Limits of personal camaraderie

BRP Bhaskar

Gulf Today

For seven decades leaders of India and the United States have harped on the common interests of the two countries as the world’s largest democracies but the affinity between their political systems has not manifested itself in bilateral relations. This is not surprising since political, economic and other factors play a far greater role in shaping relations between nations than forms of government.

In the Cold War era, India’s refusal to align itself with either of the power blocs was the main stumbling block. The Soviet Union proved smarter in negotiating around it and the resulting close relations with it only added to US suspicions about non-alignment. 

After the collapse of the Soviet Union the way was clear for re-setting relations with the US, the sole superpower, but at that time India was passing through an uncertain phase under coalition governments headed by weak Prime Ministers. 

One of the first acts of Bharatiya Janata Party’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee on coming to power in 1998 was to order a nuclear test. India had conducted a test when Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister and was quietly working on a weaponisation programme for some years. The nuclear establishment took just two months to carry out Vajpayee’s order. 

On the 15th day of the second Indian test, Pakistan, which too had been pursuing a nuclear programme secretly, conducted its own test and achieved parity of status as a nuclear power. 

The US responded to India’s blasting its way into the nuclear club by imposing sanctions. It took four years of negotiations by the Manmohan Singh government with the US and international agencies to shake off the sanctions. India undertook to separate its civil and military nuclear programes and place the former under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. 

Thereafter the US and India began earnest efforts to improve bilateral relations. An early outcome of the exercise was an agreement on civil nuclear cooperation. The US was keenly interested in it as it would open up the Indian market to its nuclear equipment suppliers. But several factors continued to inhibit the growth of bilateral relations.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave high priority to improvement of relations with the US, which had earlier denied him visa on account of the anti-Muslim riots that took place in Gujarat under his watch. At the end of their first meeting in Washington he and President Barack Obama released a roadmap to raise bilateral relations to a higher level. 

After the change of government in the US, Modi went to Washington again, declaring “the logic of our strategic relationship is incontrovertible.” He established an even warmer friendship with President Donald Trump than he had with Obama. 

Trump and his administration laid it on thick to draw India into the US plans to contain China. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson held out the tantalising prospects of a 100-year alliance against China. Trump while travelling in the region repeatedly referred to Asia Pacific as Indo-Pacific to underline the importance he attaches to this country. His National Security Strategy (NSS) proclaimed India a “global power”.

That was a big promotion. In George W Bush’s 2006 NSS India was a regional and global “engine of growth”, in Obama’s 2010 NSS a “21st century centre of influence” and 2015 NSS a “regional provider of security”. 

Those who consider a US testimonial the very last word exulted. But some serious observers cautioned Modi against walking into Washington’s trap. They pointed out that India has had long-standing good relations with Russia and Iran, two countries the US has identified as enemies, the others being China and North Korea. 

The NSS, they added, was designed to safeguard and promote US interests, and Indian interests did not necessarily coincide with them. 

The limits of a common commitment to democracy and personal camaraderie between leaders in determining foreign policy issues became evident within a few days of the motivated US overtures to India as the United Nations considered Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

After the US vetoed the Security Council resolution disapproving Trump’s action more than 100 countries came together in the General Assembly under the unite-for-peace rule. India did not join the group that sponsored the General Assembly resolution, but voted for it despite dire warnings that the US would penalise those who voted against it. Modi’s friendship with Trump and the BJP’s fondness for Israel’s hardline could not override the considerations that have made India a long-time supporter of Palestine. -- Gulf Today, January 2, 2018.

Modi's American conquest

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

More than 2,000 years ago, Julius Caesar wrote to the Roman Senate from the city of Zela: veni, vidi, vici, meaning I came, I saw, I conquered. Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to evoke the same triumphal note when he said at the end of five hectic days in the US that his visit had been a great success.

Modi, who led his Bharatiya Janata Party to a sensational victory in the national elections last May, had met leaders of several countries, including China’s Xi Jinping and Japan’s Shinzo Abe, before going to the US to address the UN General Assembly in New York and hold talks with President Barack Obama. 

