By Manoj Joshi

The new American policy for South Asia took clearer shape last week amidst a discordant signal from India's Ministry of Defence to its powerful US counterpart, better known as the Pentagon. Under Secretary of State Thomas F. Pickering's five-day tour to India and Pakistan left Kashmir firmly on the back burner, even while ratcheting up Indo-US ties by declaring that the US was now engaging India in a "strategic dialogue". However, the cancellation amidst controversy of the meeting of the Indo-US Defence Policy Group (dpg) planned for next week has annoyed the Pentagon and is a slight setback to the emerging entente.

With what Pickering termed the "articulation phase" over, both will put a seal on the new terms of engagement during the visit of US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, beginning on November 17. She will hold discussions with Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral and insiders expect India to concede the resumption of the disrupted "technical" dialogue on proliferation issues while the Americans will commit themselves to take a second look at some of their restrictive laws relating to the transfer of dual-use technology to India and the issue of the use of spent fuel for the Tarapur nuclear power station.

"So far it's atmospherics," says George Tanham, former Rand Corporation analyst and a noted US specialist on India. But given the difficulties in the relationship, he points out, "a good atmosphere helps a lot". Former foreign secretary J.N. Dixit welcomes a policy of reasonable dialogue "where the two sides can talk about issues like proliferation at a technical level without necessarily changing their respective stands".

The US says it is looking beyond the troubled Indo-US ties of the post-Cold War period and the effort to browbeat India on nuclear and missile issues. As a contrite Pickering aide notes, "We have moved away from the diplomacy of demarches to dialogue."

Indian officials are elated but remain low key. "What we are saying is that there is an improvement of relations between the two countries," is Foreign Secretary K. Raghunath's modest assessment of the visit. The Defence Ministry's action at this juncture seems to go against the grain. Leaks from the Pentagon claim that Defence Secretary Ajit Kumar, not satisfied with being equated with the US Assistant Secretary of Defence for International Security Affairs, scuttled the third dpg meeting. Since Indian and US officials have had two rounds of talks in the past three years under the aegis of this group this action seems inexplicable, if not churlish.

The Defence Ministry response has been elliptical, if not opaque. It did not quite reveal what officials have been privately saying: the dialogue with the US is not going anywhere and they do not want to be equated with Pakistan on this (a reference to a similar-sounding US-Pakistan group which held a meeting two weeks ago).

But the basic question is: can the all-civilian Ministry of Defence engage the Pentagon in a strategic or military dialogue? "They have neither the (trained) people, tradition nor infrastructure to engage the Pentagon in what will be an intellectual exercise relating to defence," charges a critic. US assistant secretaries for international security affairs have traditionally been influential political appointees besides being top-flight administrators as well as strategic affairs specialists.

Officials in the Ministry of External Affairs say the problem is a minor one and will be resolved. Hopefully, the momentum of the Pickering and the upcoming Albright visit will also have an impact. The mood in both capitals is now upbeat but in New Delhi there are worries over India's ability to respond. Dixit speaks for many analysts when he says: "I do not know what the Gujral Government wants." A visiting Pickering-team official was more forthright, "India has to decide what it wants." Political instability and poor bureaucratic management in India are obviously issues that cannot be wished away.

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