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Will this commitment prove too costly?

Amit Baruah

New Delhi has bound itself to an institutional arrangement where saying "no" to American demands on a range of issues will not be so easy.

"Mr. President, India and America are great nations and great democracies. We cherish the openness of our societies and economies. We value our pluralism, our diversity and our freedoms. These shared values that bring us together must be more visible, not only in how we deal with each other, but also in our approach to the world. We must strengthen democratic capacities jointly. We must oppose the evil of terrorism together. To meet such vital challenges, we must be together on the same page. We must speak the same language and display the same resolve." — Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his banquet speech at the White House on July 18.

A Prime Minister and a party that promised to chart an independent approach on foreign affairs have promised to partner the United States in exporting "democracy" to the rest of the world. Much of the debate and discussion around Dr. Singh's July 18-21 visit to the U.S. has rightly focussed on the contours of the nuclear deal struck between the two sides but other elements of their joint statement and related documents are equally important.

While saying "no" to sending Indian troops to Iraq was a one-off thing in 2003, New Delhi today has bound itself to an institutional arrangement where saying "no" to American demands on a range of issues — from "capacity building" to the participation of Indian troops in operations abroad — will not be so easy.

Declaring their resolve to "transform" the relationship between the two countries, U.S. President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Singh have committed themselves to promoting "stability, democracy, prosperity and peace throughout the world." In a separate document entitled Indo-U.S. Global Democracy Initiative, posted on the External Affairs Ministry website, the two countries agreed to "assist other societies in transition seeking to become more open and democratic."

This initiative further commits the two countries to:

"— Reaffirming the [April 2005] Community of Democracies Santiago Commitment, and agreeing to work together to jointly implement the Santiago commitment including with other states and civil society organisations to promote democracy and development.

"— Organising together training courses in India, the U.S., or a third country where necessary, to enhance capabilities to strengthen democratic institutions and develop their human resources.

"— Establishing a virtual Coordination and Information Center to share best practices on democracy, identify opportunities for joint support, and highlight capacity-building training programs."

U.S. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns perhaps understood the import of the Bush-Manmohan joint statement when he said on July 18, "But what we've done is to develop with the Indian government and this administration a broad, global partnership of the likes that we've not seen with India since India's founding in 1947. This has consequences for American interests in South Asia, but also has larger consequences for what we are trying to do globally, in terms of promoting democracy, fighting terrorism, fighting HIV/AIDS ... "

To the Prime Minister's credit, he termed the invasion of Iraq a mistake at his press conference in Washington. In the same breath, Dr. Singh said it was a thing of the past and "we must look to the future". The Prime Minister made no reference to Iraq's present. For all those interested in America's democratic credentials, Iraq's present is important. All the warm words spoken on American democracy have to be circumscribed by what is currently happening in Iraq.

According to Iraq Body Count, a website that has been following closely the events in Iraq, as many as 25,881 civilians have been killed following the U.S.-led military action in 2003. Professor John Sloboda, co-founder of Iraq Body Count, said about a recent report on the website: "The ever-mounting Iraqi death toll is the forgotten cost of the decision to go to war in Iraq. On average, 34 ordinary Iraqis have met violent deaths every day since the invasion of March 2003. Our data show that no sector of Iraqi society has escaped."

Iraq has proved to be a perfect base of a motley group of Islamist terrorists, with suicide bombers proliferating by the day. The violence, which continues to grow, shows that American power, with all its military teeth, has limits, but can create mayhem and chaos in a nation that was the cradle of human civilisation.

Iraq is the current "democratic model" that the U.S. is offering to the rest of the world. And, as everyone who lives in that country or watches television knows, Iraq is a bloody mess. And the Americans are responsible for it. Given the American "record" of establishing democracy, there are grave implications to the Prime Minister buying President Bush's version of representative government and the need for its promotion globally.

Writing in The National Interest, former U.S. Ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill, argues that in the short-term India could help train Iraqi police and build a civil society there and, in the long term, it would "do more." Mr. Blackwill, however, admits that most Indians did not support the invasion of Iraq. He also believes that India's "rise" will help address the issue of tackling Chinese power, a point made in a July 19 news report in The Washington Post as well.

"... Supporters of the [new U.S.] approach to India [within the Bush administration] said it was an important part of the White House strategy to accelerate India's rise to a global power and a counterweight to China," the paper reported.

America has no altruistic notions of its foreign policy. It will expect a price for "building" Indian power. By allying so closely with the U.S., the Prime Minister has ensured that terms such as "multipolarity" and "democratisation of international relations" — spouted often by Indian leaders in the past — have little or no meaning left. India has decided to take up the American offer of a piggyback ride. Where it will lead, nobody can predict.

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