India digests Bush's second
coming By Sultan Shahin
NEW
DELHI - Stunned but delighted. This sums up the emotions
of Indians, officials and the elite, following US
President George W Bush's re-election with a convincing
margin. Many Indians, though, fear more wars, which
would affect the Indian economy.
Many worry
that, emboldened by his election mandate, Bush will
pursue his unilateralist, confrontationist policies with
even greater zeal than before. Indeed, Bush has talked
of having gained political capital in the elections and
his readiness to spend it. The guessing game is on:
which country that "is not with us" will be the next
target - Iran, Syria or North Korea?
India's
foremost strategic analyst and a retired senior
official, K Subrahmanyam, warns against invading Iran in
a writeup in the Times of India: "Any bombing of Iran
will push up oil prices with its inevitable consequences
for global economic recovery. Such action against Iran
is bound to lead to Tehran using terrorism as an
instrument of policy, as they did in the 1980s. The
prevailing Shi'ite Sunni balance would be destroyed, to
the disadvantage of the US."
The consensus of
opinion in India is that the ax will fall on Sudan. It
has both the elements that actually led to the invasion
of Iraq. It has newly-discovered oil and it is
"do-able", to use the expression used by US Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The US had made sure before
the invasion that Iraq didn't have any weapons of mass
destruction (WMD). The UN inspectors had confirmed that
the "information" provided by the Iraqi exiles was wrong
and that there were no WMD.
Most commentaries in
the Indian media had created an atmosphere in which
people thought that John Kerry and a Democratic
administration would be damaging for India. Just a few
days before the elections, rather inexplicably, India's
former external affairs minister Jaswant Singh, who is
considered the architect of the present improvement in
India-US relations, rubbished the present Indian
leadership for going ahead with the Next Steps in
Strategic Partnership (NSSP), a sort of roadmap for the
improvement of bilateral ties set up by the previous
government. Singh's grouse was that the US still
maintains about 100 nuclear-related sanctions against
India and regularly threatens to impose new ones, as in
the case of Indian scientists it accuses of supplying
nuclear technology and expertise to Iran.
Bush's
victory has eased fears over outsourcing. The
outsourcing market for IT in India is expected to grow
from US$1.3 billion in 2003 to over $8 billion by 2010.
There is a legitimate expectation that outsourcing in
manufacturing and research and development for the vast
range of military equipment and parts may provide the
impetus needed in other areas of bilateral relations
with the US.
And Bush is the first US president
to have used the word "strategic" to describe relations
with India. Many Indians admire him for that. He has
also promised the transfer of high technology to India,
though so far this has essentially remained no more than
an empty promise. Indian hopes that NSSP would lead to
easier access to US high technology have essentially
been dashed. The Bush administration has continued to
follow the severe restrictions on transfer to India of
dual-use technologies, which have both civilian and
military applications, that were put in place following
India's first nuclear tests in 1974.
Bush and
former Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
announced in January 2004 the upgradation of the
existing "Glide Path" relationship to "Next Steps". Both
leaders heralded it as a new era of cooperation, while
refusing to provide any details. Two months later, as US
Secretary of State Colin Powell visited India, it became
clear that the US never had any serious intentions of
transferring any advanced technologies to India.
A senior US official was quoted in the media as
having stated that "India would receive no substantial
technology unless the US was satisfied that India had
tightened export controls". He further insinuated that
Indian organizations had re-exported US technology to
Saddam Hussein's regime, but didn't provide any evidence
to support his allegations. Another senior US official
stated that US cooperation in space technology would be
"limited to humanitarian and scientific issues ... and
would not have anything to do with electronic components
or space launch vehicles or high-resolution imagery".
And recently, allegations were leveled against several
Indian scientists for providing nuclear support to Iran.
Despite this record, however, hopes with the
Bush administration have persisted, largely on the
strength of its lack of interest in getting the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty signed, though India fears
it will come under different sorts of pressure, on the
issue of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI),
for instance.
Overall, it is a measure of
India's satisfaction with the elections that Delhi lost
no time in not only congratulating Bush, but also
inviting him promptly to visit India. Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh on Thursday invited Bush to visit, saying
it would be a "milestone" in bilateral ties. "A visit by
you, Mr President, to India would be a milestone in our
relations. I hope that we will have the opportunity to
welcome you in India very soon," he said in a letter to
Bush.
Former president Bill Clinton visited
India in the last year of his second term; New Delhi
expects that Bush will visit in the very first year of
his second term.
Manmohan took the opportunity
to reiterate India's continued support for the US
agenda. India and the US must deny any encouragement to
religious extremism and terrorism and resolve to
eliminate them as an acceptable instrument of state
policy, he said in his congratulatory letter to Bush. He
also pledged India's full support to combat terrorism
and proliferation of WMD to strengthen international
peace and security. He also underlined the need for
charting an economic roadmap that will be an integral
element of the broader relationship between the two
countries.
One major goal, the prime minister
said, "must be to continue to deny any comfort or
encouragement to religious extremism or terrorism, and
resolve to ensure their complete elimination as an
acceptable instrument of state policy. We are confident
that the United States and India are on the same side in
this effort. The global war against terrorism and
efforts to combat WMD proliferation will benefit
enormously from your steadfast resolve and leadership,"
Manmohan added.
Sultan Shahin is a New
Delhi-based writer.
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