He had been to the US previously to spread the Hindutva gospel among the rich and powerful Indian Americans but this visit was special not only because he was now the Prime Minister but also because he had been denied entry into the US since 2005 on account of the communal riots which occurred in Gujarat while he was the Chief Minister.

The highlight of the visit was a spectacular rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden which demonstrated yet again the event management skills he and his team had displayed during the parliamentary elections. The Indian community, a sizable section of which has found in the Hindutva ideology a psychological ballast, turned out in large numbers to greet Modi. Outside the rally venue, another section of the community staged a protest against the 2002 riots.

Officials of the two countries worked hard to project the Modi visit as a landmark in Indo-US relations. Ahead of his arrival, they produced a newspaper article which the Washington Post published on its Op-Ed page under a joint Modi-Obama byline. This was followed by a vision statement in which the two countries committed to expand and deepen their strategic partnership and march forward shoulder to shoulder. After the leaders’ meeting came a long joint statement. No one can wade through these documents without being impressed by the uncanny ability of officials of the world’s largest democracies to say so little in so many words.

The 3,490-word joint statement opened with the leaders’ extolling of the broad strategic and global partnership between the US and India which, it said, would continue to generate greater prosperity and security for their citizens and the world. For the most part, it reiterated past commitments. It also mentioned reinvigoration or extension of some existing programmes.

The term ‘strategic partnership,’ which recurs in all the documents, is comparatively new to the Indian public since the country had avoided such relationships in the heyday of Non-Alignment. India started entering into such relationships only after the turn of the century. It now has about 30 strategic partners, including the US, Russia, China and Japan. China has about 50 of them, including the US and Russia. The US has still more.

Beginning with Jawaharlal Nehru most Indian prime ministers undertook pilgrimages to the US but the platitudes over shared democratic values did not translate into technology transfers which India was looking for. As the US failed to respond India turned to the former Soviet Union and to Europe for assistance to set up steel mills and the Indian Institutes of Technology.

Obama’s endorsement of India’s claim for membership of the missile control and nuclear regimes and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s offer to work with the Indian Space Research Organisation are a result not of love for Modi’s India but of grudging appreciation of the progress the country has achieved without US help. What concrete steps will follow remains to be seen.

Modi made no commitment on the Indian nuclear liability law which US equipment suppliers dread but Obama got him to accept a reference to the South China Sea while mentioning threats to freedom of navigation. Obama agreed with Modi on the need for joint and concerted efforts to dismantle the safe havens of terrorist groups.

The Wall Street Journal said the Modi show was “long on pageantry and short on substance”. But the national media went the whole hog on the veni, vedi, vici theme, enabling Modi to claim on Sunday in a campaign speech in Maharashtra, where Assembly elections are due, that the world was now listening to India. His conquest, however, was limited to the pro-Hindutva NRIs. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, October 7, 2014.

Way out of Indo-US stand-off

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

India and the United States are engaged in a game of blinkmanship. The question is who will blink first. At the same time, away from public gaze, officials of the two sides are exploring ways to salvage their relationship, over which the humiliation of an Indian diplomat in New York has cast a shadow.

Devyani Khobragade, 39, a doctor-turned diplomat, posted as Deputy Consul General, was arrested on December 12 on charges of visa fraud and underpaying her Indian maid, Sangeeta Richard. She was reportedly handcuffed and subjected to strip-search and cavity-search. She was freed on bail on posting a bond of $250,000.

The State Department said as a consular official she did not enjoy immunity from arrest and standard arrest procedures had been followed. Prosecutor Preet Bharara claimed she was accorded courtesies most Americans would not get. He denied handcuffing but confirmed she was “fully searched”.

The case pits the plucky Devyani Khobragade against the equally plucky Bharara, an Indian American, who, since his appointment as prosecutor five years ago, has slapped cases against some top-ranking politicians for corruption and sent to jail 70 persons, including many fellow Indian Americans, for insider trading.

