India-US Relations
| Author | David M. Malone,Rohan Mukherjee |
| Published date | 01 December 2009 |
| Date | 01 December 2009 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070200906400413 |
| Subject Matter | Over the Transom |
David M. Malone &
Rohan Mukherjee
India-US relations
The shock of the new
| International Journal | Autumn 2009 | 1057 |
[The] great problem of the near future will be American
imperialism, even more than British imperialism.1
India is today embarked on a journey inspired by many dreams. We
welcome having America by our side. There is much we can
accomplish together.2
These two statements, uttered almost 60 years apart, mark a contemporary
transformation in relations between India and the United States of America.
For most of the last six decades, the world’s oldest democracy and the world’s
David M. Malone, the president of Canada’s International Development Research Centre
and form erly Canada’s hig h commissioner to India, 2 006-08, is co mpleting a bo ok on
India’s contemporary foreign policy—Does the Elephant Dance?—that will be published
by Oxford University Press in 2011. Rohan Mukherjee is a senior research specialist with the
institutions for fragile states research program at Princeton University. He has worked with
the Cen tre for Policy Researc h in New Delhi, and the government of India’s national
knowledge commission.
1 Jawaharlal Nehru, “Report to the all-India congress committee on the international
congress against imperialism held at Brussels in February 1927,” in Bimla Prasad,
The
Origins of Indian Foreign Policy: The Indian National Congress and World Affairs, 1885-
1947
(Mumbai: Bookland, 1960), appendix I, 265.
2 Manmohan Singh, “Address to the joint session of the Unit ed States congress ,”
Washington, DC, 19 July 2005,” reproduced in
Seminar
560, April 2006.
| David M. Malone & Rohan Mukherjee |
| 1058 | Autumn 2009 | International Journal |
largest democracy failed to understand each other’s character and
compulsions. That a fundamental shift has occurred during the past decade
is clear to all. Our article explores this shift in terms of its motivation and
timing, and seeks to locate its causes. The analysis rests on a combination of
international, regional, and domestic factors that operated jointly to usher
in the post-Cold War era of India-US relations.
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
During its early years the Indian republicviewed the world through a newly
forged prism of anti-imperialism. The Americans on the other hand viewed
the world through the prism of anti-Communism. This thinking produced
the maxim of John Foster Dulles: “Those who are n ot with us are against
us.”3Faced with an increasingly bipolar world, India adopted an idealistic yet
functionally pragmatic philosophy of nonalignment as the cornerstone of its
foreign policy. Amidst the atmosphere of the 1950s, the US viewed India’s
nonalignment as a cover for interests that diverged from its own. As the Cold
War gained momentum, America’s frustrations with Indian nonalignment
mounted. In the absence of cooperation from India, and with a communist
government in China, Pakistan became an essential element in the United
States’ cont ainment of the Soviet Union in Asia. Wh at began as an
ideological gulf between India and the US developed into a strategic chasm.
The Sino-Indian border war of 1962 compelled Nehru to seek assistance
from the western powers. The American response was warm yet strategically
motivated. It prevailed on Pakistan for an assurance that it would not invade
Kashmir so that India could redeploy its northern troops towards the front
with China. An American carrier—the
Enterprise
—was dispatched towards
the Bay of Bengal. In 1965, when Pakistan contravened a written assurance
from President Eisenhower to Nehru that US-supplied weapons would not
be used by Pakistan against India, Washington adopted a position of strict
neutrality, alienating India and driving Pakistan towards China for military
sustenance. The expanding Sino-Pakistani relationship did not, however,
prompt a change in India-US relations. In 1971, the east Pakistan crisis
coincided with American attempts at building a rapprochement with China,
which was facilitated largely by Pakistan. Faced with America’s tacit support
for Pakistan, India officially turned to the Soviet Union for assistance. As
3 Quoted in Angadipuram Appadorai and M.S. Rajan,
India’s Foreign P olicy and
Relations
(New Delhi: South Asian Publishers, 1985), 216.
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