India to be subordinate ally of US, says CPI-M

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the US "may well result in deepening the status of India as a subordinate ally of the US and its global strategic concerns", the CPI-M has said.

"This does not augur well for India's independent foreign policy which marked its special place in international relations and amongst the comity of nations in the world," the CPI-M's "People's Democracy" said.

The Communist Party of India-Marxist publication said in an editorial: "It is not in India's interests to sacrifice good neighbourly relations to advance US strategic interests."

It added: "By this visit and its outcome, the danger is of India cementing itself as a subordinate strategic ally of US designs for a uni-polar world under its hegemony.

"In India's interests, this drift to disaster must not be allowed."

Modi returned home Wednesday after a five-day visit to the US during which he also attended the UN General Assembly.

The CPI-M said: "While there has been nothing substantial in terms of any advance from the agreements already reached between India and the US on all these aspects, the running thread appears the increasing pressures by the US to draw India more into its loop of advancing US strategic interests."

The journal noted that the US had become India's largest supplier of arms in the past five years, overtaking Russia.

India was also the largest purchaser of Israeli armaments amongst all countries, "thus, the largest financier of Israeli military attacks on the Palestinians!"