US-India relations: less wariness, more warmth

As the world's largest democracies, the United States and India seem to have reason enough for close ties, but that has proved to be an elusive goal. Now, a trade boom is bolstering change.

Over the years, US presidents and secretaries of state have logged millions of miles on foreign travels, rarely touching down in India. It has been 19 years since the last presidential visit and 14 years since the last visit by a secretary of state.

Suddenly, India's become an "in'' place for America's political elite. US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will visit before the end of the year and US President Bill Clinton will travel to India in early 1998. Pakistan, and perhaps Bangladesh, also will be on Clinton's itinerary.

Until recently, political ties with India had not kept pace with economic gains. US trade with and investment in India have risen dramatically since India embraced market reforms seven years ago. The United States is India's leading trading partner, and American investment in India now leads all others.

US exports to India reached $ 37.3 billion last year, up 60 per cent in three years. India's exports to the United States jumped from $ 21.5 billion in 1993 to $ 33 billion last year.

The potential for more trade is substantial. India has been officially identified by Washington as one of ten "big emerging markets'' around the world for US exports.

At the political level, the Cold War was an obvious deterrent to friendly ties. The United States resented the friendship between India and the Soviet Union. India, in turn, was put off by the close US ties with Pakistan, often an enthusiastic anti-Communist US ally.

Despite differences with New Delhi, there is strong admiration in the United States for India's ability to maintain its democracy, notwithstanding its ethnic, religious, linguistic and class differences.

"India may be the greatest single triumph of democracy during this century of change and transformation,'' says Republican Senator Dick Lugar, one of the Senate's leading foreign policy experts.

The Clinton administration seems intent on using the 50th anniversary independence celebrations in India and Pakistan to enhance US ties with both. Until recently, a US gesture toward one of the two was invariably viewed with suspicion by the other. A recent improvement in the mood between India and Pakistan, US officials say, has enabled the United States to be more engaged with both.

The prime ministers of both countries showed up for this year's United Nations General Assembly, and Clinton met them separately during his brief visit to New York last week. Only one other foreign leader had a separate meeting with President Clinton: Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov.

The most divisive Indo-American issue involves India's refusal last year to sign a US-backed global treaty to ban nuclear testing. India says the treaty is flawed because it does not require the declared nuclear powers to destroy their arsenals.

Albright has a connection to the subcontinent through her father, Josef Korbel. She was a youngster when Korbel served as chairman of the UN Commission for India and Pakistan.

Most of the legwork on India for the administration has been done by First Lady Hillary Rodham-Clinton. She visited India two years ago during a swing through South Asia and attended an Indian Independence Day celebration in Washington in August.

It was there, before 1,300 Indian-Americans, that Clinton announced the president's trip to India. A few days later, her husband picked up Shashi Tharoor's India: Midnight to Millennium to read during his summer vacation.

UNI

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