New Delhi streets did not reverberate with the shouts of 'Change!' and 'Yes, We Can!' on November 5, 2008 even though Barack Obama had captured the imagination of many Indians as the messiah of a new era, as he did in the United States as well as elsewhere in the world.
Obama's Indian connections like the portrait of Mahatma Gandhi in his room and the image of Hanuman in his wallet got buried in scholastic studies on the Obama platform on non-proliferation, Jammu and Kashmir and outsourcing.
No one shed tears for George Bush, but there was a tinge of regret that the Bush spring in India-US relations was over. Diplomatic challenges rather than opportunities were highlighted in the media. India was a spectator rather than a participant in the celebration when, in the words of Tom Friedman, the American Civil War finally ended.
India's heart has always been with Obama even if it had doubts in its head. The time has now come for us to embrace him with both heart and head. Even in the heat of the campaign, he did not neglect India and the Indian Americans, who voted overwhelmingly for Obama.
He expressed sympathy on the demise of Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, rejoiced on the occasion of Diwali and sent a warm letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the nuclear deal. His comment that Pakistan was preparing for war with India with the money and arms it received from the United States was a fresh perspective no American leader had ever voiced.
McCain, on the other hand, had extended support to Musharraf for a decade. Someone from the Obama camp also pointed out that on the dire conditions that faced the region, the stability of Pakistan and the battle in Afghanistan, McCain has been dead wrong, in contrast to Obama.
The nostalgia for the past for some people in India arises from concerns about Obama's nuclear agenda, his activism with regard to Kashmir and his views on outsourcing. But none of these is insurmountable as long as Obama accepts the nuclear deal, which places India in a distinct category, respects India's sensitivity about mediation on Kashmir and recognises outsourcing as an indispensable tool of modern economies.
The US could well envisage a situation where the US concentrates on research and development, leaving manufacturing to other countries. There is scope for reconciliation in these issues, once the dialogue begins.
Rajiv Gandhi's Action Plan of 1988 visualises a world without nuclear weapons, which Schultz and others have espoused and Obama will do well to look at both proposals to reach his own promised nuclear weapon free world.
Solution of the Kashmir issue need not be a precondition for peace to prevail between India and Pakistan. The market forces will take care of outsourcing without making it an irritant in bilateral relations. Obama's readiness to increase H-1 visas will compensate for taxing of outsourcing.
The revolving doors of the White House and the State Department have begun to revolve again and our old friends will soon leave their desks in the universities and think tanks to occupy positions of significance to India. When Rick Inderfurth and Bruce Reidel, two India experts under Bill Clinton, laid out a road map in November 2007 for the next President of the United States, they titled their work, 'Breaking More Naan with Delhi.'
As Democrats, who are likely to return to the White House or the State Department to take care of India and South Asia under Barack Obama, they wanted the new President to follow the Bush track with regard to India. They advocated "Policy Continuity-Plus" towards India, not drastic change. Obama may not have relished naan in Kenya or Indonesia, but he will be breaking naan in the White House, if his advisers have their way.
"Nuclear agreement is an important part, but not the sum total, of the much improved and expanding broad- based relationship between our two countries", says Inderfurth and Reidel, thus playing down the legacy of Bush.
The Clinton administration had come close to an agreement when four of the five benchmarks were accepted by India. It was when Bush dropped Clinton's insistence on 'strategic restraint' that the nuclear deal came about.
Inderfurth and Reidel would like to go beyond the nuclear issues and reach a Free Trade Agreement after the conclusion of the Doha Trade Round. India-US military co-operation must be extended to counter-terrorism. The key to winning India, according to them, is to support India for a permanent seat in the Security Council and to invite India to join the G-8. Indeed, if Obama takes the lead to get India into the Security Council, he would go miles ahead of Bush in befriending India.
Obama's own views on the subject are, as yet, unknown. I asked Inderfurth why he was not recommending India's admission to the APEC, he said that he did not want to mention the bronze medal (APEC) when he was recommending gold (Security Council) and silver (G-8).
The emphasis on change has led some to believe that Obama would bring revolutionary changes in foreign policy overnight. He would embrace Castro tomorrow; befriend Ahmadinijad day after and Kim Jong Il on the third day! Nothing would be further from the truth. Decision making in Washington is at different levels and Obama is no dictator, who can change course on his own.
The most urgent of the changes is to bring the American soldiers back from Iraq and Afghanistan and even that is going to take time. It may not be just 'Policy Continuity-Plus' that Inderfurth and Reidel advocate, but it cannot be unbridled change. 'To begin with, we should understand that any return to isolationism - or a foreign policy approach that denies the occasional need to deploy US troops-will not work. The impulse to withdraw from the world remains a strong undercurrent in both parties, particularly when US casualties are at stake,' says Obama in his book The Audacity of Hope.
He says that the foreign policy objectives of the liberals, withdrawing from Iraq, stopping the spread of AIDS and working closely with allies, do not constitute a coherent national security policy. 'If we pulled out of Iraq tomorrow, the United States would still be a target, given its dominant position in the existing international order,' he asserts.
Obama's foreign policy is bound to be realistic, pragmatic and principled, but the change will be slow in coming. Although Democrats do not perceive a threat from China as the Republicans do and non-proliferation is a matter of faith for them, friendship with India will be part of the continuity in Obama's policy. The estranged democracies have become engaged democracies, but it will take time for them to become embracing democracies.
Obama's policies are not likely to hinder the process and India should remain engaged with him.
T P Sreenivasan is a former Indian ambassador to the United Nations, Vienna [Images], and a former governor for India, International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna.
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