Columbia International Affairs Online
CIAO DATE: 6/5/2007
Bernard Schwartz Fellow Pramit Pal Chaudhuri on US-India Relations
May 2007
Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, a Bernard Schwartz Fellow at Asia Society, is the Foreign Editor of The Hindustan Times and a leading figure in Indian policymaking circles. He was previously an editorial writer for The Telegraph and The Statesman of Calcutta. [http://www.asiasociety.org/about/schwartz.html]
Pramit has written widely on India's foreign and international economic policies. He is a regular talking head on Asian television and radio stations. In this interview, he discusses the future of US-India relations.
Read interview on Indonesia and political Islam with Bernard Schwartz Fellow Sadanand Dhume. [http://www.asiasource.org/news/special_reports/dhume.cfm]
Can you say a little about what key issues you focused on as foreign editor of the Hindustan Times?
The main task of the foreign editor of the Hindustan Times-besides the more mundane issue of actually putting together foreign pages on international news and handling the network of correspondents around the world-is really to be looking forward. What are the key themes on foreign policy, international economics, and even issues like immigration and technology, that the newspaper should be focusing on? Television will always beat you with on-the-spot news, so for the newspaper, the game is to try to produce deeper analysis and try to jump ahead of the curve, to try to predict what the news is going to be.
What in your view are the key foreign policy challenges now confronting India?
The really big one, when you get beyond just the obvious ones of, for example, terrorism and international economic issues like investment and trade, is that India is a country that is coming out of fifty years of isolationism and is now suddenly finding itself quite powerful. It's suddenly finding that it has the ability to project power. If you're looking at projections in the next ten or twenty years, the amount of power that India will develop and pick up will be considerable. But it really doesn't have any real idea of what to do with it because as an isolationist power it didn't have to worry about such things.
Now a lot of governments around the world ask India, "Alright, you are heading to become a great power in the twenty-first century, what do you plan to do?" And India really doesn't have an answer because we don't have a strategic culture based on the assumption of strength. We have a strategic culture based on the assumption of weakness.
In what domains does India's power express itself at the moment? What form does that power take?
Well right now it doesn't project its power. We have one of the world's largest navies, for example, and we don't do very much with it. We treat it like a coast guard. Until recently it was never even allowed to go beyond the Straits of Malacca. It very rarely ventured out anywhere. It never developed a blue water structure; in other words, the ability to function independently as a fighting force away from the coast because it was argued that we didn't need to do that. We were not a country interested in this. In fact one of the arguments that Western governments make to us is that we have to do these things.
The other question is of diplomacy: We have a fair amount of goodwill in a large number of countries but we don't use it for anything. We've had governments like the United States and others come to us and tell us that we have a good standing among, for example, the countries of Africa or Central Asia, and that we should use this to further certain issues that are to our benefit. But we tend to say that the international community should take the lead and we may or may not follow. A simple example is this. I know a number of Central Asian governments and African governments have been offering Indian companies and the Indian government rights to oil fields and gas fields in an attempt to serve as a balance to China, because they're a little worried that China's buying everything. And the Indian government is not picking them up.
Why is that?
Because they're just not in the habit of doing it. They wonder whether they should be involved in these kinds of things. Does India really want to play the balance of power game against China? We are not in the business of buying oil fields. So this ends up in a sort of Hamlet-like debate within India and then the government just gets paralyzed because it's not used to making these decisions.
Why are these decisions different from the stance India took when it was an isolationist country? Because even then it played quite a key role in the non-aligned movement.
Sure, but it played a rhetorical role. In the end non-alignment was a soft power expression. It was about expressing an ideological or a moral position. It didn't really require you to do very much except to talk and do the institutional building of the non-aligned movement. In reality though, India, when it felt its national interests required it to, it was close to the United States in the early 1960s, then close to the Soviet Union in the late 1970s. But non-alignment essentially didn't require you to make any hard decisions. And that's exactly what a power has to do, because you can't always have it your way, so you have to prioritize what you're prepared to do, and you have to sacrifice certain policies, certain relationships to accomplish certain goals. And as an isolationist power, you didn't have to do that. And that's exactly what India's struggling to do right now.
What about its role as a regional power in South Asia? Would you agree, first of all, that it has been one?
Yes, I think it clearly has been just simply by the size of the country and the fact that in almost every major problem in South Asia-the Sri Lankan civil war, political stability in Bangladesh, the Maoist rebellion in Nepal, and then finally of course the Indo-Pakistan relationship which is probably the defining danger spot in South Asia-India plays a key role. When Bhutan and Nepal yell at each other over refugee problems, they both turn to India to serve as the mediator. I would argue again that India has been a reluctant participant in much of this. We don't really want to be involved. We got burnt in the Sri Lankan civil war. Now the Sri Lankan government is desperately trying to get India back into the war, and India is basically resisting.
