently in the progressive thaw in Indo-US relations. India is today so great an economic power that she is prompting the foremost political leaders of the West to enter into a closer interaction with her and in this regard the Indo-US accord to launch closer ties of cooperation in the civilian nuclear field should not be allowed to pass unnoticed.

The US is also in the process of strengthening business and commercial links between the countries. Besides, there is the consideration on the part of the US that perceived Chinese influence in South and South-East must be contained and closer ties with India, it is believed, could serve this aim.

Oil reserves

On the other hand, US ties with traditional ally in South Asia, Pakistan, are far from smooth at present. As could be seen, the Western military engagement in Afghanistan is causing destabilizing ripples in US-Pakistan ties and the question that perceptive sections in Pakistan ask is why their country too has to bear the brunt of the turmoil in Afghanistan in the form of, for instance, US drone attacks which are tending to exact a considerable death toll in their land.

The point to be noted is that the US’ security worries are far from over in the South-West Asia theatre. It is little realized that these worries have been dogging the US from the late forties when conservative US administrations sought a foothold in the strategically important region of Kashmir. Curiously, this business of a security nature is far from over.

Although the need to cripple the Al-qaeda terror network and its allies is being cited in US political circles as the reasons for continued Western military involvement in Afghanistan, it was right along the aim of the US to have a strong strategic presence in South-West Asia and the Persian Gulf region for the obvious reason of keeping a watch over the region’s oil reserves. This design suffered a setback with the ousting of the Shah of Iran, a strong US ally, in 1979. Since then the US has considered it in its interests to maintain a visible military presence in South West Asia.

It could be seen, then, that the US is on a tight rope in our part of the world. On the one hand, it needs to cultivate closer ties with ‘the world’s most populous democracy’, which is India, speak the language of liberal democracy and uphold the norms that go along with it, while militarizing its ties in South West Asia. There is a perplexing policy dilemma here that needs to be resolved. The US cannot uphold democratic development while pursuing a ‘law and order’ approach to the terror phenomenon, which is usually antithetical to democratic advancement. The non-resolution of this contradiction would expose US policy as conceptually flawed in a fundamental sense.