Anand K Sahay

It does seem that India is on the threshold of a new relationship with America that distinctly relegates the ties of the last fifty years to the category of obsolescence. The sweep of the framework defence agreement unveiled in Washington during the recent visit of defence minister Pranab Mukherjee can leave little doubt that this country has taken its first most unambiguous steps on the world stage in adjusting to the post-Cold War reality. For three generations of Indians, the US was the pre-eminent imperialist power out to crush the spirit of autonomous development around the world. Our policies—in international political and military affairs, as well as in the field of international trade and economics—were geared to challenging the powerful hegemon. India did not always succeed. The collapse of the Soviet bloc and the rising tide of neo-conservative economic activity around the world fuelled by the US could not but have profound implications for the world. The question really was, how long would this country take to make its peace with the US?

Perhaps the more interesting question is, does signing in a specific defence framework with America amount to India sleeping with the enemy?

Mukherjee’s address to the Carnegie Endowment for Peace and Security provides a hint of an answer. The defence minister made no bones that India did not favour a unipolar world, and pointed to the need for multilateral efforts to solve the many problems that beset relations between nations. It is relevant to note that such a vision is not in consonance with that of many in the US policy establishment who are looking to the fruition of their project for the New American Century in which the US would be philosophically permitted to steamroll its way round the world.

The defence minister clearly noted that even as India was geared to elevating its ties with Washington, for a host of issues it will do business in tandem with China and Russia, and on others it will team up with European Union, South Africa, Brazil or Japan. Of course, none of these has adversarial relations with Washington—indeed, none of them can afford to, especially after the collapse of the USSR. In fact, commencing well before that event Beijing developed extremely close terms with the US and could have qualified to fit the description of eastern NATO. A few points can be made in respect of India’s emergent ties with the US. First, it is the last of the major countries of the world to forge a relationship of proximity with America. It has some catching up to do, especially in obtaining upper-end, dual use, technology in order be economically more productive Two, the India-US equation comes at a time when the threat to world peace is widely perceived to be the most likely from non-state actors, such as promoters of terrorism. However, India has to be cognisant that if there is any power that can pose a danger to international harmony, it is the US itself, as Iraq shows. To that extent, its professed belief in a multipolar world is always likely to be on test.

Sahay, a journalist, writes for THT from New Delhi