Barack Obama isn’t bringing an entourage of 200 businessmen to admire the Diwali junketings. Nor – though this will cut our foreign policy pundits to the quick – to seek India’s advice on a new global architecture. To quote the deputy national security adviser, Mike Froman, “A key part of the (president’s) message is going to be that we want to make sure there’s opportunities for US jobs, US exports.” That’s “a big part of (Obama’s) mission”.
Indian reluctance to accept this is usually attributed to Jawaharlal Nehru’s philosophical concern with the human condition. But Nehru also spoke of “economic diplomacy” and set up an economic affairs division in South Block’s pink sandstone majesty even when handling foreign affairs in the interim government under Wavell. And even before then, as long ago as the 1920s, Nehru told a Calcutta audience that poverty was “an evil thing which must be fought and stamped out”. His five-year plans and much talked-of “temples of modern India” were geared to that – admittedly not very successful – effort.
I am not saying that the substance of our foreign policy ignores reality. Myanmar is one instance of pragmatism. But the language of our diplomats tends to be other-worldly, which is bound to have a dampening effect on practice. No wonder Kamal Nath tells of a meeting with the European Union petering out in 15 minutes because the Indian side held forth on Iraq and Afghanistan while the Europeans wanted to discuss trade and investment. Diplomats in the field speak of the cold reception, if not rebukes, they received for broaching new schemes to boost trade and investment. One says his boss retorted the government of India was not a “rentier”. Another was ordered not to behave like a “Dalda salesman”.
But Obama is bringing PepsiCo and McGraw-Hill CEOs, not Harvard and Stanford professors of ancient languages. India’s merchants and mariners, not poets and philosophers, created the Sri Vijaya empire, whose contemporary descendant is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Far be it from me to decry the role of higher learning. But we must deal with interlocutors in a currency they know and have confidence in. “India is a vibrant marketplace,” Manmohan Singh told an Asia Society conference in Bombay in 2006. Next week will be the time to prove it.
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It was at another Asia Society meeting that another US president expounded the nitty-gritty of American interest in India. Shortly before his historic 2006 visit, George W Bush waxed eloquent in Washington about the scope for selling aircraft, air-conditioners, kitchen appliances and washing machines to India’s emerging middle class. “Younger Indians are acquiring a taste for pizzas from Domino’s (and) Pizza Hut,” he said to applause. Robert O Blake, assistant secretary for South and Central Asian affairs, reiterates the point by citing McKinsey’s prediction of “as many as 91 million middle-class urban households in 2030, up from 22 million today”. Blake adds that American companies are “set to produce and sell” the “TV, internet service, washer and dryer, chapatti maker” that these families will want. In India we would wonder how much commission the manufacturers gave Bush and Blake!
Of course, there’s much more to discuss. Terrorism, discriminatory visa costs, continuing sanctions, impediments in the way of transferring dual-use technology, outsourcing, Security Council membership, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, NPT, CTBT, FCMT, Indian interest in Afghanistan, American interest in China and Pakistan, Chinese interest in Pakistan, Pakistan’s interest in Kashmir … the list is endless. But a sound partnership firmly rooted in mutual self-interest is the basis for any meaningful dialogue. Without that bond, presidents and prime ministers can only indulge in empty platitudes about the state of the world.
It’s a two-way relationship. While American goods exports to India have quadrupled over seven years to about $17 billion and service exports have tripled to about $10 billion, Indian companies are the second-fastest-growing investors in the US. They employ about 57,000 people. So, it’s in the interest of both sides to extend and deepen the relationship. Even the democracy (no longer estranged) that Indians would prefer to emphasise is the means to an end, says William Burns, the under-secretary of state for political affairs, for it “can foster economic development”. The language of Indian diplomacy needs to be updated.
Meanwhile, one hopes Tuesday’s mid-term Congressional elections won’t reduce to lame duck status the first (so far as I know) American chief executive who calls himself a “Pacific President” and takes pride in governing an “Asian power”.