It is hazardous to predict the outcome of Mrs Gandhi’s proposed visit to the United States in July. However, the moment is most opportune for an Indo-US dialogue. Many of the prejudices, ideas and schemes which President Reagan and his aides brought with them to the White House have not stood the test of practice and reality. They have little choice but to review their stance on major foreign and defence policy issues.
This gives Mrs Gandhi an opportunity to press effectively India’s point of view. If she could dispel the long-standing misconception that India need not matter all that much to America in its pursuit of vital national interests she will have helped lay the foundation for a new Indo-US understanding; if the world’s oldest democracy, America, and the largest, India, have reasons to grumble about each other, they have even stronger reasons to seek to cooperate with each other. Girilal Jain examines America’s as well as India’s compulsions to discover a new basis of friendship.
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President Reagan’s invitation to Mrs Gandhi amidst his urgent domestic and foreign policy preoccupations is a surprise and so is her immediate acceptance of it. If adequate preparatory discussions have taken place, these have been kept a closely guarded secret.
The Reagan-Indira meeting at the north-south summit in Cancun in July 1981 was cordial. Indeed the US president let it be known publicly that his aides had let him down in their assessment of the Indian prime minister. She was not the ogre they had represented her to be.
But it was an insubstantial meeting. Mrs Gandhi did not even raise the issue which was perhaps uppermost in her mind – the US decision to supply the highly sophisticated F-16 aircraft and other military equipment to Pakistan which despite the Soviet presence in Afghanistan continues to regard this country as the principal threat to its security, As such, Cancun cannot have paved the way for the invitation and its ready acceptance.
Mrs Gandhi has been keen to mend fences with; the United States, if that is possible, and, if not, at least to avoid unnecessary recriminations and bitterness. The reasons are obvious. Despite the decline in its status, power and influence in the world, the United States remains the only superpower in the proper sense of the term and it cannot pay India to attract its displeasure, especially now when the Soviet Union is facing enormous problems at home and abroad. India needs America’s support if unnecessary hurdles are not to arise in the utilisation of the $5.7 billion IMF loan and it requires continued supply of enriched uranium from it for the Tarapur plant. Above all, a friendly White House can be depended upon to use its influence in Islamabad in favour of peace and amity in the sub-continent. It may fail us as it did in 1965. But it is worth noting that Islamabad would in all probability not have sent thousands of armed infiltrators into Jammu and Kashmir if Washington had protested against the use of US-gifted weapons in the Rann of Kutch some months earlier.
But how can Mrs Gandhi hope to accomplish this task of befriending the present administration in Washington so long as there is no firm sign of a shift in its policy towards the region which she considers, quite rightly, as being ill-advised and short-sighted? Needless to add, there is so far no evidence to suggest that the United States is reviewing its earlier decision to treat Pakistan as a front-line state in the conflict with the Soviet Union and rearm it accordingly. Or that it is re-examining its excessive reliance on its own military presence to preserve a measure of order and stability in the oil-rich Gulf.
Similarly, while Mr Reagan may have revised his earlier uninformed opinion that India under Mrs Gandhi is a Soviet surrogate, (the State Department has not shared this view which the Pentagon has put forward) and may wish to ensure that it does not feel compelled to draw close to Moscow, he cannot possibly be under the illusion that New Delhi will cheerfully acquiesce in America’s present policies in South Asia and the adjoining Gulf. Why then the invitation? Frankly, the reasons are rather obscure. All that we can say just now is that Washington has reasons to undertake what John Foster Dulles called an “agonising reappraisal” of its overall foreign and defence policies.
The central scheme of President Reagan’s entire foreign and defence policies is under attack in the United States itself. The anti-nuclear sentiment and movement have, for instance, suddenly gathered momentum, posing a serious challenge to the White House. The American people now seem to favour not an attempt to acquire a first-strike capability (the capacity to cripple the Soviet nuclear force in one fell swoop) but arms limitation discussions with the Soviet Union. They have left the administration in no doubt that they do not want American soldiers to be sent to El Salvador or any other country which is plunged in civil war. The so-called China card has not turned out to be particularly reliable. All these developments should have a bearing on America’s India policy.
These larger foreign-defence s policy issues facing the Reagan administration need not detain us here. More relevant for us is the fact that developments in the Gulf region on India’s doorstep should emphasise for discerning policy planners in Washington the value of friendly ties with this country. In view of Washington’s past record, one cannot be sure that they recognise the obvious. But maybe they are beginning to do so. Maybe the invitation to Mrs Gandhi is an expression of this new awareness.
