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The book makes delightful reading. If you have the few hours that it takes to run through its 250 odd pages, you will find it engaging enough to want to do it in one sitting.
Strobe Talbot’s journalistic experience enables him to succinctly state what transpired during that period and yet provide vital clues and insights on why it may have so transpired. His respect and admiration for Jaswant Singh are revealing of a respecting and caring human just as his viewpoints are revealing of a clear headed US policy maker.
What the book enabled me to do is understand and respect Strobe Talbot’s point of view. However, understanding the American view point is one thing, agreeing with it is something else. Let me give you some examples of this from the book.
 Jaswant Singh was known to continuously challenge the proclivity of the western world to hyphenate India and Pakistan. - “Why do you Americans keep hyphenating us with Pakistan?” Singh reportedly asked Talbot, “These linkages are unwarranted- they are deeply resented in my country. ‘India-Pakistan’ is a false equation.”
Strobe Talbot espousing the American viewpoint would counter with – “It was India’s nuclear tests, along with the totally predictable consequences of Pakistan’s that had refocused everyone on the extent to which the two countries’ fate were, like it or not, interlocked. So the hyphen was not inserted between India and Pakistan by outsiders. Rather, the two countries put it there themselves. It symbolized the way they prosecuted their relentless animosity.”
I wonder if Mr Talbot has some concrete examples of India pursuing its relentless animosity towards Pakistan? Sure, India is wary of Pakistan. It has reasons to be. Pakistan annexed large tracts of Indian territory in Kashmir by force immediately following partition. It continues to lay claim to the rest of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. It has used force in the past to annexe Kashmir.
On the other hand examples of Pakistan’s relentless animosity towards India abound. So while the American retort appears logical it is by itself the best illustrations of the point that Jaswant Singh made.
Pakistan pursues a relentless animosity, not India. But by singling out Pakistan the US could lose leverage with it. So it says both India and Pakistan pursue a relentless animosity to each other! Pakistan indulges in proliferation, not India. But by singling out Pakistan the US could lose leverage with it. So the US lays down benchmarks for India just to make them acceptable to Pakistan. Pakistan indulges in nuclear brinkmanship not India. But by singling out Pakistan the US could lose leverage with it. So the US warns both the countries against nuclear war. The fact of the matter is, with due apologies for using a colloquialism that borders on profanity, US proclivity for hyphenating India with Pakistan is near anal!
Strobe Talbot’s rebuttal is also an excellent illustration of the parable ‘Five blind men of Hindustan’. The implicit allusion that India is responsible for Pakistan testing its nuclear weapon is no different from the conclusion by the blind man feeling the elephant’s side that an Elephant must look like a wall! It completely ignores the fact that India acted on its security perceptions whereas Pakistan reacted with a knee jerk reflex.
Pakistan was armed with nuclear weapons years before India conducted its nuclear weapons test. Indeed, according to US sources, at one point of time in 1990 Pakistan seriously contemplated a pre-emptive nuclear strike on India. Under the circumstances, not testing and proving its weapon designs would have been foolhardy on the part of India.
The US viewed India’s nuclear tests only in the context of nuclear proliferation in general and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in particular. It did not care, and most likely does not care, about the imperatives, political and strategic, that made nuclear tests inevitable.
Clinton Administration
Wittingly or unwittingly Mr Talbot conveys the extreme low priority assigned to India by the Clinton administration despite Mr Clintons publicly professed personal interest in India – an interest derived more from visions of grandeur as a historic peace maker rather than a genuine desire to help based on a thorough understanding of the dynamics of South Asian culture and history.
Witting or unwittingly Mr Talbot also conveys the proclivity of the US to play the Pakistani card in order to wish India away. For example, after waxing eloquent on how India, destabilized the region, he talks about the Kargil conflict almost as happenstance, not as extreme brinkmanship on the part of Pakistan that could have triggered a nuclear war.
Musharaff
One of the strongest arguments propounded by the US and echoed constantly in the book against India declaring itself a nuclear weapon state is that by doing so India will not become more secure. Indeed, the US believes the converse is likely. Many Indians buy this argument too. The dangerous brinkmanship resorted to by Pakistan since the nuclear tests, first by its incursion in Kargil, next by its almost certain involvement in the hijacking of an Indian Airlines Airbus to Kandhar and finally by the attack on the Indian parliament seems to reinforce the contention.
However, US concerns are self serving. The truth is that the brinkmanship that Pakistan has resorted to in the recent past has more to do with the ambitions of General Musharraf than any nuclear tests that India or Pakistan conducted. Given Musharaff reported ambition to cross the LOC in order to avenge the humiliation and breakup of Pakistan in 1971, a Kargil was perhaps inevitable the day Musharraf became the Chief of Army Staff. Indeed, the defeat at Kargil could have only fuelled his ambitions. Though he managed to humiliate India with the IA hijacking it wasn’t enough to subdue his recklessness as is evident by the desperate attack on the Indian Parliament. Indeed, the attack on the Parliament is unlikely to be the last perfidy of the General. He is too ambitious for his own good, let alone the good of India
Conclusion
As the only super power the US is inclined to behave as a policeman. However, as a vibrant democracy it ends up behaving more like a teacher. That is as good as it gets. It is unrealistic on India’s part to expect the US behave like a caring parent just because India happens to be as vibrant a democracy as the US is.
Despite sustained improvements in relations, under two successive administrations, it is likely serious differences will continue to prevail between India and the US. These differences arise out of differing perceptions. The US is unflinching, almost paranoid, in not compromising its security interests. Yet, as a super power with ambitions to impose a world order it expects India to mould and temper its own security concerns to fit US prescriptions on nuclear non proliferation. So while Strobe Talbots will eloquently and convincingly explain that by acquiring nuclear weapons India failed to make itself more secure in the short run, they will continue to be silent, almost disinterested, in presenting an alternative formulation that could allow India to face up to two nuclear armed neighbors that openly covet her territory and don’t forsake the use of force, even nuclear force, to acquire it! Or for that matter explain to us how in the long run nuclear weapons will NOT make us more secure. The fact of the matter is that US interest will always prevail over India’s interest in dictating US policies. It is precisely, for that reason Indian interest must prevail over US interest in dictating Indian policies. |