So wide is the power gap between the United States and India that it is unavoidable that in its relations with Washington, New Delhi should be at the receiving end. This was the case in the ‘fifties when America was launched on a policy which was injurious not only to our but also its own interests as we perceived them and this is the case now when Washington seems determined to repeat the old mistakes. We have been vindicated in the past and we are likely to be vindicated in the future. But that cannot be much of a comfort for us. We have to cope with the consequences of US actions as best we can.
In the ‘fifties, the United States committed two blunders. It misinterpreted the nature of the Soviet-Communist challenge and it underestimated the pull and power of nationalism. It took it for granted that the communist world was a monolith with its headquarters in Moscow, that China was nothing more or less than a Soviet satellite, that the Soviet-Communist challenge could best be met by establishing a cordon sanitaire around it, that newly independent and would-be independent countries in Asia and Africa were incapable of protecting their freedom and that it was necessary for it to place the more important among them under its protective umbrella in order to contain communism and extend Western influence. Vietnam was a logical culmination of this policy – an eloquent testimony to the fact that in the final analysis America suffered far more from its disregard of Mr Nehru’s advice than India. Pakistan provoked war with us in 1965 but failed to inflict much damage on us.
Frontline State
After a period of disenchantment with the old policy beginning in 1965-66 when American soldiers started getting killed in the jungles of Vietnam, the United States is returning to it almost with a vengeance. Even the simple-minded Mr Reagan cannot now contend that the communist world is a monolith. But like his ideological predecessor, Mr John Foster Dulles, he, too, emphasises the importance of military power in the struggle against the Soviet Union and nationalist-radical forces and downgrades nationalism as a factor in international affairs. He and his advisers are behaving as if they have not heard of the Shah of Iran and the reasons for the collapse of his pro-US regime. And as if to underscore the point that they are back to the old policy, the Americans have once again decided to treat Pakistan as a frontline state in the conflict with the Soviet Union. Pakistan was not willing to play that role then and is going to be even less willing to do so now. But American policy-makers do not worry themselves about such minor details.
By 1954 when the Americans finally decided to arm Pakistan and launch the Baghdad Pact and SEATO in disregard of warnings by Mr Nehru, President Nasser and President Sukarno, the Soviet leadership was just beginning to get out of the ideological straitjacket Stalin had imposed on it and to deal with some of the key Asian countries – India, Egypt and Indonesia – on a pragmatic basis. But even when the Kremlin agreed to respond to President Nasser’s request for arms in 1955 and Mr Khrushchev and Mr Bulganin visited India later the same year and announced their support for India on the Kashmir issue, Mr Nehru did not turn to the Soviet Union to redress the power imbalance which the US decision to arm Pakistan was threatening to create in the sub-continent. In fact he visited the United States in 1956 to confer with President Eisenhower and unavoidably with Mr Dulles.
He did not turn to Moscow for help even in 1959 when on the one hand Sino-Soviet differences and on the other the Sino-Indian border dispute had come to the surface. Instead, he welcomed President Eisenhower in India. In sum he regarded a continuous dialogue with Washington a necessary part of his policy of promoting the cause of peace in the region. That approach remains valid today.
Misconceived
Mr Nehru had taken up the fight against America’s wrongheaded policies long before any top official in Washington seriously thought of supplying arms to Pakistan. To be precise, the fight began in 1949 when he found that Washington was determined to ignore the nationalist face of the Chinese revolution and push Beijing into Moscow’s arms. He became more sharply critical of America in 1950 when in defiance of a clear warning by Mr Chou En-lai conveyed through the Indian ambassador, Mr KM Panikkar, President Truman allowed General McArthur to cross the 38th parallel in Korea.
Once again India’s opposition to US policies is not wholly, or even mainly, the result of Washington’s move to arm Pakistan. As then, our view is that the US approach is misconceived because it is not based on a proper appreciation of the realities. Unlike Mr Nehru, Mrs Gandhi has been reticent in spelling out her viewpoint. But she must be as deeply concerned over the US perceptions regarding West Asia, especially the Gulf, as her father was over the American view of China.
