It is fortuitous that President Nixon will be visiting New Delhi within a couple of weeks of Mr Dinesh Singh’s trip to Washington. Will these two visits help to clear the way for Indo-US understanding and co-operation in the post-Viet Nam era in South and South-East Asia?
The situation is favourable in that neither the United States nor India can take the “I told you so” attitude. Both are in fact groping for policies which will conform better to the realities of the situation in this part of the world in the ‘seventies. Frank discussions can facilitate their task.
Indo-American relations in the past have been soured by differences of outlook, assessment and policy on a whole range of international issues and developments. Some of these can bear mention in the present context.
A Satellite
In the ‘fifties Washington assumed that the communist movement was a monolith with its headquarters in Moscow, that China was a Soviet satellite (Mr. Dean Rusk called it a Slavic Manchukuo on a bigger scale), that Russia and China might use their armies for spreading the revolution beyond their frontiers and that it was necessary for the United States to establish a chain of bases around the Sino-Soviet landmass to counter communist expansionism.
India under Mr. Nehru challenged all these assumptions in so far as they related to Asia. The late Prime Minister held that China was not a Soviet satellite, that the Chinese revolution was part of nationalist resurgence in Asia, that the spread of communalism could best be stopped not by military means but by implementing a fairly radical programme of social and economic change and that a military alliance with the United States would weaken rather than strengthen the popular appeal of the regimes concerned, distort their perspective and make them conservative and even reactionary in their domestic policies.
These differences were aggravated by President Eisenhower’s decision in 1954 to extend military assistance to Pakistan. Most Indians then came to believe that the United States was not friendly towards their country and that it was seeking to establish hegemony in the entire region. They were confirmed in their view by a string of provocative statements by Mr. John Foster Dulles, volatile military leaders and others who were busy proclaiming the American century and denouncing as immoral all those who did not join the anti-communist crusade.
Indo-American relations began to improve in the wake of Mr. Nehru’s second visit to Washington in the summer of 1956. The process acquired a new momentum as a result of President Eisenhower’s visit to India in 1959. He not only endorsed the Indian experiment in democratic planning and social and economic transformation without coercion but also began to take a sympathetic view of the policy of non-alignment.
The understanding between the two countries continued to grow under President Kennedy. He took a deep personal interest in the success of the Indian enterprise and thought no aid too big for the purpose. President Kennedy was not particularly enthusiastic about SEATO and CENTO and America’s mutual security pact with Pakistan. Rawalpindi’s relations with Washington began to cool off with his election to the presidency.
Normally the Chinese aggression against India should have cemented Indo-US ties. But it failed to do so for a variety of reasons. Mr. Nehru resented what he regarded as unfair Anglo-US pressure on the Kashmir issue. He probably even suspected that Washington was trying to undermine India’s policy of non-alignment through insistence on joint air exercises and the Voice of America deal.
The Americans, on their part, were irked by his refusal to make concessions to Pakistan, an euphemism for surrendering the Kashmir valley, his reluctance to publicise US military aid, his lack of enthusiasm for joint air exercises, his repudiation of the VOA agreement, and his adherence to the concept of friendliest possible relations with the Soviet Union. While Washington complained that New Delhi’s requests for military hardware were unreasonably high, the latter suspected that the former was dragging its feet either because it wanted to extract some concessions or because it was not sufficiently interested in strengthening India’s defence capability.
Mature View
This chapter in Indo-US relations closed at the time of the Indo-Pakistan war in September 1965 when Washington decided to terminate its arms assistance to both New Delhi and Rawalpindi. India was prepared to forego US arms if they were denied to Pakistan as well and it took a highly mature view of American failure to prevent Rawalpindi from violating the terms on which US arms had been supplied to it. But new sources of misunderstanding arose because it so happened that just as India became dependent on massive supplies of foodgrains from the United States on account of an unprecedented countrywide drought, American involvement in Viet Nam grew deeper and deeper and Washington became more and more keen to secure Indian support for its policy.
Here again American and Indian assessments were diametrically opposed. President Johnson took it for granted that the National Liberation Front in South Viet Nam was Hanoi’s creature, that Hanoi itself was Peking’s satellite, that a communist takeover in Saigon will mean an intolerable increase in China’s power and influence in South-East Asia and that it will endanger non-communist and pro-US regimes in the region. Mr. Dean Rusk spoke of one billion Chinese armed with nuclear weapons suggesting that only the US presence stood between them and their occupation of the whole of South-East Asia and areas far beyond.
New Delhi disputed most of these assumptions. It regarded Dr. Ho Chi-minh and his colleagues as staunch nationalists; it was convinced that a united Viet Nam would resist the establishment of Chinese hegemony in the area and that the fate of other countries would depend more on the performance of the ruling elites than on the outcome of the Viet Nam war.
