It is a pity that Mr. Moynihan’s well-meaning effort to settle the question of India’s enormous debt to the United States on account of PL 480 supplies has been frustrated by the Senate in Washington. But it will be a greater pity if this is allowed to give rise to mutual recrimination between Washington and New Delhi.
To avoid this risk, policy-makers in Washington should accept that the Senate’s move is not primarily the result of Mrs. Gandhi’s recent statement on Chile. US Congressmen, who are averse to the concept of writing off debts which other countries owe to the United States and are defiant because of their general antipathy to the Nixon Administration on account of its actions in Indochina and the Watergate and allied scandals, would have blocked the agreement even if the Prime Minister had not said a word on Chile.
Indications
Indeed indications to this effect were not altogether lacking before the military coup in Chile and Mrs. Gandhi’s reaction to it. At least one Congressman had publicly made the statement that it would be wrong to write off the debt because it was not inconceivable that in a decade or two India would have a strong economy and currency. Many others must have shared his approach in view of America’s current trade deficits with Western Europe and Japan which in no small measure owed their economic recovery in the ‘fifties to US assistance.
It should also have been self-evident that Congressmen, who are proving difficult on the question of extending the most favoured nation treatment to the Soviet Union and are insisting on a unilateral cut in American forces in Europe at a time when the NATO and Warsaw Pact countries are engaged in the task of working out an agreement on mutual reduction of forces there, were not likely to oblige the administration on the issue of liquidating India’s PL 480 debt. As such it would not be unfair to say that it was rather rash for Washington and New Delhi to have made the agreement public at this stage. Nothing would have been lost if the two governments had decided to wait till the US Congress was in a more reasonable and cooperative frame of mind.
This is not to argue that Mrs. Gandhi’s statement on Chile has not swung into opposition some Senators who might otherwise have chosen to remain neutral. But their number is not likely to have been large.
Be that as it may, no one in Washington and New Delhi need lose sleep if this issue has to be put on the shelf for quite some time. For, while there cannot be much doubt that a settlement of the PL 480 debts would have removed one major irritant in Indo-US relations, it would be idle for anyone to claim either that this has been the chief obstacle in the path of improved ties between the two countries or that the two governments cannot come significantly closer to each other in the absence of an agreement on this question provided they have the capacity and the will to tackle other difficulties.
Since US supply of arms to Pakistan has been the single biggest factor in Indo-American misunderstanding in the past, it can be said that Mr. Nixon’s firm refusal to accede to Mr. Bhutto’s request in this regard has removed the main hurdle in the way of better understanding between Washington and New Delhi. But unfortunately this is not so. On the contrary, since Mr. Nixon’s refusal to oblige Mr. Bhutto has followed the twin moves to arm in a big way Persian-Arab Gulf countries of Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and to promote military co-operation between them and Islamabad, the Indian public and even policy-makers cannot be blamed if they fear that Pakistan will in course of time gain access to the highly sophisticated weapons in question.
The American response to the Indian anxiety is well known. It is to point out that since there is no essential conflict of interest between India and the above- mentioned countries and that since it has already demonstrated its willingness and capacity to sort out problems arising out of the 1971 war with Pakistan, it has no good reason to fear that the combination in question will be hostile to it. But this formulation ignores not only the dispute over Kashmir but also the distinct possibility that Mr. Bhutto may either not try or fail to reconcile his people to the new situation in the subcontinent and that he may either decide on his own or be compelled to raise once again the banner of Islam, reactivate the Kashmir issue and create other difficulties for this country.
Responsibility
Just as in the ‘fifties and the ‘sixties American policy-makers were possessed by the idea of containing China, they are now so obsessed by the desire to assure for themselves and their West European and Japanese allies an adequate supply of oil from the Persian-Arab Gulf as to make it virtually impossible for them to realise that the decision to pour in massive quantities of highly sophisticated arms in the region is likely to prove counter-productive. That is however a problem between Washington and its Iranian and Arab friends and supporters and not between us and the Americans. As far as we are concerned, we are only interested in ensuring that in the process of protecting their interests as they see them and by such means as they consider suitable, they do not complicate our problems which as it is are formidable enough.
US policy-makers and commentators are often all too ready to talk in terms of the sovereign right of Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia to use their resources in any manner they like and to forge such ties among themselves as they think are best suited to promote their well-being. But that only begs the question. The United States is not an idle onlooker. In fact, its role is not even limited to the sale of military hardware on the kind of commercial basis which France and to some extent Britain adopt in such matters. It is actively and deeply involved in controlling and directing developments in this region. As such it cannot evade responsibility for the likely consequences of its actions. In any event, this is going to be the key issue between Washington and New Delhi in coming year and not the PL 480 debt.
This does not mean that India should allow itself to slip into some kind of anti-Americanism or that it should not do all it can to improve relations with Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait or that it should go back on its present policy of sorting out problems with Mr Bhutto and of indirectly helping him to stabilise his position and the prospects of some kind of democracy in Pakistan. But it does mean that the old obstacle in the path of genuine and enduring Indo-US understanding and friendship has not disappeared and that Washington needs not only to show greater respect for Indian susceptibilities than it has shown so far but also to take concrete steps to meet Indian fears. The stoppage of direct deliveries of new weapon to Pakistan is a welcome move in that direction. But clearly it is not enough.
Justification
In order to justify their own actions, the Americans have from time to time exaggerated the importance of this country’s ties with the Soviet Union. But they know as well as anyone else that New Delhi is not engaged in any conspiracy to undermine regimes friendly to them, and that it has nothing to gain from a dismemberment of Pakistan which it does not even regard as a possibility as far into the future as one can see. Indeed, whatever its often not too well informed supporters may believe and say, the Soviet Union itself appears to have accepted that the overall policy of detente with the West leaves it no serious alternative but to accept the status quo in the Persian-Arab Gulf. The pertinent point in this connection is not whether it has a stake in the overthrow of King Feisal and the Shah but whether it is prepared to risk the breakdown of detente with the West for the sake of promoting a revolutionary upheaval in the area. Surely the answer must positively be in the negative. In plain terms this mean that the Nixon Administration need not be obsessed by the fear of oil supplies being disrupted and that it can adopt a more rational approach to the entire region.
In view of the past difference between the two governments, American policy and opinion makers may find it difficult to accept that essentially India’s preoccupation is with itself, that it seeks nothing more than an opportunity to shape its future in freedom from external interference and that it has strenuously objected to US military aid to Pakistan principally because it has looked upon Islamabad as an instrument of such interference. But no serious observer of the Indian scene can miss the fact that India seeks disengagement and not engagement in the form of conflict. In psychological terms, this is the very essence of its concept of non-alignment. The US, or for that matter China, can have no basic dispute with such a country.
The Times of India 3 October 1973