Ibne Siraj :
President of the United States Barrack Obama will be the Chief Guest at India’s Republic Day parade on Monday, January 26, 2015, the first time in Indian history that a sitting US President will have visited India twice. Following the brutal Peshawar (Pakistan) massacre by the Talibans, India has alerted its security agencies nationwide on a possible militant attack in the days leading to Obama’s visit. However, the Indian leaders must have realized how weak Obama is at present, being unpopular not among his Democrats, but also the Republicans.
The recent mid-term election in the United States stands out as a proof to the popularity Obama possesses in his good person. He is left with zero political capital to get any meaningful bill passed by the US Congress. In the absence of leadership at home, he is now trying to show his charisma abroad to simply stay politically alive. On the contrary, Modi has once again demonstrated why he remains one of the most interesting politicians in the country. By inviting Obama to next year’s Republic Day celebrations, he has stumped his critics and surprised even his supporters.
In this scenario, even if Obama and Modi reach any agreement potentially beneficial to India, the US Congress will most likely kill it, as Obama will not be able to deliver on any promise he makes. Many Indians were startled by the news that Obama has accepted the invitation to be the chief guest at India’s Republic Day 2015, quite out of the characters for both Obama and Modi. Both of them had grit their teeth, held metaphorical noses and shook hands with each other when Modi went to the US.
When India invited Eisenhower on January 26 in 1959, Pakistan to its utter happiness got billions of dollars worth of weapons but India could not even buy the American aircrafts. Richard Nixon was invited on the same day in 1969 and it was a great surprise for all in the world that he sent the 7th Fleet to attack India in 1971, when Bangladesh War of Liberation was on. After Pakistan joined the American alliance, the world people had witnessed what was its gain by now.
As Nehru refused to follow Pakistan in joining the American alliance, India got industries, nuclear, space, missiles, rockets and oil field discoveries from the former Soviet Union. According to many political analysts, Nixon and Indira Gandhi were two egoistical leaders and irresponsible state heads at that time. Nixon would do anything against India if Indira Gandhi embarrassed him and Indira would also embarrass Nixon just to teach him a good lesson.
When an egoistical leader leads a nation, it is not necessary the people will always be watchful against them. And now comes this bombshell with the big news of Obama’s coming to India.
In view of this historic visit, the Indians may seek to know what does a global strategic partnership between the United States and India mean for South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Asia as a whole? One area of the US-India cooperation may be to further India’s engagement with East Asia; working together to strengthen the ties between the world’s largest and oldest democracies with economic and social dynamism existing from Seoul, Jakarta, Singapore to Manila.
To echo what US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell said recently, “we think that India’s role in the Asian-Pacific region stands to be one of the most important new developments over the course of next decade. We’ve moved from a transatlantic century to a transpacific century in which the rise of Asia has already started to define the 21st century.
As the fulcrum of geopolitics moves to Asia, India plays a critical role in the US strategy. India, of course, has long been an Asian power in its own right and the signs of India’s cultural influence can be seen throughout the region.”
As US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns stated in an address last year, “It is natural for India to look east, where its soft power—long visible everywhere from the temples of Angkor Wat to the food courts of Singapore to the crowds flocking to see the best of Bollywood—is increasingly complemented by its economic power.” It is noteworthy that large Asia-Pacific democracies-Indonesia, Japan, Australia, and South Korea-are also engaging more closely with New Delhi and cooperating more systematically on security issues.
Being one of the pioneers and founding members of the None-Aligned Movement, India developed a closer relationship with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. During that period, India’s relatively cooperative strategic and military relations with Moscow and strong socialist policies had a distinctly adverse impact on its relations with the United States.
After the fall of Soviet Union in 1991, India began to review its foreign policy in a unipolar world, and took steps to develop closer ties with the European Union and the United States. Current Indian foreign policy is based on maintaining strategic autonomy to promote and safeguard its national interests.
India has now a Prime Minister and a government that are not trapped in the ideological moorings of the past. A self-assured Modi is re-shaping Indian foreign policy in some fundamental ways as his team has given up the defensiveness of the past. India is now confidently engaging with all major powers to secure the best possible results for itself. Where in the name of non-alignment previous governments would not acknowledge its convergence with key partners, Modi and his government are explicit about affirming India’s key partnerships. The coyness of the past is giving way to a new refreshing openness, which is embedded in the pragmatic instincts of the Prime Minister.
After all, the US is now one of the closest partners of India. Be it economy, defense, regional security or geopolitics, there is now an extraordinary degree of convergence between the interests of the two states. Modi in just a few months has brought about a paradigm shift in the relationship despite having being denied a visa by the US in the past.
However, it is being seen by many in India as a clear diplomatic win for Modi, who has decided to take the US-India ties a notch higher by inviting Obama to the 2015 Republic Day celebrations.
How ironic when one realizes that China and Pakistan have been part of these celebrations in the past but not the world’s oldest democracy.
India’s new Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government are in a hurry to expand New Delhi’s role on the global stage. He has reached out to Japan, Australia and Israel, among other countries, and will soon visit Germany and the United Kingdom.
In this perspective, of course, Obama’s mission is as much about politics as about trade for the United States, which needs friendly countries in Asia to balance a progressively more assertive China. Taiwan and Japan alone are not sufficient, and while Pakistan received billions of US dollars during the decade of American engagement with Afghanistan, cannot be counted as trustworthy by anyone in Washington.
India and the United States share many cultural values: democracy, free markets, multi-ethnic society and a tolerance for diversity. The lasting bitterness caused by President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has faded with Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush’s warming toward India. But by stepping off the Air Force One on a probable foggy January morning at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, President Obama takes the US-India relationship to a new level.
