[sacw] [ACT] India Ought to Overcome the American Obsession

Harsh Kapoor aiindex@mnet.fr
Fri, 17 Mar 2000 21:22:08 +0100


=46YI
(South Asia Citizens Web)
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=46rontline Column: Beyond the Obvious
[by] Praful Bidwai

OVERCOMING THE AMERICAN OBSESSION

Amidst the hype over Clinton's visit, New Delhi would be disastrously wrong
to get drawn into a strategic "partnership" with the US; India's foremost
security priority lies right within South Asia.

As the final preparations get under way for Bill Clinton's visit, two
gaping contradictions become visible within our policy-making elite. One,
the elite displays total schizophrenia. On the other hand, it grandiosely
announces India's impending arrival as an "economic superpower". To quote
finance minister Yashwant Sinha's budget speech: "The millennium has
heralded [this]=8A In two short years, we have shown that Indian talent and
Indian effort is second to none=8A we have ensured that 'made in India' is a
compliment for any product or service=8A we have sent notice to the world
that India will be an economic superpower in the 21st century. The world's
eyes are now upon us=8A"

On the other hand, the same elite has an extraordinarily narrow agenda,
centred largely on Pakistan and driven by one-upmanship with it. This is
coupled with subservience to Western hegemony and a retreat from
broad-horizon issues such as reforming North-South relations, which long
used to be central to India's diplomatic perspective. New Delhi
unsuccessfully spent an amazing amount of effort in a high-pitched campaign
to get Pakistan branded a "terrorist" state, and on pleading that Clinton
should not visit it. It is now reduced to begging the US not to allow
itself to be "blackmailed" by Islamabad; instead, the US must treat India
as its exclusive partner in South Asia.

The second contradiction lies in the basic asymmetry of Indo-US relations.
In India, state governments are falling over one another to get Clinton to
visit their capitals. Universities and IITs are vying with one another to
confer honorary doctorates upon him. Even our security agencies are being
bullied by American experts. Reportedly, the FBI is about to open an office
in Delhi-something India resisted for 50 years!

In Washington, the Clinton visit to South Asia (India always figures
non-exclusively) is just one of many blips on the radar. It merits the odd
"colour" story, in addition to South Asia's normal minuscule media quota.
But Clinton is a lame-duck president. He may be keen to fill the Indian
"void in his life". But politically, he is yesterday's man. The big
domestic news in the US is the primaries, not Clinton. The big foreign
story is not India.

This column argues that the elite's understanding of the Clinton visit is
profoundly mistaken and will put New Delhi into an even more skewed
security relationship within the India-Pakistan-US triangle. Our real
security priorities lie in improving relations with our neighbours and
returning to the global disarmament agenda. Clinton's visit is guided by
the L-factor, or the desire to leave behind a legacy for which he will be
remembered-as someone who highlighted the importance of South Asia as "the
most dangerous place in the world" and did something to defuse the tension
between its two now-nuclearised rivals. That is why he is without a clear
assurance about any US role in South Asian security issues, leave alone
promoting an Islamabad-New Delhi dialogue.

The fact that the visit creates such a flutter in our policy-makers'
dovecotes despite this shows how low our self-esteem has fallen. An even
stronger indicator of this is New Delhi's plea to Washington that it should
show an unflinching commitment to democracy and refuse to legitimise
Pakistan's military rulers. Never before has New Delhi practised such
complete self-equation with Pakistan. Nor has its foreign policy agenda
been so greatly diminished in scope and vision.

In reality, this rhetoric against military rule has little to do with
either Washington's or New Delhi's love for democracy. The US has supported
a breathtaking range of brutal dictators from "Papa Doc" Duvalier to
Pinochet. It has done more damage than any other state to democratic
causes-from Afghanistan, Brazil and Chile to Yugoslavia and Zaire. For
decades, the US consciously preferred right-wing dictators over independent
democratic regimes. The only condition was their willingness to be
Washington's clients and protect "free enterprise". New Delhi now wants to
team up with this force of international brigandage

As for New Delhi, its advocacy of democratic "principle" sits ill with its
long record of doing business with the Shahs, Zias, and Suhartos of the
world-indeed, to this day with the King of Bhutan, and the Burmese junta.
Its allergy to the "undemocratic" Gen Musharraf clearly has more to do with
trying to isolate Pakistan by offering a special "strategic partnership"
with the US. It reckons that this may help it counter global pressure on
Kashmir-where the situation is turning increasingly messy-although that
would also mean abridging India's own sovereignty.

This regrettable calculus bears testimony to how far New Delhi has moved
away even from token non-alignment, and how its room for independent
manoeuvre has shrunk. This is not the India that affirmed the right to a
relatively autonomous economic policy. Rather, this is an India disoriented
by the end of the Cold War, which has mismanaged its transition to a
different world order. This is not the India that speaks for the Global
South, but one that collaborates with global capital by exploiting its own
domestic poverty and cheap labour.

Underlying it all is the colossal indifference of India's elite towards the
majority of its people, a sectarian agenda to isolate and humiliate
Pakistan, and eagerness to harmonise its own narrow interests with those of
the Northern elite in an unholy entente cordiale, in particular, a highly
unequal "partnership" with the US.

