May 16, 2003
GROPING TOWARD ALLIANCE
India's startling change of axis (Sultan Shahin, Asia Times, 5/13/2003)India has renewed its bid for an axis with Washington and Israel to counter Pakistan, which Delhi describes as the hub of Islamic fundamentalism and international terrorism. The terminology being officially used for this proposed axis is rather innocuous - democratic alliance against terrorism....
While the US has not come up with any response yet, Indian opposition parties have attacked the ruling coalition for its "strange and perverse" obsession with Israel. The most vocal among these has been the Congress. It attacked the BJP-led government on Saturday. "Obsession with Israel on the part of the coalition government is strange and perverse ... when Israel is facing international isolation. It shows the intellectual insolvency of the government," party spokesman S Jaipal Reddy said....
The BJP-led government has indeed shown a great keenness in trying to convince the US for such a strategic alliance since it came to power. It has not let any opportunity go to repeat its interest in such an axis. Whether it was the issue of national missile defense (NMD) mooted by President George W Bush or the terrorist strikes of September 11, India was the first to offer its total support and cooperation, even without being asked for it....
September 11 found India in the same mood as Britain after Pearl Harbor. British columnist William Rees-Mogg recalled that his country's reaction to Pearl Harbor was one of "horror, but also a huge sense of relief that the USA was now involved in World War II". India, too, hoped that the US would now be involved in the war against terrorism that India has been fighting for the past two decades, first in the state of Punjab and then in J&K, not to speak of the seven states in its Northeast and the Maoist insurgency in the eastern state of Bihar and the western state of Andhra Pradesh.
An alliance between India and the United States makes so much sense that it will eventually come about, but the U.S. attitude is presumably akin to the young St. Augustine's attitude toward chastity -- "give it to me, Lord, but not yet."
The biggest trouble, I think, is that the Muslim world would not respond well to a public alliance between the world's leading Hindu, Jewish, and Christian nations. It is important that Muslims understand that the war on terror is not a war on Islam, but a war on tyranny and terror. Note that even the Congress Party is appealing to concerns of Indian voters that the BJP's interest in Israel is motivated by anti-Muslim sentiments, rather than shared democratic values. If the BJP is having trouble persuading Indians, it's going to have even more trouble with foreigners. The phrase "democratic alliance" is a good start: but to persuade Muslims that it was really an alliance of democracies, not an alliance of competitors to Islam, the alliance will have to include Turkey and other Muslim democracies.
Another point is that freedom is more important than democracy in America's scale of values. India's socialism and its Hindu nationalism that promotes repression of Muslims and Christians are both barriers to a strong alliance.
Finally, the last barrier to this alliance is game-theoretic. The Bush administration thinks that as the sole superpower, it is in America's best interest not to form rigid alliances with countries that may not share our values. Rather, we should be a broker who is in relationship to and accessible to everyone, but gets to shift the balance of the scales on every issue. The U.S. will not want to alienate China, for instance, with an open alliance with India.
If India liberalizes its economy and softens the Hindutva movement, then as free and democratic Muslim states like the new Iraq emerge, it will be possible to imagine an alliance of free nations in South Asia. The U.S. will probably encourage such an alliance, but remain publicly aloof. But look for a free trade agreement, if India is willing.