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VIEWPOINT: KAUTILYA
Stop
Whining, Start Doing
Petulance
and pique will get us nowhere with the US — performance will
By Jairam Ramesh
India and the US have been described
as estranged democracies that have since become engaged democracies. However,
after September 11, the atmosphere has changed. Embittered democracies may
be too strong a phrase to describe this new phase in the bilateral relationship
but it certainly captures the present mood in India, which feels that Pakistan
has scored over it.
Pakistan's media strategy has been, as usual,
far superior to ours. But the truth is we are behaving petulantly, viewing
September 11 and its fallout exclusively from the prism of cross-border
terrorism in Kashmir. Pique is preventing us from thinking clearly.
- Is not the decimation of Pakistan's Afghan
strategy and extermination of terrorist camps in Afghanistan in India's
national interest?
- Is not the destruction of Osama bin Laden's
extensive global network and the neutralisation of his perversion of
Islam in India's national interest?
- Is not the replacement of the fundamentalist
Taliban regime in Afghanistan by a genuinely multi-ethnic and secular
government in India's national interest?
- Is not America's greater leverage in Pakistan
going to moderate China's influence and strengthen the forces seeking
peaceful accommodation with India?
- Is not the increased American and world involvement
in fighting global terrorism in India's national interest?
- Is not the changing geopolitics of Central
Asia with its long-term impact on energy markets in India's national
interest?
- Is not this a moment of historic opportunity
for India to work out a new relationship with Pakistan without which
we can never fulfil our global destiny?
 The
short answer to these questions is a loud and unqualified "yes".
Of course, the Americans did have the option of telling Pakistan that,
look, we know your specialisation in export-oriented terrorism, we know
that you aborted an earlier US plan to capture bin Laden in 1998 and we
know that the Taliban has been created by you, so cooperate or else.
Instead, the Americans have indulged the Pakistanis.
But why not? Does it not make eminent tactical and strategic sense? Unlike
India, Pakistan shares a border with Afghanistan which is about 1,800
km long. Pakistan has built up the Taliban and was one of the three countries
that had diplomatic relations with it. On the other hand, India had no
contact whatsoever with the Taliban as it supports the Northern Alliance
along with Russia and Iran. Pakistan is also not without its friends in
the US conservative establishment and in the US military from the 1980s,
although our fears of a parallel between America's current ardour for
Pakistan and its alliance of two decades ago are vastly exaggerated.
Given the presence of religious fanatics in
such large numbers in Pakistan and knowing fully well the undercurrent
of antipathy to it in that country, America had to sugarcoat its approach
to President Pervez Musharraf who may well be perfidious but at least
draws inspiration from the father of Turkey's modernisation Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk, incidentally also a great favourite of pre-1947 Jawaharlal Nehru.
Pakistan is now poised to get a fresh imf loan of about $ 1.5 billion
over and above the $600 million it has received since November 2000. Why
should we grudge this since a bankrupt Pakistan is simply not in our national
interest?
For the moment, quite naturally the Americans
are fixated exclusively on two objectives-get bin Laden and force the
Taliban out. Everything else is secondary. And why shouldn't it be? But
we want the Americans and the world to also focus on Jammu and Kashmir.
Is this the moment to thrust ourselves in such a childish manner knowing
fully well that the US tend to be unifocal in its approach? On the one
hand, we shout that Jammu and Kashmir is a bilateral issue to be sorted
out by India and Pakistan. Then why are we disappointed when Tony Blair
does not read from our script? We bemoan the US media's anti-India bias.
But it is this very media that is exposing Pakistan's links to terrorism
and is urging President George W. Bush to be cautious in cozying up to
Pakistan.
It is wrong to assume that the Americans would
allow its rapprochement with Pakistan endanger Indo-US ties. However,
the moment the US realises that India has become a nato-No Action, Talk
Only-economy and that diminishing returns to incentives for engagement
with India have set in, then we are in serious trouble. Sadly, that moment
of reckoning is fast approaching as our political parties are unable to
transcend partisan positions and agree on a national agenda for the acceleration
of economic growth, preservation of social harmony and resumption of the
regional peace process.
(The author is with the Congress party. These
are his personal views.)
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