Living with America United fears of India

The Cold War provided such a complete framework for international relations, after it every country is casting around for new directions. Washington is basically working out George Bush’s New World Order: the protection of American interests and the projection of American ideas/values/plans, through the multilateral institutions as far as possible, unilaterally if necessary.

We long ago developed a politico-intellectual climate in which America is the engine of international capitalist hegemonism and contemplating better relations with it is naive if not unpatriotic. Certainly, America pursues many policies and activities which our self-interest or world-view finds unwelcome or harmful. And certainly it is not going to be our saviour. Even on possibilities of common objectives supposedly opened after the Cold War, differences of approach involve complications. Security of the Gulf is vital for India’s oil dependence than for the US, but Washington’s chosen instrument is Saudi Arabia, which does us so much harm by funding our most fundamentalist groups, whereas our ties are more fruitful with Iraq or Iran both of whom are anathema to Washington.

Similarly, we are said to have a common interest in the Central Asian Republics, remaining free of fundamentalism, but Washington’s priority is to wean them away from Russia, which could in fact be the best ally for the purpose. As for China, by one theory the issue on which Washington and Delhi are bound to converge sooner or later, America’s debate between quot;engagingquot; Beijing or preparing for it to be the adversary, is intensifying, but neither side is anywhere near treating China as a potentially active enemy.

Meanwhile Washington emphasises three sets of priorities: non-proliferation; a whole range of economic development constraints, from child labour and environment-protection to intellectual property; and human rights. We will be told none of these is aimed at India but somehow we always end up as a prime target. Instead of getting hot and bothered, we should realise that these are all perfectly manageable. We need to learn the role of power in world affairs, to shed our historic aversion to it as evil, not least to realise Washington is not a monolithic policy-making entity.

We should not conclude that inherent differences are too great to permit any significantly cooperative Indo-American interaction. As the only power today that can influence the course of events where it chooses, America has great power to harm us. It is neither wrong-headed nor demeaning to work not only to obviate any such harm but to develop a relationship in which there is no need to harm us.

Yes, America has power and will exercise it. But even without the intensely domestic preoccupations of the American public and its innate hostility to overseas involvements, it really is impossible for any President, and certainly for one as becalmed by political cross-currents as this one, to pursue set aims on any but the most vital concerns. On lesser issues, whoever has a view which can be pushed through within the established system, can prevail up to a point but not only does that point have to be well within the limitations already cited, there are many channels influencing policy which can alter the point before it is fixed.

Our greatest handicap in dealing sensibly with an America now seriously looking at our future potential, chiefly economic but also broader, is the fear of supposed reactions which subjects our diplomacy to public micro-management. The Prime Minister meeting President Clinton was a perfectly normal, legitimate, indeed useful diplomatic step, but so much noise erupted as though national honour was involved that we felt obliged to dance around the issue until special efforts became necessary to salvage the meeting by finding someone kind enough to switch dates with us at the last minute for addressing the UN.

More harmful still is the constraint we fear about discussing Kashmir.

Uproar erupts whenever an outsider says we should settle this with Pakistan.

We should in fact welcome opportunities to project our views, even — indeed specially — if the other person has mediatory intentions. We are ourselves to blame not only for leaving Jamp;K on the agenda but for giving Pakistan the opportunity, by our criminal mismanagement of Kashmiri politics. This encouraged the international impression that we had permanently alienated the Valley. Today we are in a position to point to the return, however slow and stuttering, of normalcy in the Valley. If we really knew the role of power, Pakistani-held Kashmir would today be far more evidently anti-Pakistani than the Valley has ever been anti-Indian, but at the very least we can bring out one fact the last few years have underlined — whatever they may think about us, the Kashmiris mistrust the Pakistanis. What is wrong with our utilising foreign discussions to point out that what Pakistan is trying to do in these circumstances is nothing short of the unraveling of India?

Even democratic governments have greater latitude in foreign affairs than they realise in their fear of imagined reactions — to give a lead is half the battle. Neither media nor political commentators are to be blamed if governments refuse to explain themselves. America cannot be the be-all and end-all of our policies, but dealing with it calls for us to work out a whole range of our global concerns. The world anyway awaits that from an aspirant to global responsibilities. When Delhi can devote its mind to this, we could also develop a genuine dialogue with Washington. This Government has made yet another beginning. We must let the process go forward with good sense and dignity.–The writer is a former foreign secretary