The Clinton era in South Asia

By Pran Chopra

THE PROLONGED controversy over the choice of the next President of America distracted public attention from an event which deserves it more, the impending end of the Clinton era, which has wrought one of the most important transitions in recent history, and particularly in the relations between the United States and South Asia. If the 1980s saw the end of the cold war, during the Reagan and Bush Presidencies, the Clinton years, the 1990s, evolved a new ``post-cold war world order'', stable enough and different enough from what went before to be called a new ``order''.

While the first Clinton Presidency was still trying to grapple with its inheritance, it looked as though the old cold war would soon be followed by another, between the U.S. and China, and the crisis in the Taiwan Straits in March, 1996, underscored the apprehension ominously. But the second Clinton Presidency calmed the waters with a deft combination of the stick and the carrot. The American navy deterred China from intimidating voters during a critical election then impending in Taiwan, and then Mr. Clinton comforted China by inviting it to be a co-partner in the higher management of Asia.

The new order then started falling into place. China decided to prefer the economic gains of peaceful partnership with America over the ideological gains of unenforceable threats. The only other major power centre, the European Union, withdrew its putative challenge to the NATO system controlled by America, as it confirmed during the Yugoslav crisis by agreeing to be an honoured second fiddle. Yesterday's contender, Russia, retired for the time being to lick its wounds while averting its eyes from the fireworks in Belgrade. And America went seriously to work on its new role as the sole superpower and supercop. It is not often that the world order has changed its masters so radically and so rapidly.

Of particular interest to India is the likelihood that it might gain in the new world order as much as it lost in the old. This had seemed very unlikely when halfway through the second Clinton Presidency, India had to lock horns with America on the difficult but critical issue of the nuclear status it had openly acquired with Pokhran II. The prospect then was that either India would have to forego its new status, with the meagre consolation that Pakistan would also have to do the same, or it would have to face open and combined hostility from all the major powers, with Pakistan too breathing down its neck. But by persevering in the diplomacy of conciliation while holding fast to its main security interests India warded off that difficult choice.

The gap between the Indian and the American nuclear positions has not been entirely closed as yet. But there have been many indications of late that softer choices might be available someday, including an agreed disagreement. The latest indication is also the best, in addition to being a good summing up of the distance the U.S. and India have travelled together, thanks to the understanding of the new South Asia which the Clinton Presidency has encouraged in the U.S., and the distance that remains to be travelled as yet.

One of the promoters of this understanding, Mr. Karl Inderfurth, was in India a couple of weeks ago on a trip which TheHindu rightly described as ``a farewell visit'' which ``virtually draws down the curtain on the Clinton administration's engagement of South Asia''. In the course of a conversation with the newspaper he painted a picture of the newly-emerged American equation with South Asia, and two features stand out from it. First, an American position on India, Pakistan and the Kashmir issue with which no responsible Indian statesman would disagree much. And second, better prospects on the nuclear issue than at any time since Pokhran II.

Mr. Inderfurth did not need to say much regarding the first feature. Mr. Clinton himself had said all that needed to be during his recent visits to India and Pakistan. The contrast between the two visits is an illuminating piece of the history of South Asia in the Clinton era. But what Mr. Inderfurth said on the second feature, in very measured terms, is worth repeating. ``We must be vigilant'', he said ``that we do not relapse into old ways of dealing with each other... The old sensitivities, and we know what they are, are receding and we are beginning to have a greater confidence in what we have to say to each other. But that does not mean that we will agree on every issue and we should not expect to. Over the next several years we will be testing the proposition that by expanding our relationship to encompass a broad based agenda, we will be better able to narrow our differences on those issues that have proved difficult for us in the past, like non-proliferation...'' But what he hoped to see was ``a fundamental change in the U.S.-India relationship'', a prospect which he said was ``one of the high points of (Clinton's) Presidency''.

All the steps which enabled his Presidency to reach this particular high point were either carved by Mr. Clinton or with his help. For instance, though the cold war order had ended before Mr. Clinton began his first Presidency, it was he who led America into the new world order in which India is no longer seen as an ally of the Soviet Union, America's enemy in the cold war era, Pakistan is no longer seen as America's ``most allied ally'' in that war, and America and India are on the same side in facing the worldwide threat of terrorism in the name of religion and the narcotic traffic which funds the terrorist. Mr. Clinton might have had little to do directly with the two other planks - the economy and information technology - on which rest America's new relations with South Asia (read with India). But no one has done more to bring India's potential to American homes than Mr. Clinton did during his widely televised working holiday in India.

Therefore, Mr. Clinton is leaving America's ``engagement with South Asia'' in good health from India's point of view. But New Delhi has no room for complacency. It has interests to pursue which can be misunderstood, particularly in America, if they are pursued ham-handedly. For instance, India must trim some aspects of globalisation and liberalisation because they have backfired. But it must trim them with the scissors of facts and figures, not outdated slogans. India may be right in demanding better proof of the ``restraint'' Pakistan has promised along the Line of Control, and a more sincere response to the ceasefire India has put in place. But India must not fall into the trap Pakistan has set already by suggesting U.N. investigation of complaints by either side. India is right in insisting that the talks with Pakistan will be only bilateral with no mediation by India's own Kashmiris or other parties. But India must acknowledge more candidly that at the end of the day it will have to talk to Pakistan if there is to be anything that can be called a final settlement. India is right in regretting that General Pervez Musharraf has disowned the Lahore agreements, which are the best ever produced by India and Pakistan in half a century of direct or indirect diplomacy. But it must agree to talks with Pakistan as soon as Pakistan agrees to resume the Lahore process, with the same centrality for Kashmir as is accorded to it in the Lahore documents. India rightly insists that the aspirations of India's Kashmiris are India's affair, not Pakistan's. But they must be considered more sympathetically and constructively than they have been, just as the Kashmiris must consider the aspirations of Jammu and Ladakh.

All this has become more necessary, not less, because of the good health in which Mr. Clinton has left America's engagement with South Asia''. It needs to be nurtured.

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