Condi is India's friend
HT.com  | March 17, 2005 | Binay Kumar
 

As I write this column today, the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is visiting New Delhi, her latest stopover in a South Asia tour that will take her to six countries including India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Going by the press reports from the subcontinent, there is an air of heightened expectations swirling over Raisina Hills, and perhaps justifiably so.

This is her first tour of South Asian since taking oath of office on January 28. As part of a new charm offensive for the second term of President Bush aimed at undoing the severe damage done to American image abroad in the aftermath of the unilateral declaration of war on Iraq, Rice has already visited Israel, the West Bank and Europe (but a larger Middle East tour was called off last week apparently after reports of differences with Egypt over a political prisoner).

Why should we treat Rice differently? We haven't forgotten the avoidable demonstration of double standards by Colin Powell when he visited the subcontinent last. Let bygones be bygones! Rice is made differently.

Notwithstanding the enormous goodwill democrat Clinton had earned in India, as the main foreign policy adviser to the presidential republican candidate George Bush in the election campaign of 2000, Rice had forcefully argued in an article published in Foreign Affairs that America "should pay closer attention to India's role in the regional balance."

She had argued: ''There is a strong tendency conceptually (in America) to connect India with Pakistan and to think only of Kashmir or the nuclear competition between the two states. But India is an element in China's calculation, and it should be in America's, too. India is not a great power yet, but it has the potential to emerge as one.''

It was her recognition of India's prospect as a global power that has shaped the contours of US policy towards India in the last four years since Bush assumed the presidency. What Rice was saying in 2000 assumes significance today as she steers America's foreign policy at its forefront.

It also underlines her prudent acceptance of India's perception of itself as a country destined to achieve major power status. That Rice should recognize this aspiration as legitimate and valid is indeed a major shift in American establishment's view of India in the comity of nations.

In fact, it was quite late in coming but this is not the place to lament the fallacies that hurt India-US relations for over fifty years. India's aspirations to be a global player was evident in the world view of its first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, the architect of India's post-independence foreign policy. His pursuit of non-alignment was not so much an attempt at 'aligning' India with the Soviet Union as it was essentially an endeavor to enter the world stage on its own terms.

Non-alignment is a forgotten idea these days. America's ties with India have improved greatly since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the mid 1990s. Recently, Washington signed an agreement allowing India to purchase sensitive technology from the United States, something that looked almost impossible only a few years ago.

On Friday, India and the United States agreed to hold joint workshops on missile defense at a two-day meeting that concluded in Hyderabad. Last month, the United States indicated that it may sell Patriot missile defense system to India.

While Indian officials have also shown interest in buying F-16 fighter jets from the United States, US officials have said they want to be a major supplier of weapons to India, which has one of the largest armed forces in the world.

The Indo-US Defense Policy Group, the highest policy making body that coordinates defense ties between the two countries, is reviewing various proposals to expand bilateral defense cooperation.

All these new initiatives stem from the the controversial National Security Strategy document unveiled by the Bush Administration in September 2002, in which the White House, for the first time, put India in the section of global powers rather than in the traditional chapters reviewing US regional policy.

Rice's unconventional view of India prevailed despite the fact that the US needed Pakistan to pursue its objectives in Afghanistan after September 11, 2001. Despite the well-known American disappointment with India's refusal to send troops to Iraq in the summer of 2003, Rice persisted with the implementation of President Bush's commitment to end the nuclear dispute with India.

Together with Robert Blackwill, the US Ambassador to India at that time, Rice prevailed upon the American administration to 'certify' that the elections in Jammu and Kashmir in 2002 were free and fair. It was a very important endorsement, which helped shape the cricket diplomacy of 2005.

Rice is no stranger to New Delhi. She may not have visited the place but is up to speed on its political and geo-strategic interests in that part of the world and beyond. It is crucial that India leverages the new correlation of forces in Washington to its advantage.

And we wish both parties lots of luck in their interactions.