Why Pakistan beat India to the US dining table
Since September 11, India's unqualified support for the United States gives out a signal that India, too, is willing to be a client state if it can get what Pakistan gets, says Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr, but it is clear that the gambit has failed because the United States is not sure that it can manipulate India in the same way that it can Pakistan
New Delhi, November 10
While supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) try to argue, however unconvincingly, that there is enough assurance from the United States to take note of India's concerns, especially with regard to Pakistan's abetment of cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, and the diehard opponents of the BJP point to the abysmal failure of the government to press home the point with the Americans, both sides refuse to look at the harsh reality: that India is a weak country, both economically and politically, and weak countries cannot flex their muscles, nor get what they want in the international arena.
The natural question that arises is: how is Pakistan able to get what it wants? Pakistan manages to get its wish-list because it is content to play second fiddle to the United States, and reconcile itself to the status of a client country of the Americans.
Since September 11, India's unqualified support for the United States gives out a signal that India, too, is willing to be a client state if it can get what Pakistan gets. It is clear that the gambit has failed because the United States is not sure that it can manipulate India in the same way that it can Pakistan. India is a large democracy, and there is fierce pluralism. If there are starry-eyed supporters of the US, there are diehard opponents of American imperialism, as well. The fact that Pakistan is not a democracy helps it to win the favours of Washington.
There is not much that India, whichever be the party in power, can do about it. The alternative is to make India a strong country, economically and politically. During the Congress years, Indians believed that India was strong politically in the international arena. It was a perception that was not borne out by reality. It is true that unlike the present times, India took an independent stand on many of the key problems facing the world. It is a different story that the big powers did not consider India more than a nuisance, the vocal backbencher in the parliament of nations.
India could not do much to tackle the border issue with the Chinese, and could not much more than protest against the Chinese occupation of thousands of kilometres of Indian territory in the Northeast and near Ladakh. China was able to hold on because of its military strength. Similarly, India has not been able to do much with Pakistan aggression in Jammu and Kashmir since 1948. As a result a part of the state, now known as Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) in India, and as Azad Kashmir in Pakistan, is severed from India.
The only time that India pulled off a military victory is during the Bangladesh freedom struggle. There were quite a few strategic reasons for that victory, apart from the bravery and discipline of the Indian armed forces. First, Pakistan could not just fight a war in its eastern wing from a distance of more than 1,600 km away. Second, when the United States moved the Seventh Fleet into the Bay of Bengal, it was the crucial intervention of the Soviet Union that had allowed India to hold its ground.
In 1971, India had sacrificed its principled stance of nonalignment. Indira Gandhi, the astute realist, understood the reality and made the right move in signing the friendship pact with the Soviet Union. Atal Behari Vajpayee and his colleagues are trying to strike a similar pact with the US 30 years later. While Indira Gandhi succeeded in guarding the national interests by giving up nonalignment, Vajpayee is not able to do so by walking over to the American camp.
The US is not willing to abandon Pakistan, and accept India as its strategic partner in the region. The Americans have their own compulsions for not doing so. One of them is, of course, the fact that India, being a democracy, is less malleable than Pakistan.
In the time of Indira Gandhi as well as that of Vajpayee, the basic weakness of India is that it remains economically and militarily a weak country. For reasons beyond the control of Indira Gandhi and Vajpayee, India has not become the self-reliant power it should have become in all these years.
In 1971, Indian air superiority over the Pakistani Sabre jets was due to Soviet MiG-21s. In 1965, it was a slightly different script. It was the incredible deftness of the Indian Air Force pilots in using the Gnats that outflanked the American Sabre jets of Pakistan. But India did not become the big military power like China.
One of the reasons that India could not become a military power in its own right was due to the fact that India did not become an economic giant like Japan or Germany. The successive Indian governments could not spend enough on defence research and development, and could not equip the forces with sophisticated arms. We are dependent on imports now as then.
While in the 1960s and the 1970s, many Indians entertained the delusion that India was a politically important country when it was not really so, for the past 10 years many Indians have believed that India is an economic giant when it is not. It is this gap between dream and reality that is forcing us to eat humble pie time and again in the affairs of the world.
The Americans are not willing to give a place of honour to India in deciding the political future of Afghanistan in the post-Taliban phase. Vajpayee seems to have recognised this. That is why he told The Washington Post that India would not like to complicate things in Afghanistan, but that it will defend its own interests and counter cross-border terrorism. There is the painful realisation that India has to fight its own battle against terrorism.
There is a catch even in this determination. India is turning to the Americans for strengthening its military muscle. One of the key elements of the India-US joint declaration on Friday, November 9, wasn't references to terrorism but to the prospect of defence cooperation between the two countries. That is, the Americans are willing to sell arms to India even as they sell them to Pakistan.
Although India is continuing its elaborate defence deals with Russia, it is a time of open shopping. And India will want to buy more from the Americans as a way of strengthening the bilateral relations. But even this is not likely to wean the US away from Pakistan.
India has no option but to become an economic and military power, and there is a lot to be done before the country can consider itself to be a power to reckon with in international affairs.
Mere sabre-rattling by the BJP hardliners will not make India a string country. It needs a more sober and long-term approach. |
