Guest From America

To them, notwithstanding all the diplomatic niceties that they may have uttered, the harsh fact of life was that India was seen to belong to the enemy camp a position which fitted John Foster Dulles' perception of the world scene as one in which those who were not with the US were against it. India's supposedly non-aligned status, therefore, did nothing to make it acceptable to the US. It was not only politics, India's pursuit of the socialist model in the economy, characterised by the eviction of Coca Cola and IBM in 1977, also meant that the two estranged democracies regarded each other with a feeling bordering on dislike, with the anti-American and pro-Vietnamese demonstrations in India typifying the suspicions of the time.

To the natural allies of today, to use Atal Behari Vajpayee's words for Indo-US relations, the memories of that unfriendly past seem more and more unreal with each passing day. It appears to be the only natural process today for greater interaction in the economic field to complement the efforts of the two to advance the cause of democracy in areas where its absence bolsters pre-modern beliefs. Since it is now a widely acknowledged fact that only democracies like to live in peace, it is to be expected that America's earlier drive against totalitarianism will now be directed against other equally oppressive fundamentalist regimes. If India was an impartial observer in that period, partly because of the American endorsement of tyrannical governments which were then on its side, it can only be an active partner now when the US has shed much of the cynicism which marked its earlier policies.

Before the partnership is established, Washington will have to realise, however, that it has to be one between equals. The US, because of its preponderant position virtually since World War I, is not used to such relations, but it has to get used to it. India's civilisational status alone will not let it play any other role. There is acknowledgment of this reality in the admission by one of the US officials that India will not accept his country's line on non-proliferation. There is an admission, too, in this context by purported hardliners in the US administration that America can express its concern but it is India's sovereign right to formulate its own security policies. It is not impossible that a major fallout from the Clinton visit will be to establish the concept of parity between the world's largest and most powerful democracies. Since the will of the people guides the destiny of both, there can be no other basis for the friendship between the two natural allies.