Obama’s visit, India’s hopes

US President Barack Obama’s visit to India in early November has not generated much excitement so far despite its great importance and the enthusiasm that his inspirational election victory had produced almost two years ago. His complex personality has sent complex messages to India. His early Pakistan-leaning position on linking the resolution of the Kashmir problem to a successful conduct of the Af-Pak policy and working with China to promote peace and stability in South Asia touched sensitive chords in India.

As the perception grew that Obama was less committed to the India-relationship than his predecessor, he made some grand gestures to allay such misgivings by receiving our prime minister as the first state guest of his presidency and travelling to the state department for the reception for the Indian external affairs minister and speaking there in soaring terms about India. More significantly, his journeying to India so early in his presidential tenure is quite unprecedented. In his several bilateral meetings with Manmohan Singh he has given him comfort on ties with India. The reprocessing agreement has also been finalised, setting at rest doubts about his commitment to the nuclear deal.

The importance of the visit in consolidating India-US relationships is obvious. But what can be realistically achieved in terms of ‘deliverables’? The areas of enhanced engagement such as energy, technology, health, education, agriculture, etc have already been identified. Progress in most of these areas has been slow as capacity building, institutional changes, policy decisions, legislative steps, etc are required, and this is inherently time-consuming. For ‘success’ new ground will have to be broken.

A clearer enunciation of US support for our candidature for permanent membership of the UNSC is expected. It is not clear if the US is ready to oblige as yet. We want the US to ease the transfers of high and dual use technologies to India. Because the Congress will have to agree to likely changes, any concrete step to meet Indian expectations during the visit is unlikely. Removing remaining sanctions on specific Indian defence, space and nuclear organisations also may not be easy for the US because of non-proliferation reasons. We should not make the mistake of believing that the nuclear deal resolves all non-proliferation differences between India and the US. Its laws do not permit the US to support in any way India’s nuclear and missile programmes, and our organisations on the US Entities List have such connections. India should be a member of the NSG, but the US is unlikely to push for this as that would meet opposition from those already unhappy with the nuclear deal, and the US may not want to expend more political capital on such an effort.

India is deeply unhappy about US supply of arms to Pakistan even if this is expressed in muted terms, either because India feels its protests will remain ineffective or to avoid a pitched controversy with the US for larger political reasons. India is also concerned about the direction of US policies in Afghanistan, especially the reconciliation overtures toward the Taliban translating into Pakistan’s geopolitical success there. Worse, it will give a boost to radical Islamic ideology with a potentially dangerous fall-out on India. India is also not sure how much mounting US concerns about China can play in its favour, given the economic and the US-China financial interdependence, and US’ reluctance to open a new front of tensions in the east when it is already preoccupied in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its subdued reaction to China’s move to supply two additional nuclear reactors to Pakistan in violation of its NSG obligations reflects a serious gap in strategic understanding between India and the US with regard to our regional interests. Beyond this, we need to worry at potential US interference in J&K following the recent turmoil there. Obama has been receptive in the past to Pakistani propaganda about a solution in Afghanistan with Pakistani cooperation possible through a resolution of the Kashmir issue. The US tendency to politically equate a failing, terror-infested Pakistan, marked increasingly by religious extremism, with a secular, democratic and pluralist state like India in terms of shared responsibility in resolving issues that divide the two countries marks another element of frailty in our strategic ties.

Unable to address India’s regional concerns, the US seeks to place its relationship with it within a larger framework of a dialogue on ‘global commons’. On climate change, Indian and US positions cannot be congruent. US interest in the Doha Round has flagged as, in its view, the basis of negotiations has changed with the rise of emerging economies. Bilaterally, the nuclear liability legislation passed by India has caused serious ‘disappointment’ to the US as the objective of US companies to escape any liability in case of an accident and prevent filing of cases in US courts has not been achieved. S M Krishna has rightly scotched any expectation of amendment to the legislation and underlined that negotiations will have to be within its framework, though the attempt would ease the concerns of US companies by framing more congenial rules under the Act. In defence, the US has been publicly discreet about India signing on to the security, inter-operability and logistics agreements, but the first two are considered necessary for transfer of the most advanced defence technologies to India. The political sensitivities attached to these agreements are such that finalising them during Obama’s visit seems difficult.

Many US decision-makers want India to have a clearer idea about how it sees its ‘strategic’ ties with the US and how far it is willing to go with the US in this direction. This assumes that the US is ready but India is reticent. It is also said that India asks for a lot from the US but offers little in return. Both propositions are debatable. In reality the US is unable to adjust its policies in our region to conform to our strategic interests. It needs to support India’s territorial integrity in the way it does China’s. It squeezes our strategic options in Iran despite our energy security concerns. The change in Indian thinking towards the US is enormous, with the value of closer ties with the US being recognised by large sections of Indian society. India has begun to buy US defence equipment despite reliability of supply concerns. In the last seven years India and the US have conducted 50 military exercises. Despite intolerable provocations from Pakistan, India has stayed its hand not the least because of sensitivity to US regional concerns because of Afghanistan.

Much has been achieved already in forging close India-US ties. More can be done by way of a US course correction in the region and progress on some outstanding political and technology-related strategic issues. Obama’s visit provides the opportunity to achieve the objectives both sides have set for themselves.

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Published in New Indian Express, Published Date : October 28, 2010