It is mistaken to believe that India has no other option in today's
"unipolar" world which offers no space for rectifying North-South
inequalities. In fact, the world has not become unipolar, although it has
become more skewed. The US's ability to reshape the world in its own image
has shrunk over the so-called American century. There are new challenges to
the existing distribution of power. Non-state actors have emerged in areas
such as economy, trade and security. India has consistently failed to ally
with the forces of change. Nor has it adequately used spaces available to
it within state-level treaties. One example is TRIPs (trade-related
intellectual property rights agreement) where, instead of invoking public
purpose, safety and national interest clauses to narrow the scope of
restrictive provisions, it has amended its own patent laws.

Another instance is global environmental negotiations. Here too, India has
failed to take the lead in favour of equity. As Anil Agarwal, Sunita Narain
& Anju Sharma argue in their latest book Green Politics (Centre for Science
and Environment), in the last five years, India has "not proposed a single
idea to protect the world environment. Instead, it followed the principle
of 'first oppose and then give in to threats and persuasions, usually
accompanied with the lucre of business transactions'."

On bilateral trade with the US, our record is abysmal. Legally, India had
until 2003 to lift trade restrictions, most of them perfectly reasonable.
But in anticipation of Clinton's visit, it agreed to "free" trade in 1,429
items within a year. This is far worse than the sudden change executed in
our telecom policy in 1994 just prior to Narasimha Rao's visit to
Washington-which continues to produce horrendous scandals to this day. As
eminent agricultural scientist M.S. Swaminathan has warned, this
precipitate trade liberalisation threatens millions of subsistence peasants
and marginal holders, besides small enterprises.

Another major factor behind the erosion of sovereignty has been India's
security posture, after the 1998 nuclear tests. In the past, India
exercised global influence disproportionate to its military strength
because of its moral stature. Now, it increasingly seeks shortcuts to high
stature through military power. That has distorted India's image and lost
it the respect of its neighbours. India's regional agenda is to parade its
pre-eminence in South Asia and displace Pakistan as America's ally. The
main short-term consideration behind this is the steadily deteriorating
situation in Kashmir, and the desperate need our policy-makers feel to take
the heat off themselves by attacking the Musharraf regime.

India's hostility to that regime is so extreme that, according to reliable
sources, Indian diplomats in Islamabad have been instructed not to meet any
Pakistani ministers or senior officials. Their ambit is confined to the
chief secretaries of the provinces! This is a senseless formula for
self-marginalisation and -isolation.

Equally negative is a paper prepared for the Cabinet Committee on Security,
reported in The Pioneer (Feb 3), an unapologetically pro-BJP broadsheet.
This recommends extraordinary steps like banning Pakistan International
overflights, cancellation of Pakistan's MFN (most favoured nation) status
in trade, further downsizing the Indian mission in Islamabad, besides
discontinuing the Delhi-Lahore bus and Samjhauta Express. If the plan is
ever implemented, it would cause a complete breakdown of diplomatic
relations.

Such a course would be disastrously wrong. It is a gross error to imagine
that Musharraf is the worst that could happen to Pakistan. Worse can happen
if pro-Islamic elements in the military to prevail-a denouement to which
India may be contributing with its hardline posture. Besides, it hardly
does credit to New Delhi to tomtom Nawaz Sharif's highly corrupt,
unpopular, institution-destroying, regime as a shining example of
"democracy". India has a lot to gain by engaging different elements in the
present Establishment. To imagine that Pakistan's civilian governments are
intrinsically and always favourable to India is to turn a blind eye to
history. The 1948 and 1965 wars were both started under civilian goading.

It is not only in Islamabad that Indian policy is being led by pique and
pettiness. This is true of Kathmandu too. Indo-Nepal relations have
plummeted to their lowest level since the late 1980s-largely because of the
vicious campaign in sections of our media over Nepal's "negligent" aviation
security. All Indian Airlines flights to Kathmandu stand suspended,
affecting that poor country's tourism income at a critical time. This
policy would have been dangerously myopic even if our own aviation security
record were excellent. As it happens, it is not, as surprise checks on a
Bangalore Jet Aiways flight on February 2 showed. Punishing Nepal thus is
the surest way of courting its hostility.

To return to the American president, it is not his rites of
passage-including perhaps India's initiation into the Nuclear Club-that are
going to promote our security. The 12 rounds of Jaswant Singh-Talbott talks
have not resulted in a firm agreement on most matters. Clinton is coming to
South Asia without a clear understanding on anything solid. Most of his
serious discussions, for which just one full day has been reserved, are
likely to be preliminary and exploratory. People who hyped up his visit now
say that the process is the product. The product is likely to be
insubstantial.

The Americans do not have a lot to offer to India. Nor does India have much
to gain from close proximity to the US. There is a big divergence between
Indian and US interests. We have a lot more to gain by investing our
energies in the neigbourhood. India's peace and security are inseparable
from what happens in our immediate environment. It won't do to get trapped
into the lofty rhetoric of Big Power and forget this.

Putting our eggs in the US basket risks inviting serious interference.
America's Kargil mediation was bad enough. Close proximity with the US will
mean deeper trouble. It entails collaborating with America as a junior,
third-class member of the Nuclear Club. Our real priority lies elsewhere-in
peace and conciliation with our neighbours and in promoting an equitable
world order.-end-