Paper no.1002	17. 05. 2004
UNITED STATES AND INDIA RELATIONS UNDER THE NEW CONGRESS COALITION GOVERNMENT: An Analysis by Dr. Subhash Kapila (The Views expressed are those of the author)  Introductory Observations:   Diplomats and foreign observers including those of the United States seem to have been equally surprised as the rest of India on the electoral verdict of India’s masses in the General Elections 2004 whose results were announced on 13 May 2004.  The Congress party under the leadership of Sonia Gandhi has been brought into power by India’s strange arithmetical political equations. The ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) led coalition, which was in power for the last eight years, preferred to bow out of office, though in terms of actual seats won by these two major parties, the BJP was only a few seats behind. The balance in favour of the Congress was swung by India’s Communist Parties (of different hues) and a disparate crowd of regional political warlords whose claim to political strength (in terms of number of seats) rests on exploitation of caste-equations and exploitation of the Indian Muslim vote-bank.  Important Features of Electoral Verdict Having Bearing on India’s Foreign Policy Formulations:  Some important features of General Election 2004 electoral verdict  which have a bearing on India’s foreign policy formulations henceforth are as follows:  * The electoral verdict is neither anti-BJP nor pro-Congress. It is a fractured three sided verdict not giving a clear mandate to any of the political contenders. * The Congress Party has been emboldened by the Communist Parties of all hues to stake a claim to form the new Government. * The Communist Parties have emerged as the “Queen makers”. * Foreign policies of the erstwhile ruling party i.e. BJP including United States-India relations was not an electoral issue in General Election 2004. * It would also be wrong for political analysts to presume that India’s masses voted against BJP’s economic policies, integration with a globalised economy or opening of India to a capitalistic-type of economy. India’s rural masses voted against the BJP to emphasise that the BJP’s outreach to them had not been focused in that direction in terms of local development and alleviation of problems.  Therefore, while USA-India relations of the BJP era do not stand voted against, the character of the new Congress coalition is likely to affect the tenor of USA-India relations in the coming months.   Composition and Character of the New Government- Major Deductions on Foreign Policy Formulations:  The composition and character of the new Congress-led coalition government reveals the following striking features: * The Communist Parties with 63 seats in Parliament are the single largest political combine to support the Congress Party with its 145 seats.  * The remainder of the coalition partners of the Congress Party have single-digit seats except the RJD with 20 seats and DMK with 16 seats. * The Hindi heartland (UP) parties with double-digit seats, at the moment of writing this paper, seem to have been marginalised by the Congress leadership.   The major deductions that arise from the above in terms of foreign policy formulations and affecting USA-India relations specifically are: * India’s Communist Parties may significantly determine India’s foreign policy formulations. * India’s Communist Parties have been critical of United States and the West in and out of India’s Parliament. * India’s Communist Parties will act as a strong pressure group to push for closer Indo-Russian and India-China relationships. *  In the above process, the “Non-alignment Gladiators” present in plenty within the Congress Party, can be expected to play a major and forceful part. * The Indian Muslim vote-bank policies of the regional parties and sensitivity of the so-called secularists within the Congress coalition will drastically re-orient India’s policies towards the Islamic countries of the Middle East. * The above stance will bring India’s foreign policies in contradiction with United States policies in the region.  It can safely be added that India’s foreign policy can be expected under the new Congress coalition government to indulge in pompous moralizing, United States bashing and stressing the “abstracts” of non-alignment over “real-politik”.  To those apologists in the Indian media who propound that within the Congress Party, progressive forward-looking younger greater leaders will now handle India’s foreign policy, seem to be forgetting some important factors: * The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has always “personalised” India’s foreign policy formulations. Sonia Gandhi can be expected to follow this dynastic tradition. * The Nehru-Gandhi family in the view of many analysts have never been comfortable with the United States. Their predilections are more towards Russia and China. * This factor would stand reinforced by the Communist Parties’ pressure group.  All of the above would seem to suggest that United States-India relations may lose some momentum and even the ardour of the last eight years. This may impact more on the evolution of the US-India strategic partnership that was being pursued so far.  In fact in the run-up to the elections, at least two leaders of the Congress coalition, Sharad Pawer (NCP) and Laloo Prasad Yadav had criticised India’s foreign policies towards the United States. However, the saving grace for the future of good United States-India relations is that despite protestations of such regional leaders, the people of India have never harbored anti-USA sentiments.  We can turn to what the Congress Party manifest and documents have gone on record in terms of USA-India relations and also their websites like “ Congress Sandesh” and also discern the incoming trend in terms of deductions that they throw up.  Congress Party Manifesto on Foreign Policy Specific to United States and Major Deductions:   The Congress Party’s manifesto on India’s relations with the United States highlights the following thoughts: * Of equal concern have been the BJP/NDA Governments policies towards the USA. They have been characterised by a lack of transparency. * Sadly, a great country like India has been reduced to having a sub-ordinate relationship with the USA, where the USA takes India for granted. This is the result of the BJP/NDA governments’ willingness to adjust the US priorities and policies without giving due attention to India’s own vital foreign policy and national security interests. * It has also failed to dispel the widely-held fears that India has accepted the mediators role for the USA in Indo-Pakistan relations.  The major deductions that can be derived from the above Congress Party assertions (despite their earlier assertions that India’s foreign policy had bipartisan support) are as follows: * The Congress Party has been unhappy and dissatisfied with USA-India relationships evolution in the last eight years. * Congress Party’s prognostications for USA-India relations can be expected to be hard-line. * Discussions of various Joint USA-India Groups on security, counter-terrorism etc could become more sensitive and stressful with the ‘ego factor’ dominant. * In South Asia, the Congress Party on India-Pakistan dialogues will stress on “bilateralism” and with USA not being conceded the role of a facilitator or mediator. * Tangentially, India’s new foreign policy postures in the Middle East may emerge as critical of USA and in contradiction of USA’s interests in the Islamic World.  