New Delhi should not discount this possibility, especially in the context of Pakistan’s efforts to conclude a no-war pact with it. Most of us have seen this move by Islamabad, and understandably so, wholly in the context of the unhappy history of Indo-Pakistan relations. But there cannot be much doubt that Islamabad has taken this initiative at least partly as a result of America’s prodding. If there was any scope for doubt on this score, it should have been cleared when President Zia-ul-Haq removed Mr Agha Shahi as his foreign minister and appointed in his place General Yaqub whom the US administration trusts. That apart, there has taken place a most significant development in the Gulf region which must cause considerable anxiety in the United States.
It is difficult for us to say whether or not US intelligence agencies had anticipated Iran’s spectacular victories over Iraq in recent weeks. But we can say that these have exposed the vulnerability of a policy which has centred almost wholly on the perception of a Soviet threat, direct or indirect, to conservative and broadly pro-Western regimes in the area. If a spectre haunts the Gulf, it emanates from the mullahs in Teheran, not from the communists in Moscow or anywhere else. As far as we can see, the Americans cannot meet this challenge by themselves. Since the challenge is not military in nature, it cannot be met by military means.
It will be rash for anyone to predict the consequences of the Iranian victories over Iraq. For all we know, Saddam Hussein may survive. He is said to have decimated the Al Dawa, the militant Shia underground organisation, and purged and executed potential opponents in the armed forces and the ruling Baath Party. These ruthless moves do not guarantee his survival but they do improve his chances of riding out the storm.
This is especially so because it is not possible to anticipate the course of events in Iran itself. Ayatollah Khomeini is an ailing old man and no one can quite fill his role, should he disappear from the scene. But the victories give the mullahs additional legitimacy in the eyes of their own people and strengthen their appeal to the Muslims, especially the Shias among them, elsewhere. This is not a prospect which can please American policy planners.
Where does India come into all this? One answer is fairly obvious. It is within this country’s capacity to give or deny a sense of security to the Pakistani rulers. The other answer is not so obvious although it is equally significant. Friendly relations with India can add to the legitimacy of pro-Western regimes such as Saudi Arabia in the region. They will also need to revive co-operation with Egypt in order to create an atmosphere in which they can feel safe.
We do not know what role the United States has assigned to Pakistan and what precise role President Zia has agreed to play. Last year there were reports that Pakistan has agreed to deploy two divisions in Saudi Arabia to look after the ruling family’s security. These were superseded by other reports which suggested that Islamabad would keep ready at home two divisions which can be airlifted to Saudi Arabia in the event of an emergency. Saudi willingness to pick up the bill for Pakistan’s military purchases in the United States strengthens the impression that a tripartite arrangement involving America, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan does indeed exist.
The plan, whoever its author, is a non-starter. In view of Iran’s new possible appeal to Muslim fundamentalists in general and the fanatics among the Shias in particular, it is highly unlikely that Pakistan will send its troops abroad and risk Teheran’s displeasure and denunciation. If Field Marshal Ayub Khan could not send one brigade to fight communists in Vietnam in 1961 after having promised the Americans, General Zia is not likely to be able to despatch troops to fight fellow Muslims. Should a contingency arise, the American plans in this regard will turn out to be a fantasy.
That, however, is not our concern. Pertinent for us is the fact that the Americans appear to have concluded that Pakistan needs assurance of security on its eastern borders in order to be able to play any worthwhile role in the Gulf. The Shah of Iran had come to a similar conclusion after the Bangladesh war. That was why he reversed his earlier policy and decided to seek good relations with this country. Saudi Arabia rulers, too, may have arrived at the same decision.
All this could give us a leverage with the United States which we can depend on Mrs Gandhi to use effectively. This leverage would not have been available to us if she had accepted the ill-considered suggestions to discontinue the modernisation of the Indian armed forces, to give up criticism of the US decision to arm Pakistan and to accept Islamabad’s protestations of friendly intent at face value. But these very circumstances place us in a difficult position. In our discussions with the Americans on our problems with Pakistan, we will be under great pressure to be “reasonable and flexible”. We should be reasonable and flexible but not at the cost of encouraging the Pakistanis to believe that they can have our friendship and yet retain the right to agitate the Kashmir issue.
An opening with the United States need not embarrass our intimate relations with the Soviet Union. The Kremlin, too, wants stability and peace on its southern borders and has reason to be wary of the fundamentalists in Teheran. In the early seventies, Moscow welcomed New Delhi’s growing ties with Teheran though the Shah occupied an even more important place in the American scheme than does King Khalid today. By the same logic, it should favour ties between this country and Saudi Arabia.
Mrs Gandhi believes in the policy of “open covenants openly arrived at”. She made the point forcefully when, on the eve of her departure for Saudi Arabia, she announced that she would be visiting the Soviet Union in June and the United States in July.
The Times of India, Sunday Magazine, 25 April 1982