A stable paradigm

It's safer not to expect as much from Bush's visit in March as Clinton's 2000 visit had achieved

Pranay Sharma Delhi
Bill Clinton's visit to Delhi in early 2000 played a key role in not only bringing about a "paradigm shift" in Indo-US relations but also in opening the floodgates for the Atal Behari Vajpayee government's intense engagement with the outside world. It was the beginning of the acknowledgement by the big powers of India's potential as an emerging key player on the international stage. Exactly five years later yet another US President is scheduled to visit Delhi. But questions are already being asked whether Manmohan Singh will be able to gain as much from George W Bush's visit in March as his predecessor Vajpayee did from Clinton's.

The skepticism about the success of the Bush visit stems from some important changes that have taken place in India and the region in the past few years. Clinton was the first US president to come to India in 18 years. Attempts to re-work any relationship after such a long hiatus is bound to enthuse the two countries involved in the process. As a result, Clinton's visit to India succeeded in putting Indo-US relations to a newer and higher plane – one that had never been achieved by the two countries. The fact that it came within one and half years of India's decision to explode its nuclear veil by conducting five tests in Pokhran only added to the Indian enigma that many in the US were keen to grasp.  Coupled with India's supremacy in the field of information technology, the significant contribution that Indian-Americans were making in the US led Clinton and his key aides to re-discover India in a big way.
Bush's visit to India, on the other hand, takes place only five years after Clinton's and less than a year after the US president had a summit meeting with prime minister Manmohan Singh in Washington in July last year. Moreover, in the past five years there have been a number of visits between the two countries at different levels leading to a better understanding of each other's position on key bilateral as well as regional and international issues. The relation between the two sides is less tentative and much steadier than what it used to be some years back.

But the difference in the two visits also has much to do with the personalities of the two American presidents. Bush and Clinton are as far apart and different from each other as chalk and cheese. Clinton is perhaps one of the most charismatic leaders that the US has produced since John F Kennedy. The difference between him and Bush is not only because they headed two separate parties, the Democrats and the Republicans respectively, but also in their approach towards life in general. Clinton visited here in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. But most Indians dismissed it as an "internal affair" of the Americans and if some were at all interested, they started looking at the US president as more human than other political leaders.

Bush, on the other hand, is reputed to be strait-laced. The jokes about his lack of wit might have stopped circulating in the past few years but that has not made him any more interesting. He is said to be in bed by 8 in the evening and seldom finds things outside running his government interesting. During a visit to The Hermitage museum in St Petersburg two years ago, it was rumoured that Bush forced his delegation to follow him out after a whirlwind tour of the collections that lasted all of 15 minutes.

He comes to India at a time when criticism against him for the Iraq invasion has been rising both within and outside the US. The fact that Bush not only went ahead with attacking Iraq but his failure to either produce evidence of any weapons of mass destructions (WMDs) possessed by the Saddam Hussein regime and inability
to restore peace and normalcy in the country has only emboldened his detractors in India. An important reason for the success of Clinton's visit was the ability of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government to convince its partners in the coalition as well as the Indian people in general that close ties with the US is extremely beneficial for India. As a result it managed not only to rally all its allies behind the move but to a large extent even those from the opposition. The way the US president was mobbed by MPs from different political parties after his address to a joint session of parliament is just an example of the popularity Clinton enjoyed during his trip to India.

The lack of this euphoria was perhaps evident only in the leftist camps. But today, with 60 members in the lok sabha, they are key allies of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance(UPA) government and the ruling coalition's survival depends largely on their support. Anti-Americanism has been a traditional political plank of the left parties. With the Assembly elections in West Bengal due in a little over a month after Bush visits India, they would make sure that they remain as critical to Washington as they had been in the past. An indication of this has already been reflected in their strong opposition to a joint session of parliament being held in Bush's honour.

There is another key factor that differentiates Bush's visit from that of Clintons. And this has to do with Pakistan. As per indications Bush will be in India for two days and also visit Pakistan and perhaps Sri Lanka during his South Asian tour. Clinton was here for five days and spent only half a day in Bangladesh and Pakistan. If he was all praises for India and keen on finding more about the country, his reaction was just the opposite in Pakistan. During the few hours he spent in Islamabad the US president made his displeasure to Musharraf's military regime known not only through his stiff body language but also by reading out the riot act in public. In an address to the Pakistani nation he had made it clear that he wanted Musharraf to take immediate steps to restore democracy in the country and stop all terrorist activities from within the Pakistani soil.

Today, Pakistan is a key ally of the US and its close partner in the fight against "global terror." No US official makes it a point to remind Musharraf of restoring democracy in the country any more. Though once in a while and mainly on India's insistence, the Bush administration talks about the need to stop all terrorist activities in Pakistan. But in the same breath it also points out that Musharraf
is doing exemplary work in fighting Is-lamic fundamentalists and terrorists within his country.

