Soft sell, hard issues

Ms Clinton's visit showed the gaps in country positions

Hillary Clinton’s visit, which concluded on Monday after a flurry of agreements being signed, demonstrated the positives and negatives of the Indo-US engagement in its current avatar. The positives were more in the nature of the softer aspects of the visit, with the US secretary of state meeting businessmen, students and civil society activists; these encounters underlined the values and linkages that bring the two countries together. On the issues which are at the hard edge of diplomacy, what was in evidence most of all were the mine-fields that the two governments have to negotiate.

On the biggest “deal” of the visit, relating to defence procurement, the US has opened up to sales to India but agreement has been reached on the basis of conditions that have come in for some domestic criticism. The agreement reflects the US desire to not lose out on its share of the large defence purchase orders that India is expected to place in the next few years, as well as the constraints imposed on such supplies. Since India is the buyer, it should have had the upper hand in such negotiations and driven a hard bargain. On the other hand, some supplies are best obtained from the US, which has the world’s biggest armaments industry, and a bigger armaments R&D budget than perhaps the rest of the world put together. Whether the final deal is the best that could have been got in the circumstances, only those who have negotiated will know for a while yet.

Perhaps the most substantive point made by Ms Clinton, in a bid to clear the air, was that the restrictions being imposed by the G-8 countries on the transfer of technology for nuclear enrichment and re-processing, do not apply to India. A subsequent report in The Hindu has suggested that this may not be the correct position, and that Ms Clinton may have been misinformed when she said what she did. If so, it underlines the gap that exists between the two countries on some key issues.

Those gaps were also in evidence on the climate change question. The US position, as expressed during the visit, is that “clean” development strategies are possible even at India’s stage of development. That is of course true, but the substance of the American position is that India must accept commitments on emissions control, which is inequitable and therefore unacceptable, as Jairam Ramesh made clear.

On Pakistan’s sponsorship of terrorism, Ms Clinton’s statements were designed to be heard positively in Islamabad; at no stage did she show recognition that Pakistan is being selective in the jihadists it takes on, and that it is doing nothing to rein in the organisations that are attacking India (and, for that matter, Afghanistan). All in all, therefore, while there is every reason for India to continue to work to improve its ties with the US, there are many issues on the table that demonstrate where the two countries’ positions diverge.