India now maintains a policy of ambiguity rather than a policy of saying what we want to do either way. Now India is starting to develop a South Asian policy, using its economic power to leverage its security interests in the region. This is a policy that was enunciated only about a year and half ago by Shyam Saran, the then foreign secretary. We're still trying to work our way through it. One of the first things the Indians realized after announcing the policy was that implementing it would be very difficult because of the poor infrastructure between South Asian countries. As the World Bank recently pointed out, it is the least economically integrated region in the world. To move goods from one South Asian to another South Asian country is virtually impossible. It's easier to do it via Dubai or Singapore than directly from one country to another. Working around that has been one of the first steps. So suddenly India realized that it can't ask to trade with Bangladesh because there are no roads and rail links of any consequence. There's a description recently on a website of how on the Bangladesh-Indian border trucks can be lined up for as long as a thousand trucks in a row just waiting to go through because the roads can't handle it. And there's just one customs officer! We could go on and on with examples like this.
So developing a regional policy is a new thing for India. Suddenly we have an economy. Previously South Asian countries didn't want to trade because they were all so terrified of each other. They were protectionist and isolated economically. Now suddenly at least the Indian economy is becoming dynamic. India really had to take the lead because none of the other South Asian countries are geographically contiguous. They all have to trade via India. But then India has realized that for the past fifty years it has never done anything to help that type of trade. So now we have signed a free trade agreement, for example, with Sri Lanka after a ridiculously long period of negotiations. The negotiations between India and Nepal are still creaking along slowly. But this is part of the change that is happening in India.
Do you think that India will become a superpower on a global scale any time in the near future?
No. Not in the near future. I don't think even in the next fifty years. For a very simple reason: we are still a very poor country. The reason that India was an isolationist country was because of its belief that its social fabric or its economic reserves did not allow it to be a nation that could send troops overseas or be involved in large aid programs or do anything that a major power can do. This requires both economic and political reserves, which India did not have. Now we're developing some economic reserves, but keep in mind, India has still got more poor people than Sub-Saharan Africa. So our isolationism is directly linked to that poverty. Only once India's poverty reaches single digits as a percentage of the population, for example, can you really conceive of India starting to see itself as a global power. That's not going to happen in a very, very long time, no matter how fast their economy grows. But a regional or Asian role is something that is conceivable in the next perhaps fifty years. Beyond that I would be very surprised to see that happening. It may happen, but it's something so far over the horizon that nobody's really thinking about it in that way.
What would you say are the most contentious issues in US-India relations now?
On the American side, the main issue is how to get India to come out of its shell. This is something American diplomats and officials often ask me. They say that they look at India as a liberal democracy, a country that has in many ways the characteristics of an Anglo-Saxon nation in terms of its legal system, parliamentary structure and so on. India has a good military record, it has a lot of political and diplomatic goodwill around the world, and the US would like India to play a more active role. This is not just the American position; this is something we even get from countries like France or Germany or Singapore.
Right now India does what all isolationist countries do: free ride off of the international system. In other words, let somebody else do the stabilizing and running of the international structure and gain the benefits without actually contributing that much to it. Getting India out of that habit is the primary political or diplomatic desire of the United States. On the micro-issues, I think the primary contention remains the US relationship with Pakistan, though it's now much reduced. It's far less contentious than it was.
What changed that?
I think 9/11 changed that as far as the United States is concerned. After the Cold War the relationship between Pakistan and the United States was much weakened because obviously Pakistan didn't have any role to play. But after 9/11 Pakistan became a combination of a problem and a solution to the issue of terrorism. What was crucial I think was that two large chunks of the American establishment, the intelligence and the defense community which had been very strongly supportive of Pakistan, became very suspicious of the Pakistani political establishment. This has changed the relationship in a completely different way.
It's amazing right now that President Musharraf is having problems with the United States-or with the world as a whole-on Afghanistan: he's getting yelled at by the Iranians; there are internal Shia and Sunni problems; he's getting into trouble with the Saudis. So in fact the country he actually has a very good relationship with is India! It's almost a quiet diplomatic relationship. Nothing much is happening, but there's nothing very negative. It's one of the few arenas where he can actually go off and shake hands with the Prime Minister. They'll be very buddy-buddy in front of the cameras as opposed to let's say with Afghan President Karzai-they basically abuse each other when they meet. So it's an amazing situation where Pakistan actually sees its Indian relationship as being its most positive relationship among its neighbors. Iran, for example, recently called in the Pakistan ambassador and yelled at him, saying that recent explosions that happened in southern Iran were because of Pakistani action. That doesn't happen with India any more. The Americans are also very clear: their relationship with Pakistan is tactical, with India it's strategic. It's a long-term big game.
Another issue that India and the United States are still debating is the issue of UN reform, where India feels it should get a seat in an expanded Security Council. The United States-not so much because of opposition to India, but because of a view that the UN reform program has been much more extensive than just a question of Security Council expansion-has not backed India, at least officially, on this issue.
Earlier you made the point that India is hesitant to assume the responsibilities of a global power so why is India so keen on a Security Council seat? Why is it interested in projecting its power in that realm?
I think that that's seen as more of a symbolic position. If "declining" countries like France and England should get seats, and China has a seat, then India-because of its size and economic growth-deserves a seat as well.
Does India support countries like Brazil and so on that also want seats?