On the Congress Party websites “Congress Sandesh” (Congress’s Message), the Foreign Policy Cell of the Congress party has made the following observations, which provide useful directions of the trend of its foreign policy: *  The BJP undermined the independence of India’s foreign policy by not speaking up forcefully against the marginalisation of the United Nations, by not asserting India’s position on world issues effectively and by constant flip-flops in relations with Pakistan. * Congress is of the view that Pakistan’s sponsorship of cross border terrorism must end completely, once and for all. If it continues then the Indian state has the responsibility to protect its citizens. * The Congress will revive closer ties with West Asia and other non-aligned countries. * Reservations have been expressed about America’s dominant influence in world politics and also that the reality is that no individual country has the ability to resist its influence. While ruling out the choices of confronting USA, or to become a subordinate ally of the USA (a charge against the BJP) the Congress policy would be to adopt a strategy of engaging the USA on the basis of equality while developing equations with other major political powers to redress the imbalances of the United States dominance.  Major deductions that can be derived from the above foreign policy views of the Congress Party are as follows: * The Congress Party has not been happy or satisfied with the nature, content and direction of BJP Governments policies towards the United States. * If that be so, obviously, there will be significant changes in terms of attitudinal directions towards the United States despite the diplomatic niceties of today’s assertions by Natwar Singh that the new coalition Government favours “closest relations” with the United States. Also that the new foreign policy will be infused with “ political realism”.  Natwar Singh would have been better on the mark if he had stressed on “Strategic and Economic Realism”.. Stress on “political realism” betrays a tilt towards the “political predilections” of its coalition partners. * For Pakistan, there is an implicit warning that if cross-border terrorism does not stop, then the consequences could be military and not necessarily political. There is message for the United States here too * Israel finds no mention at all, but the stress on change in West Asian policies cannot be without impact on Indo-Israeli relations, which today are based on a major defense sales relationship. * Realizing the futility of confronting USA, the Congress Party foreign policies will seem to offset the global dominance by:   1.      Strengthening the United Nations. 2.      Develop equations with other major political powers to redress the imbalance. 3.      Revive closer ties with non-aligned countries.  * The above seems more to be a mixture of the French view in recent times and the Chinese policies of developing a multipolar world. *Are we then to presume that the new Congress government would work towards the forging of a Russia-China-India axis?  Congress Party’s Foreign Policy and the Economic Determinant:  The news that a Congress coalition government with pronounced and significant Communist Party’s political support was coming sent India’s stock market into a nosedive.  The Congress Party’s prospective Finance Minister had to come on record to assure that economic liberalization would continue but the stock markets do not seem to feel assured.  It would not be accurate to say that just with Manmohan Singh as the Finance Minister economic liberalization would continue since he was the architect of economic reforms. Firstly, the architect of India’s bold and unprecedented move towards economic liberalization was the Congress Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh was the instrument. Secondly, Narasimha Rao was the first long term non-Nehru Gandhi family Congress Prime Minister and was therefore not carrying the socialist baggage of the dynasty. Thirdly, unlike today, the Communist Parties were not the kingmakers then.  The Communist Parties and the regional political warlords will impede the momentum of economic liberalization, demand populist economic measures like restoration of subsidies and supply of free power. The Congress Party will have to submit to such demands for their survival as a government. and many such measures would be in contradiction to norms of global institutions and a healthy climate for foreign direct investment.  India’s commendable economic growth of the last few years could be dragged into a slow down with such deadweights.  In terms of impact on United States-Indian relations, very briefly, it can be stated that when geo-strategic and geo-economic determinants shape United States foreign policy, India under a Congress coalition will neither provide a strategic attraction nor an economic attraction for closer relations with India.  Concluding Observations:   United States and India in the last eight years had recognized the mutual imperatives for a substantive bi-lateral relationship with efforts to evolve a strategic partnership in the years to come.  This was the centerpiece of India’s foreign policy for nearly a decade. In today’s global security environment India neither has the luxury nor the time to look for new anchors for her foreign polices and therefore the Congress coalition should desist from new adventures.  India’s non-alignment years in term of her foreign policy formulations and attitudes were a national waste both strategically and economically. India should not repeat that exercise and the Congress Government would be well advised not to do so.   This author in his papers on India-Pakistan problems has repeatedly stressed that the root cause of conflict has been Pakistan’s inability to recognize its strategic asymmetries with India. By the same token India’s new foreign policy apparatus of the incoming Congress Government has to recognize the strategic, political and economic asymmetries of India with the United States. It is not to suggest that India goes down on its knees to the United States. It is to suggest that as at present India has not yet developed the attributes of power effectively to even be counted seriously by the United States as a major Asian power.   In the ultimate analysis the direction of United States-India relationship boils down to one simple question as to whether the United States needs India most or that India needs the United States most? A pragmatic appraisal of the global political and economic system will provide the obvious answer.  United States-India relations are in for testing times even though the answer to the above is obvious, because of the combination of an untried and unseasoned prospective Prime Minister, non-alignment mindsets of the Congress Party foreign policy planning apparatus and the lateral pressures that would come into play from the Communist Party and the compulsions of reliance on Indian Muslims vote banks. (The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst. He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. Email drsubhashkapila @yahoo.com)
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