India’s former External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid has said that India’s foreign policy towards the United States has been ambivalent over the years and that India has always had reservations about the role of the United States in different parts of the world, according to India’s National Herald newspaper. At the heart of India’s new foreign policy is the inevitable question: “Will the evolving Indo-US relationship help India achieve its global aspirations and concerns?”
According to Khurshid, the current Modi administration has quickly entered into a “strategic partnership” with the United States, as opposed to previous Indian governments that consciously did not move towards a strategic and military partnership with the United States. Moreover, recently the Indian government has quietly signed a number of agreements with the United States – “Logistics Support Agreement” (LSA), “Communications and Information Security Memorandum of Agreement” (CISMOA), as well as the forthcoming signing of the “Geospatial Cooperation Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement” (BECA, according to Indian media reports, this agreement has been in the U.S.-India The two countries’ defense and foreign ministers signed at the “2+2” talks).
According to the report, these agreements highlight a fundamental break with the past practices of the Indian government. Some may argue that these agreements are a natural development of policy trends. But given the context of recent developments, it would be naïve to think that this is a win-win situation with no adverse consequences.
Does all this mean that, unlike India’s deliberate indifference to U.S. actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is now a possibility (even an inevitability) that these agreements will prompt India to become more closely involved in U.S.-led conflicts, according to Kurshid. The fact is that the Indian people will not accept body bags containing their children from foreign battlefields.
Kurshid says there is credible information that the US expects India to play a role in containing China. But he also said, does India need to engage in a war with its neighbours and let another country (the US) test its weapons? Also, helping a distant country resolve a dispute may not make much sense to the people of India.
On the other hand, Kurshid asks whether India has conducted a cost-benefit analysis of a Government that claims to be “America first”. If that is the case, then is India only in second place? All that India has done in the last few years in return for all its efforts is a quote from US President Trump: “India has concealed its neo-crown virus data”.
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