An upbeat note in Indo-U.S.ties

THE ENCOURAGING SIGNALS that the Finance Minister, Mr. Yashwant Sinha, seems to have received now from his U.S. interlocutors point to the possibility of an early move by the Bush administration to scrap the economic sanctions still in place against India. The confidence exuded by Mr. Sinha amplifies the extraordinary note of optimism that the External Affairs and Defence Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, had struck after his recent talks with the U.S. President, Mr. George W. Bush, and other top officials. Both Mr. Sinha and Mr. Singh did not take the initiative to discuss the sanctions issue with their respective American interlocutors and instead left it to them to do so from their perspective. Not surprisingly, Mr. Sinha has now made the point that the U.S.' initiative ``is an indication of their keen desire to be able to do away with it (the sanctions regime) as quickly as possible''. New Delhi has indeed taken a consistent line that these sanctions ``hurt'' the U.S.' interests more than those of India. The arguably punitive U.S.' economic measures at stake were first imposed in the specific context of India's nuclear arms tests of May 1998 under the Glenn Amendment on American arms export controls as also foreign assistance and banking laws. On a parallel plane, Washington subjected Pakistan as well to an economic embargo following its own nuclear detonations. So, the two South Asian neighbours are even now seen in conjunction in the U.S.' portals of power. However, this should not at all worry India, given the fact that Pakistan, which has had the experience of being evaluated by the U.S. under the Pressler Amendment over the nuclear issue as also a followup American law, is in a somewhat different category. In any case, the U.S. has increasingly sought to treat India and Pakistan on their own respective merit or value to the American national interest.

Mr. Sinha's latest impressions about some good tidings to come confirm an incremental trend in Indo-U.S. ties. During Mr. Singh's earlier visit to Washington, he was informed by the U.S. Defence Secretary, Mr. Donald Rumsfeld, that the Pentagon would have no reservations over any move by the State Department to set in motion a process of lifting the India-related sanctions. Around the same time early last month, the India Caucus, too, had taken steps to introduce a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives. The move, calling for an end to the sanctions, was initiated on the ground that the Indo-U.S. nexus ``has become one of the most significant emerging relationships in the world''. In one sense, the relatively new feel-good mood in the ties between the Governments of the two large democracies is shared on the Capitol, too. Simply put, an economic embargo can only erode, if not also stifle, the spirit of an expanding U.S.- India engagement.

In a realpolitik sense, the resolution of the sanctions issue may not fully determine the tone of New Delhi's future interaction with the U.S. The same applies to Washington's expectations of India in respect of the larger strategic questions such as nuclear non-proliferation and missile defence as also the conventional political controversies. Yet, the current move in the U.S. to evaluate the disutility of the prevalent sanctions acquires some strategic meaning, too, in the context of a reported perception in the Bush administration that India has earned the right to sit at the table of global powers. In December 1999, the U.S. Commerce Department removed from the sanctions list as many as 51 Indian entities, out of a total of nearly 300 affected Indian and Pakistani entities. The stated reason was to ``focus'' or rather re-focus the sanctions only on ``those Indian entities'' perceived to be ``most directly involved in proliferation activities of concern'' to Washington. Now, the question of a total embargo removal requires a new political idiom.

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