Taking from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assertion of the India-US relationship overcoming “hesitations of history” I had a couple of options for the theme of this column: self-denials of history, or hypocrisies of history. Most likely both.
Strategic issues emerged much later, but India and the US should have been natural allies and partners 1947 onwards. But for an America caught in post-War reconstruction it was tough to look beyond Europe and Japan in the east and the west. Indian leadership was initially Britain-centric. Soon both partners were consumed by the Cold War. Pakistan chose to align with the US, India aspired for the leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement which continued leaning towards the Soviet Bloc, its hypocrisy exposed in the Prague Spring first and then comprehensively with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
India’s two most anti-West leaders, Nehru and Indira, reached out to the US in moments of greatest crisis, the Chinese invasion and food grain shortages. Successive Indian prime ministers (including Modi) have gratefully reminded the US of its key role in making Green Revolution possible. But we all want to forget how that the worst phase in our relations (1971) came just as that miracle was unfolding. There isn’t much
point listing the opportunities missed in those years, although successive US leaders, including Bush, Clinton and Obama have talked about the lost decades in our history.
It is more convenient and fair to presume that this history of New India-US relations begins with the end of the Cold War, in 1989. Or it should have begun then but for hesitations at our end. First, the greatest turning point of post-World War II world history caught India at an awkward moment. Rajiv Gandhi had declined (his desperate “nani yaad dila dengey” speech still ringing in our ears) and we saw two years of political instability and economic decline as Punjab continued to burn and a new fire was lit in Kashmir. India’s confidence was low at this point and the end of the Cold War was seen as a crisis more than an opportunity. There was an excuse, therefore for India not responding to global change and for the US, busy completing the victory in Afghanistan, to not reach out to a nation dealing with its own crises and messed up politics.
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India boldly broke the status quo on the economy in 1991 but the political leadership was still caught in old strategic mindsets, not quite at peace with the pace at which the Soviet Bloc unravelled. That explains Narasimha Rao’s uncharacteristic and most forgettable foreign policy indiscretion: when a half-hearted “putsch” seemed to have seized power back for the Communists in Moscow in August 1991, he had called it a warning to reformers (Gorbachev) in a hurry.
Some corrections were made subsequently, including upgrading relations with Israel, visits to the US and finally a bold Rao statement (on Capitol Hill) that India-US relations were no longer constrained by the past and that the sky was the limit to new possibilities. Rao had steered India through a very frosty period during the first Clinton White House packed with Cold Warriors, non-proliferationists and Robin Raphel. Kashmir was in deep trouble (exactly the bloody phase Vishal Bhardwaj’s *Haider* portrays) and there were more irritants between Delhi and Washington than opportunities. Rao, however, had the intellect to understand and embrace a fundamental global shift strategically as well as economically.
Rao began the process of post-Cold War correction in India’s foreign policy. Modi has now completed it by stating that a strong and prosperous India is in America’s “strategic interest”. Any Indian Prime Minister could have said in the past that a strong India was good for America. But key words matter in high diplomacy and “strategic” is one of those. That it should have taken India 25 hesitating years to close this loop is what we are debating. This is what Modi quite brilliantly described as hesitations of history.
Actually, we can see this resetting of India-US relations over three decades as a relay race. Rao cleared the track. Atal Bihari Vajpayee ran the first leg and handed over the baton to Manmohan Singh who did a fine lap in UPA-1 with the nuclear deal, but fumbled in UPA-II as his party lost nerve. Modi has picked up the baton now and made up for lost time.
Besides the benefit of a quarter century of ground work, Modi brings his own strengths too. First of all, is the magic of 282. It’s no coincidence that the last time an Indian prime minister evoked such enthusiasm on the Hill was Rajiv Gandhi with a full majority. Rao, Vajpayee, Manmohan were respected, but a 150-200 ballpark in Lok Sabha carries a fraction of the weight compared to 282. Of course, Modi wasn’t gifted his majority, he earned it. Second, he is now working with a team of professional diplomats that was truly brought up in the post-Cold War era. Third, with such large-scale emigration by family members of Indian elites, the emotional link with America is much greater. Fourth, Modi is a much younger leader than his predecessors.
Manmohan Singh often said that prime ministership of India was a job for a much more younger person. The fact is, three of India’s wisest prime ministers, Rao, Vajpayee, Singh took office at least ten years too late in their lives. You could add that Rajiv, just before them, got there ten years too young. Modi, although older than most of his global contemporaries, has age on his side.
His biggest strength, however, is his uncluttered mind. He isn’t encumbered by burdens and hypocrisies of history or analysis-paralysis induced by reading too many diplomatic assessments and cables over the years. It is precisely this clutter that psyched Congress into a freeze on operationalising the nuclear deal after risking its government for it. The freeze became a fright over going forward with defence cooperation pacts. Defence Minister AK Antony saw adverse implications in Leftist Kerala, others scared Sonia Gandhi she was going to lose the Muslim vote. Modi has arrived with a clean slate and an open mind, never mind that in opposition he and his party had fully opposed these policies. Your first day in power, after all, also marks the beginning of a new history.
This uncluttered mind enables Modi to pursue a predominantly transactional approach to diplomacy and deal-making. He is willing for give-and-take, even on trade and climate negotiations to create more strategic space with America, and to calm down strategic/tactical concerns with China to expand economic and trading space. To that extent, Modi is more like Bush Jr or even Reagan. A straight-shooting man of the Right, free of hesitations–and hypocrisies–of history.
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