By Pradeep S Mehta & Amit Dasgupta
India must uphold strategic autonomy amid US pressure, balancing cooperation with self-reliance and national interest.
Trade relations between India and the United States have been going through a roller-coaster ride. The recent broad agreement on trade issues between US and China with President Donald Trump heralding it as the arrival of the “G-2” -- two economic giants of the world joining forces. This will lead to several outcomes, which may not necessarily be in India’s favour. Since long we have been speaking about a bilateral trade deal between the US and India, but that too is going on its roller-coaster, though less tumultuous. While Mr Trump is confident of an imminent trade deal, there are too many “red lines” for us. India’s commerce minister, Piyush Goyal, has said that this country “cannot do a deal with a gun to its head”.
Threats, bullying tactics and foul language by the White House officials to describe Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Indians in general, cozying up to Pakistan, but coupled with compliments on Mr Modi’s good looks has been the White House’s carrot-and-stick approach to pressure India with strategic isolation, if it does not fall in line. Fear is the key to Washington’s strategy. Expectedly, the influential pro-US lobby in India has joined the cacophony and argues that the only choice before India is between survival and suicide, and that acceptance of the terms and conditions laid down by Washington would be clear demonstration that New Delhi’s strategic thinking has finally come of age.
The arguments by the pro-US lobby essentially are, first, that India needs to rethink its strategic hesitation and reluctance on a closer embrace with the US, and thereby benefit significantly from technology collaboration across diverse sectors. In the meantime, we have also renewed our bilateral strategic defence partnership agreement by another 10 years. The pro-US lobbies in India also argued that since all leading economies have or are acceding to Washington’s unilateral tariff demands and opting for preferential access to be given to US produce, India would endanger its own growth, future and global standing if it held out.
Furthermore, India needs to recognise that from a rules-based global order, the world has moved on to one that is power-based. What New Delhi needs to do, consequently, is to not only accommodate but embrace this shift and work in tandem with the United States. India’s pro-US lobby advocates the need for canine behaviour: wag the tail, lick your tormentor’s hand, and learn the art of “forgive and forget”, especially when you are repeatedly kicked in the face. This, in their considered view, is strategic pragmatism.
For countries that have been heavily reliant on Washington, since the end of the Second World War, such as Europe and parts of the Asean bloc in particular, caving in to Washington’s pressure tactics was a strategic compulsion because of their continued dependence on the US. Their leaders understood well that Mr Trump’s sense of self-esteem would dictate his behaviour, and learnt to successfully stage-manage their performance to accommodate this. India’s pro-US lobby would like Prime Minister Modi to do the same.
The bogey of retaliation by a peeved Washington is raised, should New Delhi opt for Mr Modi’s advocacy of “atma nirbhar” (self-reliance) and “atma vishwas” (self-confidence) which enjoys bipartisan endorsement across India. Such justifications by the pro-US lobby is quite bizarre. Indeed, New Delhi might as well outsource its entire governance and strategic thinking to Washington!
Take the purchase of Russian oil, for instance, for which India is facing undue and unfair criticism. New Delhi opted for its purchase because price and other factors made sound economic sense. If these conditions weren’t there, India would, certainly, seek to source the commodity from where it gets the best deal. This is strategic autonomy, which is a legitimate national aspiration and right. Similarly, it is for India’s armed forces to decide on where weapons acquisitions need to be sourced from. Any undue pressure on this impinges on sovereign rights.
India is mindful that the decisions it takes would be a defining milestone, and possibly the most significant, since the 2008 India-US 123 Agreement on the peaceful use of nuclear energy. India believes in friendly and cooperative relations with all countries, while ensuring that its own strategic national interests are not jeopardised in any way. Several elements of the current negotiations with Washington are positive in nature and could trigger the much-needed next phase of economic reforms through opening up the domestic market to outside competition. These need to be welcomed.
Several others might be prejudicial to our interests and hence, resisted. How the government negotiates and the concessions and adjustments it makes would, certainly, define how India is perceived by its own citizens and by the global community. Sacrificing its farmers to accommodate the White House would clearly be unacceptable, for instance.
The positions that New Delhi takes on multiple global issues of national concern may widely differ from the current US administration. For instance, on vaccinations, climate change and global warming, on renewable energy and the gradual phasing out of fossil fuels, on transgender rights, or the pace of opening up its markets, subsidies to the agricultural sector or terrorism, to name a few. Such disagreements on policy issues does not make India an enemy of the US, as it is certainly not necessary for us to agree on every issue with every country New Delhi enjoys a strategic partnership with.
What India needs to do is to craft its own future along the lines of strategic autonomy, “atma nirbhar” and “atma vishwas”. To grudge New Delhi the space to do so is an illegitimate and unreasonable demand. In an Age of Disruption and Uncertainty, collaboration and not confrontation needs to be the strategic imperative.
Pradeep S. Mehta is the secretary-general of CUTS International, a 42-year-old leading global public policy research and advocacy group. Amit Dasgupta is a former Indian diplomat.
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