This phase is now drawing to a close. President Nixon, once the most hawkish of the hawks, has become a dove. He is keen to withdraw American forces from Viet Nam as soon as it is possible to do so. Even more significant is the fact that the United States is no longer engaged in an anti-communist crusade, that it seeks far-reaching agreements with Moscow and a dialogue with Peking, that it does not now believe in the feasibility of finding military solutions to political problems, that it is not seeking to establish its hegemony in south and southeast Asia through a series of entangling alliances, that it recognises the limits of its power and that through bitter experience it has begun to show much greater respect for the personalities of other nations than it tended to do in the early phase of its ascendancy in the ‘fifties and early ‘sixties.
New Delhi, on its part, realises that the Chinese danger is a reality, that Peking does not necessarily respond to friendly gestures by other governments, that external support to dissident elements complicates the task of nation-building and that it will be a long time before the Chinese revolution “mellows” down.
It can thus be said that many of the causes of Indo-US differences and conflicts have disappeared. It should therefore be possible for the two countries to cooperate in a more positive and meaningful way than in the past.
But this is more easily said than done. The situation in the region is highly fluid. Neither Washington nor New Delhi can claim that it can predict the course of events with any measure of certainty or that it has worked out a policy which can cope with likely developments.
Positive
The steady diminution in US aid to this country is also likely to hamper the growth of mutually beneficial ties. It is not inconceivable that in view of India’s relatively poor economic performance, political instability and its closeness to the Soviet Union, Washington may not pay it the attention it should normally command. All the same it should be possible for the two governments to think of measures which will facilitate Indo-American understanding and co-operation.
To begin with, New Delhi can afford to adopt a more positive attitude towards Washington in its competition with Moscow. In the ‘fifties and early ‘sixties India leaned towards the Soviet Union because it was apprehensive that the United States sought to impose its domination on the area and because Russia was not in a position to entertain similar ambitions.
The situation has greatly changed since then. While America has to reconcile itself to a more modest role in future, Russia is rapidly becoming a global power in the proper sense of the word. Moscow is going ahead with an impressive programme of naval expansion; it has established its naval presence in the Mediterranean and is busy extending it to the Indian Ocean; its influence in West Asia is truly massive; its military relations with Pakistan are apparently growing fast.
Viewed in this context Mr. Brezhnev’s call for a “system of collective security in Asia” assumes great significance. On Moscow’s own statement the intention is to eliminate not only Chinese but also American influence in Asia.
Secondly, it is in the interest of America, India and the region as a whole to ensure that the attempt to contain communist China does not degenerate into pogroms against overseas Chinese. Neither the danger of such a development nor its disastrous consequences should be underestimated. The situation is clearly explosive and if it gets out of hand, the whole of south-east Asia will be thrown into chaos from which it will take long years to recover.
Much will depend on Peking’s policy. If it does not refrain from exploiting overseas Chinese to advance its own power and influence the nationalist sentiment will turn against them. But it is equally plausible to argue that Peking’s own attitude will to some extent be modified if it begins to feel that it is not being denied its place in the comity of nations.
A great change has taken place in America’s attitude to China. It is indeed possible that in spite of signs to the contrary Washington will be able to open a dialogue with Peking once the Viet Nam issue is satisfactorily settled. India should welcome Sino-American discussions because these might improve the chances of a rapprochement with China.
Thirdly, Washington should see to it that India is not excluded from schemes of economic cooperation in south-east Asia. New Delhi has overcome its inhibitions and is willing to co-operate with other countries in the region in the task of economic development and all that goes with it by way of expanded trade, exchange of knowhow, co-ordination of industrial plans and so on. Washington has a stake in India’s association with regional groupings in this part of the world because that would help to reduce the twin dangers of Japanese domination and nationalist reaction against it.
Finally, the two governments could discuss the question of the sale of US arms to Pakistan candidly. The arguments for and against such a move by Washington have been discussed all too often and need not be repeated here. But the US should have no great difficulty in appreciating that India already faces a difficult situation in view of Russia’s decision to provide arms to Pakistan and that the sale of US weapons to it will only add to New Delhi’s worries.
The American anxiety not to leave the field free to the Soviet Union is understandable. It is not in India’s long-term interest either that Russia should be the main supplier of weapons from Algeria to Indonesia. But Washington cannot ignore the lesson of 1965. Since Moscow is as much interested in preserving the territorial status quo in the sub-continent as Washington, the two super-powers should be willing to guarantee the existing frontiers of India and Pakistan against each other.
The Times of India 1 July 1969