Mr Rajiv Gandhi’s forthcoming visit to the United States could mark a turning point in India’s foreign relations. This is by no means certain. For one thing, it is far from certain that the US actions will match the rhetoric of some of its policy-makers even in the short run. For another, the Prime Minister has yet to reveal his overall approach to the country’s foreign policy. Even so the possibility of a qualitative change in Indo-US relations and therefore in India’s general foreign policy stance must not be dismissed.
Broadly speaking, India’s foreign policy runs at two levels – at the level of its vaguely defined ideology whereby it opposes racialism and neocolonialism in its various manifestations and seeks to promote a new international order which is more equal and just than the present west-dominated one, and at the realistic-pragmatic level whereby it seeks to protect its interests by developing relations not only with countries with which it is in sympathy in ideological terms but also with those it disagrees with strongly. There have been only three exceptions to this rule. India has had no dealings with South Africa and Formosa and hardly any with Israel, though all of them could have been its valuable trading partners. Thus despite its opposition to various aspects of US policy, especially those relating to Asia since the outbreak of the Korean war in 1950, New Delhi has maintained working relations with Washington and received substantial aid from it.
Plainly, India’s ideological stance, as first defined by Mr. Nehru and then sharpened by Mr Krishna Menon and maintained by Mrs Gandhi, has been tempered by its pursuit of national interests. Indeed, India has adopted not one but two ideological stances, one requiring it to emphasise its anti-colonial and anti-racialist commitments and the other its democratic ones. Obviously the second has softened the first and made it possible to seek and receive assistance from the neo-colonialist West, particularly the United States.
But if the opposition to the West has been doubly tempered by an awareness of national interests and the democratic commitment, the ties with the Soviet Union (without the power of which effective opposition to neo-colonialism could not have been possible) have been strengthened by the pursuit of the same national interests. The Soviet Union has played a key role in India’s economic development by way of supporting the establishment of basic industries in the public sector. And it has provided invaluable assistance in India’s search for security. The second has without doubt been the key factor in Indo-Soviet relations since it came into play in the mid-sixties. It is this factor which the United States now appears to have decided to weaken and it seems that Mr. Rajiv Gandhi is willing to play along in view of the state of the art.
Security Ties
The story of the evolution of the security relationship with the Soviet Union goes back not to 1962 when Mr Krishna Menon persuaded Mr Khrushchev to sell one squadron of MiG-21s to India but to 1954 when Mr Nehru rejected the US offer of military assistance on the ground that he could not accept what he opposed in Pakistan’s case. Mr Nehru did not then turn to the Soviet Union for hardware; indeed, he did not do so even in 1962 when China attacked India; instead he sought US assistance; and his successor, Mr Lal Bahadur Shastri, decided to buy Soviet weapons only when America finally rejected the Indian shopping list as being far in excess of its requirements. We also do not know how the United States would have responded in case Mr. Nehru had accepted its offer in 1954. But we do know that its rejection gave Indian nationalism an anti-US and a pro-Soviet bias.
India figured, though not too much, in the Sino-Soviet estrangement. Ironical as it may appear, as India gave an anti-US twist to its foreign policy, China, though sought to be isolated by the same United States, gave a pro-Pakistan bias to its South Asia policy. Neither the Sino-Soviet estrangement nor the pro-Pakistan bias of China’s South Asia policy became sufficiently well known up to the end of fifties. By the time they came to be widely recognised, the India-China conflict too had become too obstinate a fact to be easily brushed under the carpet. So when New Delhi finally turned to Moscow for military hardware in 1964, two ‘‘alliance” systems of a kind, albeit informal ones, came into existence – the Indo-Soviet one and the Sino-Pakistan one.
The United States, though tied in a security arrangement with Pakistan, could not have sided with either “alliance” in this contest. At that point it was, if anything, much more hostile to China than to the Soviet Union on account of its military involvement in Vietnam and Chinese support for Hanoi. That neutrality might have been one reason why President Johnson was quick to cancel military supplies to both Pakistan and India at the time of the Indo-Pakistan armed conflict in 1965 to the much greater disadvantage of Islamabad because it was much more dependent on them than New Delhi.
