Did the United States seek to help Pakistan achieve parity with India before the secession of Bangladesh? A cool examination of all the relevant evidence does not permit an answer in the affirmative. The US asked for and secured military bases in Pakistan and in return it provided a substantial amount of military hardware and a measure of political support to Rawalpindi in the U.N. over Kashmir. But even during the Dulles era which lasted only four brief years from 1954 to 1958, it could not afford to ignore India for the simple reason that it looked upon it as a counterweight against China. It feared that the failure of the democratic experiment in this country would facilitate Peking’s task in dominating south and south-east Asia. American thinking may have been unduly simplistic and it may have been too much dominated by the rhetoric generated by the cold war. But that is another matter.
As Mr. Bhutto has noted in his book Myth of Independence, America abandoned whatever reservations it might have had regarding India in 1959 when New Delhi’s relations with Peking began to deteriorate in the wake of the revolt in Lhasa in March that year. It then tried to establish a balance in its relations with India and Pakistan. This undoubtedly influenced its decision to deny this country the large-scale and long-term military aid it was asking for in 1964 and to cut off military supplies to both New Delhi and Rawalpindi at the time of the Indo-Pakistan war in 1965. But that is very different from the concept of parity. Why then has this view of U.S. policy in the sub-continent come to be so widely accepted in this country?
Obvious
Some of the explanations are fairly obvious. Most Indians have, for instance, still not been able to overcome their resentment against the U.S. over its original decision to extend military assistance to Pakistan in 1954. This is partly the result of their deep distrust of Pakistan and partly of their unconscious assumption that but for this aid, the ruling elite in Pakistan would have reconciled itself to Indian primacy in the subcontinent and that this would have paved the way for normal, if not friendly, relations between the two countries. It does not even occur to them that this view is wholly opposed to the widely held assessment of the old Pakistani elite here and that in case U.S. aid was not available, Pakistan, like President Nasser, would have turned to the Soviet Union for military hardware. In the light of Moscow’s anxiety in recent years to befriend all countries on its southern flanks, it would be naive for anyone to argue that it would have turned down any such request.
Communists and other leftist elements with the notable exception of those belonging to the former PSP, have spared no effort to convince the Indian people, specially the intelligentsia, that the U.S. does not mean well by this country. They have often adduced American military assistance to undivided Pakistan as an incontrovertible proof in support of their assertion.
Their success in the face of massive U.S. economic aid to this country and President Kennedy’s immediate response to Mr. Nehru’s appeal for help at the time of the border conflict with China in 1962 is truly remarkable. But it is not altogether surprising because the Indian people’s attitude towards Pakistan, like its towards them, being ambivalent, this country has tended to shift some of the blame for its troubled relationship to the most influential and involved external power.
The most important reason for the widespread acceptance of the parity thesis is, however, psychological. India has needed a device to avoid facing up to the contradictions that have plagued its search for a viable foreign policy. While it is only natural that as the second most populous country in the world it should have sought to join the ranks of the great powers, it has been gravely handicapped for want of economic and military power.
Barriers
Similarly, while it is unavoidable that it should have aspired to a leading role in the third world in view of its political maturity and the part it has played in undermining the British empire, and consequently of the smaller French and Dutch empires, it has not been able to overcome wholly the barriers that religious and cultural differences have placed between it and its neighbours in the east as well as the west. Thanks to Mr Nehru’s adroitness, India has avoided isolation which it would have almost certainly faced if it had chosen to emphasise its Hindu heritage. But it cannot be denied that common religious ties have facilitated the task of Pakistan’s diplomacy in West Asia, specially since the decline of Nasserism in 1967.
Unlike Indonesia under Dr. Sukarno, Egypt under President Nasser and Ghana under Dr. Nkrumah, India has on the whole not allowed its ambitions to outrun its material and diplomatic resources by too wide a margin. But this has not eliminated the built-in contradiction between its aspirations and the grim realities of a backward economy and society. In the ’fifties Mr. Nehru managed to keep this contradiction under control and out of public view as a result of his skillful utilisation of the Russo-American conflict and rivalry. But it came to the surface in the early ’sixties following the military debacle in N.E.F.A.
The advocates of the parity thesis have also as a rule failed to take cognisance of the fact that, however intense its hostility towards this country in the ’fifties – at the time of maximum American military assistance and political support – Pakistan did not look upon itself as India’s equal. On the contrary, its intelligentsia was then almost possessed by a deep sense of inferiority. Pakistani leaders, corrupt, fickle and without any loyalty higher than personal aggrandisement, inevitably suffered in comparison with Mr. Nehru and his colleagues. Pakistani intellectuals also admired, not without a touch of jealousy, the success of India’s experiment in democracy and planned economic growth. They had no doubt at all that it was not only militarily much stronger than their country but was also well set to achieve a high degree of’ self-reliance in respect of even sophisticated hardware. The more discerning among them not only knew that they did not have a ghost of a chance to seize Kashmir but also said so in so many words, albeit privately.
Their image of India and of themselves changed after the Chinese assault on this country in 1962. It was only then that the Muslim League’s claim to parity with the Congress in the pre-partition period found a new expression. But that was not primarily the result of the American connection. On the contrary, Pakistan acquired the ambition of becoming India’s equal only when it diversified its international relations sufficiently and sought China’s and subsequently the Soviet Union’s friendship. As it happened, it was about this time that Mr. Nehru lost his former sureness of touch and grip. While India’s economic performance began to flag during this period, Pakistan’s improved significantly. This relatively happy period for Pakistan ended with the 1965 war. Indeed, even this statement needs to be qualified in that Rawalpindi’s aggressive actions in the Rann of Kutch and infiltration into Kashmir were as much the product of its lack of respect for the Indian leadership and the consequent conviction that it could get away with them as of its obsessive fear that this country was about to acquire a decisive and permanent military superiority!
Compulsions
On an objective view the present Pakistani ruling elite has no good reason to believe that China will help it redress the balance with India any more than the United States did in the ’fifties. It cannot, after all, gloss over the fact that both in 1965 and 1971 Peking did not go beyond verbal blasts against India. And even if Islamabad is willing to find extenuating factors to explain away China’s highly cautious behaviour it will be ill-advised to ignore geopolitical considerations.
In brief, just as the United States needed to befriend India in the ’fifties in spite of its annoyance with Mr. Nehru over his policy of non-alignment, China cannot in the long-run afford to alienate this country. While in Washington’s case the dominant consideration was the desire to build a counterweight against China, in Peking’s case the compulsion is to ensure that the Soviet Union is not able to perpetuate and extend its influence in this area.
All in all, the inference must be that even if India has not been, and is still not, fully equipped to play a major role in the world as a whole, it has been, and continues to be, reasonably well placed in sub-continental terms. It can, of course, come to grief as it did in 1962 if it ignores its essential defence requirements. But it need not unnecessarily put itself on the defensive by failing to see the actions of other powers in a proper perspective.
The Times of India, 20 December 1972