Yes, in fact right now we're part of the G-4: Brazil, Germany, Japan and India. They are the four countries that are interested in an expansion and want to have permanent seats on the Security Council. For Indians, it is essentially a big symbolic issue. Not all the members of the political leadership in India are particularly interested. I know that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been relatively lukewarm about it. He basically argues that India should get its economic act together before worrying about these other issues. Others say that if India were to become a Security Council member, it will have to make tough decisions, which is something that India has not so far done on the international stage. Would India actually be prepared to vote for military action against Iran's nuclear program? That would be something India would have to consider if it were a permanent member. Is India prepared to make these kind of very tough calls diplomatically given its culture of isolationism? I would argue we don't.
When the Iraq war debate was going on in the UN, a lot of Indian diplomats were relieved that they did not have a seat because otherwise they would have to make a decision on how to vote. India is not a member even now, so we also escape making a call on the Iran debate. Again, India would probably prefer not having to. I remember Pakistan's diplomats were horrified about the Iraq thing because they were stuck right in the middle. They were non-permanent, rotating members of the Security Council and they were forced to make a call and it was a decision they really didn't want to have to make either way.
So my view is that while there is a public sentiment that India should be a permanent member, because it's a symbol of being a great power, it's probably not something that culturally or diplomatically we're really ready for. On the other hand once we are a member, maybe it will force the changes that we're presently avoiding.
So is that it for the problems between the US and India?
There are lots of smaller issues on trade and investment. Americans are still saying India does not open up enough in so many economic sectors. I think there is general agreement in India that those sectors should be open; insurance, for example, or finance. But for various domestic political reasons it's been moving forward quite incrementally. But I think there is a consensus that we need to continue the process of economic reform. We just have to do it when the windows of political opportunity open up.
Some segments of the American establishment, mainly in the Pentagon, also want us to play a role of balancing China in Asia, but the Indian government's quite clear that it doesn't feel that it should be playing that role. Or that balance of power in Asia, if it happens, should happen just as a natural consequence of India's economic growth, not because of a genuine policy of seeking to form alliances with other countries against China. But as I said, that's only segments of the American establishment.
India is clearly unhappy with the Iraq invasion which they thought was just very badly put together. But these are transient problems rather than really major issues. The real question for Indians and Americans when they meet now at the diplomatic and political level is how to strengthen and institutionalize the relationship, how to make it long-lasting. This is something that still hasn't been fully accomplished yet. That's why the present Indo-US nuclear deal was so important. It was about breaking the ice on a really large issue. The US was essentially saying that given the long history of distrust between the two countries, this deal is going to be the proof on the American side, if you will, that the Americans are prepared to go out on a limb on India's behalf for something that America actually doesn't have any direct interest in. The US made it clear that they were prepared to take a lot of political flak and use a lot of diplomatic clout on India's behalf.
When Senator John Kerry visited Delhi a few years ago, he asked the Prime Minister of India what exactly the nuclear deal was about since he was still debating whether he should support it when it went to vote in the US congress, and the Prime Minister simply said, "It's about trust. Just one word: trust." It's about the fact that India and the US don't have a culture of trust at the political, bureaucratic, or the establishment level. So that is what this deal is all about. Senator Kerry eventually voted in favor of the deal. So this is really what's at the heart of the Indo-US relationship: building that kind of trust.
Are you optimistic?
Oh yes, I am! I think for one thing the Indian public is miles ahead of the government. We are now one of the most pro-American countries in the world. Going through the various polls that have come out in the past ten years, there has been a general secular increase in pro-American sentiment in India that has been more or less unaffected by things like Iraq and so on. I would argue that we now have about 40-50 per cent of the population that is pro-American, almost irrespective of what America does; a hard core of anti-Americanism of about 20 per cent; and about 30 per cent swing back and forth depending on policies and personalities. But what is interesting is that young Indians by 70 per cent put America as their number one country of interest and approval. That is the generation that's coming up. Five hundred million Indians are under the age of 25, so they have no heritage of the Cold War, they've seen the incredible success of the Indian-American community, and they're coming of age at a time when India and America are essentially working closely together.
The American visa offices in India now issue over a million visas a year to Indians which makes it second only to Mexico. In Mexico, of course there's a huge component of agricultural workers which are a completely different category. What is more interesting is that the Indian consulates in the United States will pass that figure this year: they will be issuing one million visas of all categories to Americans for the first time in their history, meaning that these two countries will now be issuing more visas to each other than almost any two other countries in the world put together. This personal linkage between these two countries on a people-to-people level and increasingly at a corporate level is phenomenal. I was looking at the figures and there has been a 400 per cent increase in the number of business visas issued to Americans alone in the past year, and this is growing exponentially. The real problem is that the visa offices are creaking trying to handle the incredible surge of visas! American tourists overtook the British as the number one tourists to India, again, for the first time in our history last year. And it just keeps growing.
So, if nothing else, that's really going to be pushing this relationship far beyond anything. It's the government that's holding it back. It's the bureaucracies that are so suspicious of each other. At the public level, the sentiment is very clear. And as I said, it's a ten-year trend line that's been going in only one direction.
