UPA-2’s conspicuous tilt towards the US

There is no need to look for conspiracy theories that prime minister Manmohan Singh and some of his cabinet colleagues are taking decisions that send out a clear signal that India-US relations will be closer in UPA’s second term. But there is a need to talk about it openly, even debate it, and express objections at least in some cases. The BJP will not do it because its leaders do not have the time or the inclination to argue the case either way. The communists can rant as much as they like but no one is likely to take them seriously. The tendency of Singh to do things quietly will only raise doubts and suspicions when there need be none. What appears murky about the Singh government is not the deeds so much as its refusal to do them openly.

Until US ambassador in Delhi Timothy Roemer wrote his thank you note for allotting the two nuclear plant sites — in Chhayamithi in Gujarat and Kovvada in Andhra Pradesh —  there was no hint from the Indian side about it. There was no doubt at the time of the signing of the India-US civil nuclear deal that the American companies were interested in the Indian market. But Singh and some of his colleagues protested vociferously that the India-US deal was necessary to get the clearance at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), and that India would be free to make nuclear trade deals with every other country and it will not be obliged to buy anything from the Americans. Now that did not make sense. Why would Americans go out of the way if they had nothing to gain? That is how relations between countries work — business matters on both sides. Singh and his colleagues have to give up is this pretension that there is no price to pay whatsoever.

The deliberations that preceded the allocation of the sites to the Americans should have been transparent as it has been in the case of the Russians. The Koodangulam nuclear power plant, for example, was part of India-Russia joint statement in the 1980s when it was mooted for the first time and it was therefore out there in the open. In the case of the Americans, the deal is with the private companies and not with the government as in the case of the Russians. This does not however mean that the facts concerning them should not have been in the public domain much earlier.

There are other issues as well where UPA2 is showing its friendly leanings towards the US. For example, Anand Sharma, talked of reviving the Doha round of WTO talks and even convened a ministerial at Delhi. The US and the European Union (EU) have not shown any change of heart with regard to global trade and the other developing countries are not willing to yield ground either. Sharma’s initiative seemed conciliatory towards the developed economies rather than that of the developing ones. There have been arguments in India that it is time to stop championing the cause of the poor countries and that it should join the club of the rich and the powerful. Here too, the Singh government does not have the courage to state clearly what its position really is though the indications are that it does not want to confront the western countries, which in effect means the US.

Similarly, when human resources development minister Kapil Sibal displays his infectious enthusiasm to allow foreign universities to set up campuses in India, he has in mind the top American universities like Harvard, Yale and Stanford. It is an open secret that Harvard, Yale and others are looking to Indian students to prop up their institutions. The arrangement might be mutually beneficial but the government should accept how it benefits the American education system as well. There is perhaps a case for closer ties with the US. Singh, Sharma, Sibal et al must show courage and conviction to state their pro-US stance and learn to listen to the counter-arguments as well.