July 6, 1998

If destablisation fails, the US will accommodate India

Swapan Dasgupta

It took 30 years for the anti-communists who wrote for Encounter to realise they were part of a covert CIA operation. It took ex-CIA agent Duane Clarridge's A Spy for All Seasons (1997) to inform the CPI(M) that its early ultra-radicalism was also nudged by US Intelligence. And it took a bout of frankness from Senator Daniel Moynihan to reveal that the CIA twice provided "election support" to Indira Gandhi's Congress.

It is possible we may have to await a similar indiscretion before the suspicion of external influences on either India's sharp credit downgrading or the precipitate fall of the rupee after Pokhran is confirmed. However, the trends are revealing.

First, the CIA has been lambasted in Washington for what is quaintly called "groupthink" -- supplying information that is comforting rather than credible. Senator Moynihan has even suggested that it would help if the foreign relations community learnt to read -- a pointed reference to the nuclear issue in the BJP manifesto and the National Agenda. Secondly, it is now admitted in the US that India and its concerns have been ignored for too long, particularly after President Bill Clinton showed that Sinophilia pays, handsomely. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's gratuitous belief that the "country of Gandhi and Nehru ... had more moral authority than many countries in the world" is well taken. Yet, India did not merit a full day's itinerary during her visit earlier this year. Today, that unconcern is being hastily rectified with National Security Adviser Sandy Berger asserting, "We have to keep in mind our long-term interest in the way India evolves." A telling comment when read with Clinton's stated preference for a "less unpredictable" regime in India.

To rush to the conclusion that Washington is now coupling sanctions with an elaborate destabilisation game may be unduly alarmist. The installation of a regime committed to unilateral N-disarmament and in favour of signing the CTBT, is, of course, ideal. The US seriously believed that India was on the road to abandoning the N-option before the BJP audaciously upset the applecart. A pro-CTBT activist has, for example, now conceded that former foreign secretary Salman Haider's statement to the Conference on Nuclear Disarmament in 1996 that "we do not believe that the acquisition of N-weapons is essential for national security" wasn't all that innocent. Indeed, it is worth asking all the ex-prime ministers who have suddenly rediscovered their statesman-like qualities what they plan to do with the N-option if they reassume power. Will they take their public opposition to the Pokhran tests to its logical conclusion? Will India sign CTBT immediately and unconditionally as the price for upgrading by Moody's and a generous IMF bail-out package?

Not that a political coup -- triggered by a falling rupee, massive FII withdrawals and strategic misinformation -- is the only option before the White House. The Washington Post wrote last week, "Within the Clinton administration, realisation is growing that if relations are to be repaired, India's position may have to be accommodated." This is the option many on Capitol Hill would like the President exploring. But there are three stumbling blocks: Clinton's non-proliferation doctrine, his China policy and the prestige of the CIA. Which is why there is a bizarre alliance working overtime to ensure that Atal Bihari Vajpayee is sent packing before Clinton is compelled to blink. The CIA can even redeem its honour by owning responsibility.

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