The situation in both the world and the region is obviously very different in 1981 from what it was in 1954. The Soviet Union can today directly project its power in any part of the globe which it was in no position to do in the ‘fifties because it did not possess a strong blue-waters navy. The United States is no longer the dominant military power it was up to the ‘sixties. It cannot stare down the Kremlin as it could at the time of the Cuban crisis in 1962. The Soviet presence in Afghanistan and in a different way in South Yemen is one measure of its military prowess in our region. And India now not only buys a great deal of its sophisticated hardware from the Soviet Union but has treaty relations with it which provide for mutual consultations in the event of a threat to the security of either. But all this cannot imply that faced with misconceived US policies, especially in our part of the world, we should move closer to Moscow and break off the dialogue with Washington. Indeed, it is unlikely that the Kremlin itself would favour such an approach on our part. For, like New Delhi, it, too, is interested in the United States returning to the policy of detente and avoidance of direct superpower confrontation.
It is not easy to maintain a friendly attitude and continue the dialogue when the differences are as sharp as they are between the United States and India. But it is vital we do so. Mr Nehru managed to combine firmness with friendship and there is no good reason why Mrs Gandhi cannot pursue the same approach. India did not compromise its stand in the past even though on certain occasions, as in 1965 and 1966, it was critically dependent on US wheat supplies. And now that it is self-reliant in food and the US has ceased to be the principal source of aid, it is in a strong position to withstand pressure. But its approach obliges it to do all in its power to convert America to its point of view.
No government, however arrogant, is wholly impervious to strong and cogent argument, provided it is seen to come from friendly quarters. In the case of the United States, we have the advantage of dealing with an open society where the opposition viewpoint sympathetic to our own is seldom absent. Mr Reagan’s broad approach with its excessive emphasis on the military containment of Soviet power and influence is so completely out of touch with the compulsions and demands of the situation in Europe, Africa and West Asia that it can only be a matter of time that saner individuals within the administration itself begin to assert themselves.
In a sense, the process has already begun. Mr Haig’s first visit to West Asia, for example, has been educative. For despite their dependence on the United States for their security, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have told him that the Arabs would never subordinate their conflict with Israel over Palestine to America’s struggle against the Soviet Union. The assistant secretary of state for Africa, Mr Crocker, has drawn similar rebuffs in his first visit to the region where America is suspected of being well disposed towards South Africa.
Difficulties
This is not to under-estimate the difficulties ahead. The Reagan administration is likely to take a long time to recognise that the world is too complex for it to run in accordance with its simplistic prescription and even longer to reconcile itself to this fact. It represents a strong sense of insecurity that has come to possess a lot of Americans and a desire to return to the good old days of the late ‘forties and ‘fifties when the US was the only truly global power. But difficulties only underline the need for perseverance.
Mr Nehru often underlined the risks inherent in a policy of trying to isolate the Soviet Union and China. The warning is equally valid in respect of the United States. Surprising though it may seem, it is feeling besieged. How else can one explain the central role assigned to little El Salvador in the fight against “Soviet expansionism” and “communism”? It seems to me that President Brezhnev is sensitive to this problem. That is presumably one reason – there are several others – why he is bending over backwards to reassure Mr Reagan that it is possible to do business with him. In response to threats from Washington, he has proposed negotiations. He has not held out a single threat.
India’s diplomatic skill is on trial. It has to protect the country’s security interest in an extremely complex and difficult environment and at the same time preserve its credibility as a non-aligned nation. Never before have its own interests coincided so completely with the cause of peace and non-alignment. It is, for example, as much in its interest that the United States does not step up its naval presence in the Indian Ocean and arm its “friends” excessively as that Soviet troops withdraw from Afghanistan. New Delhi cannot afford to get angry and break off discussions with Washington.
The Times of India, 23 April 1981