U.S. President Barack Obama visits India in November 2010. While previous US Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, in 2000 and 2006 respectively, came only in their second terms, Mr Obama arrives in his first. Is it a sign of a maturing relationship or an exercise high on form but low on content?

Some scepticism can be traced to Mr Obama, both as candidate and President, sending conflicting signals. While campaigning he linked Kashmir to alienation in the AfPak region. On election he named ambassador Richard Holbrooke as his special envoy for AfPak. India sensed a re-hyphenation in relations with Pakistan that the Bush administration had banished. While he hosted PM Manmohan Singh as the first foreign leader in Washington and the US finalised the nuclear reprocessing agreement with India, Mr Obama tabled a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution, 1887, on non-proliferation, reiterating the need for non-signatories to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as non-nuclear weapon states, equating India with Israel and Pakistan. The US also asked the Nuclear Suppliers Group to approve a ban on the transfer of ENR technologies to NPT non-signatories, clearly against the spirit of the India-US civil nuclear deal. The initial US silence on China announcing the sale of two nuclear power reactors to Pakistan was deafening. Finally, the secretive endgame in Afghanistan and approaches to the Taliban are at variance with a close India-US engagement.
It is generally conceded in both countries that India is unlikely to be a US ally. This was perceived even back in 1956-57, when following PM Jawaharlal Nehru’s visit to Washington in December 1956, President Eisenhower, sensing an excellent personal rapport, signed a NSC document (No. 5701) stressing that India was of strategic significance despite being non-aligned as it was a non-Communist citadel in Asia, even though it may at times oppose US policies. As the Sino-Indian relations deteriorated, culminating in the 1962 war, US poured economic and military aid into India. Pakistan, of course, cried betrayal until President Nixon needed them to deliver Sino-US engagement in 1972 and the polarities reversed. India rushed into Soviet arms and Soviets into Afghanistan causing two decades of destruction and radicalisation in South Asia.
Lord Palmerston once said that “Half the wrong conclusions at which mankind arrive are reached by the abuse of metaphors”. A strategic dialogue with India at the foreign minister level was attributed to PM’s successful visit to Washington as it gave India parity with China and Pakistan. Of importance are the contents of the dialogue and not its nomenclature. The US-Pakistan strategic dialogue, with Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani lurking in the shadows, is an entirely different exercise from the inanities exchanged between external affairs minister S.M. Krishna and secretary of state Hillary Clinton. The post-World War II security order, with the Atlantic alliance and US allies in the Pacific, was a club of countries either belonging to the same Judeo-Christian tradition, or non-democratic small powers opportunistically joining the Western alliance, or the vanquished of the war, i.e. Japan and Germany. India is a rising power, ensconced between China, a pretender hegemon, and its surrogate Pakistan. The global hegemon, the US, still has not decided whether to contain China, though some whiff of an emerging strategy is now visible in the South China Sea and on behalf of Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The US is also conflicted over Pakistan, despite the WikiLeaks revelations, on whether to tether it or humour it despite Pakistan’s dissimulating actions. It is this clarity that Mr Obama must bring and perhaps partly manifest in his public discourse.
What is it that Mr Obama can do to bring a little romance to his Indian tango? Following are some items that can take the relationship to the next level.
He could announce unequivocal support to India’s candidature as permanent member of the UN Security Council. But he must be prepared, as India assumes a non-permanent UNSC seat in January 2011, to live with a country that will only be selectively aligned with its global concerns, caught as the Indian government is between testy allies and questioning opponents. Till now the strategic shift has been by stealth, except the Iran vote at International Atomic Energy Agency. Now the drama shall be public.
The US must dismantle the extant technology denial regimes against India. The US maintains that India needs to act on three draft agreements: the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA); the Communication Interoperability and Security Agreement (CISMOA); and the Basic Change and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-Spatial Cooperation (BECA), besides the the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill. The government’s stubborn attempt to slip in protection for the suppliers in the bill only heightens public concern over US arm-twisting and thus counter-productive.
Finally, Mr Obama needs to espouse the Bush vision that an India integrated into the global nuclear regime is a gain for non-proliferation. India will not sign the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state; US cannot get the treaty amended to take India as a nuclear weapon state. Therefore abandon sterile argumentation and move to have India join the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Missile Technology Regime, the Australia Group and the Wassenaar Group. These four do not have any written restriction on non-NPT signatory joining them. A Working Group of Indian and US experts (this writer being a member) is urging Washington and New Delhi to look at this proposal.
The Obama visit thus can be either a great opportunity for serious India-US engagement or merely a public display of bonhomie. The foreign minister of Pakistan did not want to come to India as a tourist; nor do we hope does Mr Obama.

The author is a former secretary in the external affairs ministry