India Abroad - December 30, 2011

The year of the drift
Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton dancers at the
renowned Kalakshetra
cultural center in Chennai,
July 20, 2011
;Page A17
more slowly than the US may have initially hoped.”
Curtis said it would be imperative in 2012 “to regain
some of the momentum in ties that was lost this year.
Otherwise leaders in Washington may begin to view previ-
ous statements that India could be ‘the most important
partner for the US in the 21st century’ as mere hyperbole
and both sides will fail to realize the true potential of the
relationship at the expense of both countries’ long-term
security interests.”
Walter Andersen, veteran State Department official and
associate director, South Asia program, School of Advanced
International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, said, “I
am not a pessimist by nature and certainly not among
those who claim that the US-India relationship is stressed
and that India for some reason is a declining power.”
Conceding that “there are real problem on both
accounts,” he said, “the bottom line is still robust on both.”
He argued that it is imperative to have some perspective in
terms of where the US-India relationship was two decades
ago when Delhi was considered a Soviet surrogate.
Andersen, who is on a visiting professorship in Tangji
University in Shanghai, said, “Colleagues here in China tell
me that the general view in this country at the time was
that India was a messy democracy that was unable to har-
ness the nation’s wealth to grow the economy and thus
reduce poverty. It was, as one colleague here told me,
apparently racing toward international oblivion and much
of its intellectual class applauding policies leading it to that
situation.”
Andersen argued: “Yes there are hiccups in the US India
relationship — and no surprise there — but the basics
mean that the relationship will remain strong. As the US
pulls out of Afghanistan, it is also shifting its military pres-
ence to the Asian region. But economic realities compel the
US to work with friendly states in a partnership and one of
those strongest partners is and will be India.”
He declared, “India is not in decline — and neither, for
that matter, is the US. The US-India relationship, similar-
ly, is not in decline. It is constantly being recalibrated to
conform to new realities. The brilliant Indian Ambassador
in the US, Nirupama Rao, I am convinced, will prove to be
a major force in this recalibration.”
Karl F Inderfurth, former assistant secretary of state for
South Asian Affairs and currently the Wadhwani Chair for
US-India policy studies at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, echoed Andersen’s optimism.

REUTERS

tender for 126 new jet fighters — did not. Arguably more
troubling in 2011 was that the US and Indian private sec-
tors, key drivers in building this relationship, also
expressed frustration about India’s economic prospects
with widespread corruption, the lack of parliamentary
action on key pieces of legislation, and concern about the
shrinking opportunities for foreign direct investment, most
recently evident in the government’s decision to suspend
plans to open India’s retail market to foreign firms like
Walmart.” But he reiterated, “US-India ties are not adrift.
They are not stalled. They are moving forward, albeit slow-
ly, but surely. The current period of implementation and
consolidation will also put the relationship on an even
sounder footing when the leaders in both capitals deter-
mine it is time to quicken the pace.”
Perhaps Tellis described it best when he said, “The real
gains in the US-Indian partnership will be manifest only
over the long haul and will be realized less by what India
does for the United States than by what it becomes and
does for itself. Settling for a transactional approach to
India now is not only mistaken but dangerous because it is
certain to fail. The disparate levels of economic and politi-
cal development between the United States and India, the
power disparities between the two countries, and the
fragility of the improvements in bilateral relations — which
are still contested by significant leftist and national con-
stituencies in India — all suggest that New Delhi will like-
ly fall short in most significant transactional tests that
could be devised for quite some time to come.”
Aziz Haniffa is Editor, India Abroad

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