Dramatic Turn
The situation, however, took a dramatic new turn in 1971. As India once again faced the prospect of an armed conflict with Pakistan backed by China over Bangladesh, it decided to go in for a friendship treaty with the Soviet Union. And the United States, which was already engaged in an effort to find an honourable way out of Vietnam where in any case the Soviet Union had already replaced China as the principal source of military support for Hanoi, decided to seek rapprochement with Peking. Mr. Kissinger undertook a secret visit to Peking with the then Pakistan President, General Yahya Khan’s help, in July and soon afterwards communicated to the national security council President Nixon’s decision to tilt in favour of Pakistan in the conflict with India over Bangladesh. In December 1971, President Nixon despatched a flotilla of the seventh fleet into the Indian Ocean to serve as a warning to Mrs Gandhi that having won the war in the east, she must not attack Pakistan in the west.
The lines were not clearly drawn. India did not become an ally of the Soviet Union and refused to endorse Mr Brezhnev’s concept of Asian collective security. America sought to mend its fences with India and in 1973-74 actively promoted Indo-Iranian cooperation which inevitably reduced Pakistan’s importance in its scheme for South West Asia. As it began to emerge out of its fit of madness called the “Great proletarian cultural revolution”, China too moderated its hostility towards India. But events then took another turn. The Shah of Iran was overthrown in 1979. This put an end to Indo-Iranian cooperation. The Shah-supported Daud regime in Afghanistan had collapsed even earlier. This set in motion a chain of events which culminated in direct Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan in December 1978. Once again America’s attention turned to Pakistan and so did China’s.
India could possibly have helped evolve a political solution to the problem provided Pakistan and Iran had cooperated, assuming of course, that the Soviet Union had not moved into Afghanistan in the pursuit of a long-term design. But this was not to be. The new regime in Teheran was too strongly motivated by religious consideration to respond to an Indian plea for a political solution. The Pakistani generals preferred American guns to cooperation with India. And President Reagan’s administration was too hostile to the Soviet Union not to place the worst interpretation on its action in Afghanistan and too militaristic in its approach to be willing to allow India to explore the possibility of a political solution.
Informal Alliance
So once again two informal alliance systems emerged, with India ranged behind the Soviet Union despite its basic opposition to the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan, and Pakistan and China behind the United States in its bid to bleed the Soviet Union as much as possible in Afghanistan. Washington is now trying to disrupt the first arrangement and it appears that the Pakistanis and the Chinese are prepared to play along.
The US purpose is self-evident. It wants to reduce India’s dependence on arms on the Soviet Union because in the final analysis it wants to add to Moscow’s isolation and to promote an India-China-Pakistan entente. America’s calculations are also obvious. It sees a new opportunity in Mr. Rajiv Gandhi in view of his technical and non-ideological background and passions, India’s need for sophisticated technology and the Soviet Union’s inability to meet this requirement and to match American weapons. In terms of weapons the US is making a tentative beginning because it cannot match the Soviet terms. But the relationship could grow. Washington, it can be safely assumed, would wish it to develop provided, of course, its other calculations turn out to be accurate.
The US is opening a new anti-Soviet front. It will be naive to miss this fact. But that is no reason for Mr. Gandhi not to explore the possibilities. India needs US goodwill. Surprising though it may seem, this goodwill is not as vital in the field of technology and weapons as in the political field. Other sources are available in respect of technology and weapons which are good enough for India’s purpose even if they are not as good as the US. But no one can help this country ease its difficulties with Sri Lanka in respect of the Tamil problem and with Pakistan in that of the Sikh issue.
India has managed to turn the Soviet-US competition to its advantage in the past and it is not beyond its capacity to repeat this remarkable performance. The US itself can run into serious problems if it truly looks upon India as a potential great power in South Asia. Neither Pakistan nor China has accepted this proposition in the past and neither can possibly be enthusiastic about such an American perception now.
The key issue now, as in the past, is Pakistan. It cannot but be to India either what Canada is to the US – a friend – or what Cuba is to the US – an irritant. The parallel is not exact but it is good enough to underline the point I wish to make. Pakistan is also not a puppet which the Americans can manipulate to their wishes and purposes. The Soviet presence in Afghanistan has so far cut in one way; it has helped the US to use Pakistan to fight its war with the Soviet Union. But it can also cut the other way; Pakistan can make peace with it to India’s and America’s embarrassment – in that order.
The Times of India, 4 June 1985