Obama’s visit will have tangible results in fairly anodyne areas: South Asia expert

President Barack Obama’s trip to India is meant to deepen America’s ties with an Asian ally whose economic and military rise has made it a strategic counterweight to China.

Obama will start his mission of goodwill hunting by most likely signing pacts with India in renewable energy, non-conventional energy (shale oil), higher education and agricultural research.

Beyond the bonhomie, the stakes for India are high as the US plans for a post-war Afghanistan. “Afghanistan should be a prominent matter of discussion when President Obama visits India. Prime Minister Singh should define the dangers that countries faces from the Af-Pak area,” said author and South Asia expert Sumit Ganguly, who holds the Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations at Indiana University in Bloomington and is currently a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi. Ganguly, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, talked to DNA in New York about how India should use the visit to shape the outcome in Afghanistan with its own security interests.

Will US President Barack Obama’s trip to India in November be about how New Delhi deals with that elephant in the room — the Pakistan-Afghanistan conundrum?
India has significant concerns about the US leaving Afghanistan given that an ultimate settlement will likely come about through some sort of a twinned process of reconciliation and reintegration of former Taliban fighters back into Afghanistan’s political landscape. This is disastrous from an India and American standpoint. After the extraordinary loss of American blood and treasure to invite the Taliban back in is morally reprehensible and politically unwise. 

Prime Minister Singh should press this issue with President Obama and not be shy about it. Pakistan’s interests are completely different from those of India in Afghanistan. They want the return of some variant of the Taliban so that they can again use Afghanistan as a launching pad for jihadi attacks against India. America should also be unalterably opposed to this because it poses a threat to US national security. Let us not forgot that the Time Square bomber trained in the Af-Pak region.    

There should be regular consultations between the US, India and Afghanistan.
One yardstick for measuring the success of the Obama visit should lie in assessing whether or not the two leaders have reached consensus on defining the dangers that countries face from the Af-Pak area and how they intend to tackle it. Indian and U.S officials have not been forthcoming on this issue. Quite frankly, unless there have been extensive back room discussions, I quite doubt that India will achieve a major breakthrough in getting its point across on Afghanistan.

Despite its aid, New Delhi has backed off from more ambitious proposals to train the Afghan army and police. New Delhi has deferred to Pakistani and American sensitivities about raising India’s strategic profile in Afghanistan. Do you think India should now look at an explicitly military option in Afghanistan?
We do not need an explicitly military option. All New Delhi needs to do is to train the Afghan army by bringing contingents over to India. India has extensive training facilities which are lying idle. India is doing a little bit of this but India should ramp it up.

Once again, this endeavour is in America’s interest. If it wants a stable Afghanistan it should make India a viable partner in this enterprise.

I have it on good authority that India has adequate training facilities and can train the Afghan army and strengthen it at low cost. New Delhi needs to forthrightly talk about this. Washington should also talk to New Delhi about this because no one wants to see an Afghan army that disappears at the first sign of the Taliban over a ridge.

If India can’t shape the course of events in its own neighbourhood, how can it credibly lay claim to its great power aspirations at home or abroad?
Part of the problem is that India suddenly finds itself being treated with a degree of respect and deference in the global order thanks to both dramatic economic growth and the acquisition of a viable, if limited, nuclear option but has yet to figure out how to play a meaningful role after years of mindless posturing and silly rhetoric.

For one thing, India should get its domestic house in order so that people cannot exploit the disturbed situation in Kashmir. It is colossal mishandling on the part of the Indian state that Kashmir is in the condition that it is in today. Right after an election, that was widely believed to be free and fair, governance simply fell apart. 

It should also ensure post-war Afghanistan does not have an ascendant Taliban that can threaten India’s stability by sponsoring Islamic militancy.  

What tangible outcome do you expect from the Obama visit?
I think that the tangible outcomes will be in fairly anodyne areas such as renewable energy, non-conventional energy (shale oil), higher education, agricultural research and with some luck, greater counter-terrorism cooperation. These are important spheres of co-operation, but hardly earth-shaking.

Do you think the visit will result in any big-ticket defence or commercial deals?
Quite frankly, I would be pleasantly surprised if any such deals were struck.
India has criticised the US about failing to pass on warnings about Mumbai terror plotter David Coleman Headley. Is the US serious about sharing terrorism intelligence with India?

Bluntly put, the US should share intelligence with India given that it is in our self-interest. The Times Square bomber nearly succeeded. His ineptitude saved New York a potentially catastrophic terrorist attack. We all know where he and his associates came from. India has been the victim of the same source of terror for well over two decades.

President Obama may have left Pakistan out of this high-profile Asia tour but how much does America’s foreign policy need Pakistan?
In the short term, American can’t do without Pakistan. The Pakistanis are extracting geostrategic rent from the US — they are exploiting their physical proximity to Afghanistan to further their own interests. In the process if the US is prepared to bribe them sufficiently then they will do a little of the American bidding. Let’s be clear about this — American and Pakistani interests have not been congruent for over a decade and it is not likely they are going to converge any time in the future. The sooner the US comes to terms with this the better.