Opinion Return of the repressed

Of course,the episode looms larger in the Indian consciousness; our self-esteem is shaped by what others think of us. It is hard to shake off the odour of entrapment in what the state department did. But equally,we cannot deny the fact that the government of India made India legally and morally vulnerable by not doing its homework. It would be easy to dismiss this as an artefact of the IFS clinging to its privilege; after all,nothing like the fury unleashed when you cross the Indian bureaucracy. But there is more to this.

As Devesh Kapur recently pointed out,a crisis in Indo-US relations has long been in the making. There is,of course,the massive shift in perceptions of India that frames the reception of events. India’s new economy used to be the darling of The New York Times,now its old society is subject to yawningly relentless indictment. India was the maturing great power,now it has become an infantile wannabe. It had a strong government,now it is flailing. But in India,the explosion of reaction goes beyond the IFS and sections of the media. The case has become a marker of our confusions over our relationship with the US.

The great momentum in Indo-US relations was framed by two different understandings. The first,which only a handful of strategists understood,was in purely realist terms: leveraging the relationship to expand India’s strategic and developmental options,in light of its own needs. This would require playing a hard-nosed game,shorn of any sentimentality. It had no illusions about what the US could or could not do.

The second framing was psychological: India in a seamless social embrace of the US. After all,the conditions were ripe for it. India’s ruling classes were more linked to the US in terms of networks than they were to their own backyards. There was a cast of mind in which India’s salvation lay in the US: it was our strategic insurance against China,our economic salvation,our normative ideal. Even those well-disposed to the US have to admit how this syndrome captured so much of India’s elite. The unthinking anti-Americanism of the past had been replaced by a total bewitchment,to the point where we even began to outsource our thinking to the US. To be progressive was to side with the US on almost every issue; to be even moderately critical of US state power was to be castigated and identified with an era of Left overs.

In short,the sentimental and the ideological framing of the relationship began to dominate the hard-nosed strategic thinking. This created an extraordinarily compliant culture in matters relating to the US. Issues were being brushed under the carpet in the name of the larger strategic story. India’s sensitivities to US sensibilities was far in excess of what was warranted,whether over David Headley or our roles in Afghanistan. It was ironic that it was India that was found stuck in its thinking about Iran while the US had moved on. India is probably the only country in the world that did not react much to the Snowden affair. It was considered a sign of maturity to brush it off and say,“Grow up,countries spy on each other.” But this reply,which our strategists peddled,forgot the obvious retort,“Yes,but when spies are discovered,you execute them or mete out appropriate punishment.” Other countries,from Brazil to Germany,responded vocally. We did not.

The Snowden affair was a reminder that a deep distinction between co-nationals and others pervades interstate relations. Whatever your weaknesses,in international affairs,hypocrisy should not stand in the way of defending interests. The US will defend its citizens and diplomats,come what may,and will not be bound by any restrictions in what it does to citizens of other countries. But we did not learn a lesson from the US: that moral and legal principles can also be used as weapons of power. We were so busy protecting our psychological investment in the US that we gave up a sense of agency on these matters.

The sense of betrayal is deep because we had framed the relationship so much in psychological terms. The relationship was not going to be sustained without a deeper convergence on many other issues. India needed to protect its interests in a range of multilateral negotiations,from trade to climate change. But the way it did so was through bluster rather than art. And the relationship was going to suffer when we gave up virtually the only foreign policy we need: growth. So there was no new exciting story to tell in this relationship. What one hoped for was a kind of holding pattern that would preserve the gains of the old.

The Khobragade affair became the occasion for unleashing two contradictory forces. In the US,it is now the return of the infantile and regressive India. The NRIs,our saviours,are now embarrassed by India. In India,the self-restraint we exercised simply because the US said nice things about us has now come undone. After all,they have violated the central rule of good relations: you don’t use our supposed warts as your excuse. The indictment of the Indian justice system has done just that. We are chafing because we realised how much we had sacrificed our agency and self-esteem. It is a pity it took this kind of case to drive that realisation home.

The writer is president,Centre for Policy Research,Delhi,and a contributing editor for ‘The Indian Express’

express@expressindia.com