Though precious little is known of the reasons which have persuaded the President and the Prime Minister of India to invite President Carter to Delhi it can safely be said that the visit will at best have symbolic significance. Indo-US relations are not likely to move to a new level of friendship and understanding as a result, though there may be some improvement in what the Americans like to call the atmospherics.
This may appear to be an unduly harsh assessment in view of the widespread impression in this country that the restoration of the democratic rule and the installation into power in New Delhi of men known to be extremely well disposed towards the United States have paved the way not only for the removal of past misunderstandings but also for the establishment of extensive cooperation between the two countries. But a closer scrutiny will show that the assessment is quite realistic.
It is open to question whether the Carter Administration felt unduly uncomfortable in dealing with Mrs Indira Gandhi during the emergency, whether it saw any virtue in the harsh measures the then prime minister had taken in certain fields, specially in that of family planning and whether it was particularly keen to see her out of office. But even if it is assumed for the sake of argument that President Carter and his top advisers believe that the United States has a major stake in the success of democratic institutions in India, it does not necessarily follow that the two governments can establish a high level of cooperation. For, cooperation between two major countries like the United States and India or, for that matter, between any two genuinely independent countries, calls for a community of outlook and interests which is plainly missing in this case.
Assessment
This assessment, too, may appear to be unjustified in view of the widespread assumption that a common ideology produces a community of outlook. But the Soviet Union’s disputes with Yugoslavia and China should suffice to dispose of this myth.
On the other side of the fence in the world divided by the cold war, Indo-US differences in the ’fifties underscore the same point as nothing else. Just as President Tito and Chairman Mao Tse-tung, both ardent nationalists, refused to subordinate themselves and their countries to the Soviet Union in the interest of so-called proletarian internationalism, Mr Nehru, also a fervent nationalist, did not agree to make common cause with democratic America in the struggle against communism.
Judging by the relations between the United States and Western Europe or between the former and Japan, a community of outlook in an effective sense calls for something more than a shared ideology or even a shared civilization. It calls for inter-dependence in the face of a common danger, in this case the Soviet Union which has become militarily too powerful to be dealt with either by the West Europeans or the Japanese by themselves and to be ignored by the United States.
Thus India and the United States could perhaps have developed a community of outlook in the late ’forties and the early ’fifties if the former had not only shared the latter’s perception regarding Communist China but also agreed to join the “crusade” against “monolithic communism” with its headquarters, according to the Americans, in Moscow. This was by no means certain because it is more than possible that, despite the alliance with India, the United States would have tried to woo Pakistan in the interest of denying both the Soviet Union and China access to the sub-continent and also because the rulers in New Delhi would have discovered that they had weakened their own position in the third world by virtue of their alliance with the United States and through it with the West European colonial powers.
Coincidence
This is not mere speculation. For, despite its alliance with Pakistan and Pakistan’s membership of the West-sponsored Baghdad Pact (known as CENTO since Iraq’s defection from it in 1958 in the wake of the overthrow of the Hashemite dynasty) and SEATO (now wholly defunct), the United States did not give up the attempt to win India to its side. Indeed, as the Indian government’s relations with China began to deteriorate in 1959 following the revolt in Lhasa and the flight of the Dalai Lama and thousands of Tibetans into this country, President Eisenhower visited Delhi in a determined bid to win it over to his and America’s cause of fighting communism. It is also common knowledge that as President Nasser consolidated his position and stepped up the struggle against the West on the one hand and against pro-Western regimes like that of Saudi Arabia and Jordan on the other, the Pakistan government began to find its alliances with the West irksome.
Be that as it may, it cannot be seriously disputed that if there was a basis for meaningful cooperation between India and the United States in the shape of common fear of and hostility towards China, it no longer exists. While New Delhi refused to tilt towards the West even in 1962 when it was thrown off balance by the Chinese blow, Washington no longer regards China as an expansionist power and is, indeed, prepared to assist it in modernising its forces in order to enable it to resist both Soviet pressure and blandishments.
Unlike President Ford, President Carter does not seem willing to sever diplomatic relations with Taiwan in order to normalise ties with Peking and, unlike President Nixon, he perhaps does not seem to believe that the opening to China gives him much of a leverage for dealing with the Soviet Union. But, unlike President Truman and President Eisenhower he cannot also believe that India and China are locked in a competition and that its outcome will determine the future of Asia. Some of his aides may still talk of India being the leading power in South Asia. But such statements have only one significant implication which is that the United States does not regard Pakistan as this country’s equal even potentially and that it has no desire to prevent New Delhi from asserting its natural pre-eminence by pumping in sophisticated hardware into Islamabad.
This is a helpful stance for which this country should be grateful to President Carter and his advisers. But it is also self-evident that Pakistan is plunged in a serious internal crisis and that external assistance, specially military aid, can only deepen it by tilting the power balance further in favour of the army which does not, incidentally, have a united and competent leadership.
It is, of course, a sheer coincidence that just as the United States took steps to establish relations with China in 1971 and 1972 when first Mr Kissinger and then President Nixon visited Peking, India not only disposed of the principal security threat which came from Pakistan but also achieved a level of self-reliance and self-confidence which appeared inconceivable only a few years earlier.
This was not immediately visible. On the contrary, in the face of the widespread droughts in 1972 and 1973 and the consequent drop in agricultural production and the sharp rise in prices, it appeared that India had little choice but somehow to make up with the United States so that it could again get food under PL 480. But in retrospect there can be little doubt that by the end of the ’sixties this country had achieved a remarkable degree of self-sufficiency and therefore the capacity to do without US aid and withstand US pressure. The Pokharan test in May 1974 was an expression of its new capacity and self-confidence.
Pertinent
This is not to suggest that Mrs Gandhi saw the test in that light or that she was fully conscious of the risks or that she was not guided principally by the desire to divert public opinion from rising prices and growing corruption. But all that is now unimportant. The two pertinent points are that since then India’s capacity to do without external assistance has increased dramatically as is evident from its growing foreign exchange and food reserves and that with the arrival of President Carter in the White House, the United States has become more aggressive than ever before in its determination to deny India the right to run its nuclear programme independently. Thus Pax Americana and Indian nationalism are once again at odds with each other and this time in a strikingly different context. America is no longer the great aid-giver it was and India’s need for assistance is no longer as desperate as it was in the ’sixties. Mr Carter and Mr Desai will need a great deal of ingenuity to bridge this gulf.
The Times of India 28 September 1977