Bharara, known for aggressive prosecutorial methods and unprecedented tactics, used some of them to trap the diplomat. Sangeeta Richard, who went to US in November 2012 to work for Devyani Khobragade, left her last July. Police did not act on the diplomat’s complaint that she was missing and had stolen some money and a phone.

Bharara brought her husband and parents to the US from India, in the name of witness protection. The way they were spirited out of India bears the stamp of a CIA operation, and there is speculation that the US agency was using her to spy on Indian diplomats.

The charges against Devyani Khobragade stem from the statement in Sangeeta Richard’s visa application that she was employed on a wage of $9.75 an hour while she was paid only Rs30,000 a month under a contract made in India.

The police complaint filed in the court says the contracted salary amounts to just $3.31 an hour as against the minimum wage of $7.25 payable in New York. The US law does not take into account the cost of accommodation, food and other benefits the employer provides.

The Indian government, which quietly pocketed insults meted out at US airports to George Fernandes, when he was the Defence Minister, and to former President Abdul Kalam, and made only muted sounds when the extensive US snooping came to light, was ready to take the diplomat’s humiliation also in its stride.

The resentment of Foreign Service officials who realised how vulnerable they are while holding posts in high-wage cities and an open campaign by the diplomat’s father, Uttam Khobragarde, a former civil servant, which attracted media attention, forced the government to respond.

India asked the US to drop the charges against the diplomat and apologise for her mistreatment. It backed up the demand with a few calculated measures, which involved withdrawal of non-reciprocal privileges granted to US diplomats.

No Indian of consequence was ready to meet a visiting US Congressional delegation.  Former Bharatiya Janata Party Minister Yashwant Sinha asked the government to arrest US diplomats’ same-sex partners whom it had granted visas.

Secretary of State John Kerry tried to speak to External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid. Since Khurshid did not take the call he conveyed the State Department’s regret over the way the matter was handled to National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon. Not satisfied, the government reiterated the demands for apology and dropping of the case. In a bid to boost Devyani Khobragade’s diplomatic immunity, it transferred her to India’s UN mission.

Devyani Khobragade’s pay is about $6,500 a month and to be on the right side of the US law she was required to pay the maid $4,500 a month. The responsibility for her plight lies with the Indian government which allows officers posted abroad to take maids without making adequate financial provisions for them.

The State Department had prior knowledge of the case against Devyani Khobragade and informed India about it last September. However, there was no serious effort from either side to sort out the issue amicably.

Sangeeta Richard is no innocent victim, as overenthusiastic champions of the poor make out. She accepted the job knowing what she would be paid, and she was paid the contracted salary.

Indian opinion on the issue divided on lines of class and caste. Those nursing memories of bad treatment received at Indian missions abroad vent their spleen in cyberspace. Some dwelt on Devyani Khobragde’s Dalit identity and her involvement in a housing scam in Mumbai, as though these entitled the Americans to ill-treat her.

Some foreign commentators showed fair understanding of the issue.

Hussain Haqqani, who was Pakistan’s ambassador in the US when CIA contractor Raymond Davis killed two persons in Lahore, characterised Preet Bharara’s treatment of the diplomat without regard for her status as a representative of a friendly government, as over-exuberance straight out of an episode of the TV series “Law and Order”. He recalled that the US sought diplomatic status for Davis after the daylight murder.

Peter Van Buren, a former US foreign service employee, chronicled instances of abuse of servants by American diplomats. Citing court documents, he said a woman diplomat, on transfer to Japan, tricked an Ethiopian maid into accompanying her. She was paid less than $1 an hour and repeatedly raped by the diplomat’s husband.

No amount of legal and diplomatic brouhaha can raise Devyani Khobragade’s infraction to the level of the criminal acts of Americans whom the State Department has rescued invoking diplomatic immunity.

New York-based Reuters columnist Alison Frankel suggested that grant of retroactive immunity to Devyani Khobragade may be a way out of the impasse. If Khurshid sticks to his guns, Kerry will have to give in.-- Gulf Today, Sharjah, December 24, 2013.