Neither Indians nor Americans are willing to see Indo-US relations in the light of Washington's ties with Islamabad. It is no longer a "hyphenated relationship", they argue. Nicholas Burns, the US under-secretary of state and the pointsman of the Bush administration in strengthening Indo-US ties said recently in Delhi, "The strategic partnership that president Bush and prime minister Manmohan Singh have is qualitatively different from other relationships." Though he did not elaborate any further on the issue, South Block officials express confidence at the level of relations that India now has with the US. "Our relations with the Americans stand on its own. We are not looking over our shoulder any more to see how other countries are faring with Washington," a senor Indian diplomat said.

The Indian leadership's confidence stems from the fact that though the Americans are willing to keep Pakistan happy by offering some financial concessions, military hardware and perhaps an occasional pat on Musharraf's back, while dealing with India the US is willing to go a long way. As part of its policy to see India emerge as a strong player in the international stage, the Bush administration has embarked on a policy to engage with India in a way that no American government has so far done with Delhi.

The key to this transformed relationship would be seen in the civilian nuclear deal that president Bush and prime minister Manmohan Singh signed in Washington in July last year. If it comes through, India will get access to sophisticated and dual-use technologies that had been denied to it all these years. It will also effectively grant Delhi the status of a declared nuclear power in the world.

In the American scheme of things, more particularly among the neo-cons who dominate the Bush Administration, India is perhaps the only power that could effectively balance China's rise in the world. In addition, India is a democracy, has a large English-speaking population and offers an attractive knowledge base and a huge market and investment destination for American enterprises.

Since India has a large army and a very efficient blue water navy it could also extend more than a helping hand to the Americans in managing the various crises in Asia and promote and strengthen democracies in different parts of the world.

But that looks good on paper. Implementing them might prove to be much more difficult than either side expects. A key issue will be the completion of the agreement for implementing the civilian nuclear deal. Since the time it was signed by the two sides there has been a lot of hype and focus on the agreement, both in India and the US. "We are trying our best to see that negotiations are completed before president Bush's visit to the country," foreign secretary Shyam Saran said. Burns agrees with him but adds a rider. "We have managed to cover a lot of ground. But we have a long way to go. The unique nature of the subject adds up to its complexity."
Indications suggest that the two sides are trying their best to narrow their differences and agree to a detailed plan that includes the segregation of India's civilian nuclear and military facilities in the next few weeks. But given the complexities involved in the negotiations, including the opposition to the completion of the deal in both countries, it will not be an easy task. The last round of talks between Saran and Burns got stuck on classifying India's fast breeder programme as a civilian one and putting it under full-scope safeguards, that is, under international supervision. There are likely to be many such hurdles in the coming days before the deal can be finalised. If it does not come through before Bush visits India, the US president will find it difficult to sell his trip to Delhi as a successful one.

A key development early next month might determine its fate to a large extent. The International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors is scheduled to meet in Vienna in early February to decide whether Iran should be referred to the UN security council for its alleged clandestine nuclear weapons programme. India is in the 35-member board. In September, when it voted with the western countries against Iran, the Congress-led UPA government came under severe criticism from its allies and detractors in India. The left parties have cautioned the government not to vote against Iran on America's insistence. It is a tough call for India. If it votes with the Europeans and others against Iran, it will be under severe pressure from the left and other forces in India. If it does not, the US and its western allies will be unhappy and more importantly, it may raise a big question mark from US congressmen on whether the civilian nuclear deal should be given the go ahead.

Manmohan Singh's problem is not limited to dealing with the left parties alone. His party has also been tentative in rallying behind him to create a situation that could begin a new chapter in Indo-US relations. Many in the Congress are not yet convinced whether India and the US could really come to an understanding on "common enemies". Most of the countries identified by the Americans as potential threats are India's traditional friends. The BJP, which is in the opposition, may agree in principle to much of what the UPA government is trying to achieve with the US. But it will not make things easy. On the contrary, it will wait for an opportunity to see the first signs of cracks in the UPA coalition walls to launch a massive campaign on a perceived "sell-out" of national interests to the Americans.

Another major factor that the Indian leadership will have to keep in mind in dealing with the US is the concerns of China. The leadership in Beijing has made it clear that it no longer sees India as a rival but regards it as a partner. As part of this it has got into a strategic partnership with India in April last year and is celebrating 2006 as "friendship year" with Delhi. But it has been closely watching the developments in Indo-US relations. If the Chinese leadership feels that the growing closeness between Washington and Delhi is being done with an aim to contain Beijing, then it will definitely start re-thinking about its normalisation process with India. This may well re-open the fissures in Sino-India ties and bring back the strains that the two sides have carefully managed to remove in the past few years.