WASHINGTON - In these days of Indian-US bonhomie
and cooperation, it is difficult to imagine a time just
six years ago when relations were at a nadir and the
Bill Clinton administration was denouncing India in the
strongest language possible. No diplomatic rebuke seemed
excessive, no statement of condemnation unnecessary.
US wrath was on India because Delhi had defied
international opinion and conducted nuclear tests,
sending the carefully constructed international
nuclear-restraint regime into a spin. It was May 11,
1998, when the nuclear tests in western India shook the
world, especially the five nuclear powers whose
exclusive club was breached. Then US president Clinton
declared, "We're going to come down on those guys like a
ton of bricks." And he did. Even a day after the tests,
his anger at India's leaders was unabated and he thought
the danger of nuclear war in South Asia was ever greater
after India's move.
His administration scrambled
to marshal forces to isolate India, punish it and set an
example. It took the lead in crafting a sweeping
international response. In a swirling 15 days of rancor,
the United States had imposed punitive sanctions on
India, blocked World Bank loans, ended all military
cooperation and persuaded Japan, India's largest aid
donor, to follow suit.
By contrast, times
couldn't be more different today when India and the US
are in a "strategic partnership", getting ready to
cooperate in the civil nuclear sector, space and even
missile defense. The two defense forces regularly
conduct exercises, developing techniques to operate
together on missions. Indian cultural influences
permeate the United States, from music to movies, and
there is an awe of India's formidable prowess in the
information-technology sector. How the two countries got
here from the days of old is the remarkable work of two
men who dedicated themselves to the task of rebuilding
the relationship from the shreds around Washington.
Strobe Talbott's latest book Engaging India:
Diplomacy, Democracy and the Bomb is a gripping
behind-the-scenes look at what went on in the Clinton
brain trust as it navigated a careful path between
public condemnation and private accommodation with
India. It is the story of diplomatic compulsions, hard
tactics and high-stakes blackmail that unfolded over two
years, with constantly shifting chess pieces. Ultimately
it is a valuable piece of history that anyone interested
in South Asia would enjoy. The account might restore the
faith of old-style diplomats in this sound-bite-driven
era of international relations.
Talbott, an old
FOB (friend of Bill) from Oxford days who served as his
deputy secretary of state, conducted a "strategic
dialogue" with India to try to find a way out of the
cul-de-sac. He is credited with laying the foundation of
a solid understanding between India and the US on key
areas of security. His partner was Jaswant Singh, a
special envoy of former prime minister Atal Bihari
Vajpayee. They met 14 times in 10 locations in seven
countries on three continents in the most intense and
prolonged set of exchanges ever between US and Indian
officials.
The book reveals colorful details of
how Clinton, eager to punish India, discussed with
Russian leader Boris Yeltsin an idea of forming a
US-Russia-China axis to come down on New Delhi with
their combined might. Yeltsin loved the idea of the
troika, but his aides and Talbott scuttled it
before it took shape. A ganging-up with China was the
worst move in trying to persuade India to institute
restraints on its nuclear-weapons program, Talbott told
Clinton, who admitted his idea was probably "a crock of
shit". Indian nuclear tests were aimed with an eye
toward China, as later revealed in a letter from
Vajpayee to Clinton.
Talbott, a former
journalist with Time, succeeded where others had feared
to tread mainly because he listened to the Indian side
and came to the table with fewer preconceived ideas than
other US officials who have dealt with South Asia. He
soon understood that it was wiser to talk to India, a
democracy and a potential global player, even though it
had defied US wishes. Ironically, a well-known US
nuclear expert acted as a go-between before Jaswant
Singh knew he would even be received by the Americans.
Little did the two main actors know that they would
eventually become friends, visiting each other's homes
over the course of time. Talbott has said himself that
Singh is the "hero" of the book, a person he describes
as "a statesman" whose personal integrity deeply
impressed him. Apart from the immediate issues of
India's nuclear weapons, Singh talked to Talbott about
Indian civilization, British colonial rule, the Mughal
invasions of India and current politics, giving the US
official a crash course in sub-continental perspectives.
In the very first meeting Singh requested that
their interactions be called a "dialogue" and not
"negotiation" because negotiation implies retreating
from original positions, something Indian leaders were
not prepared to do. He was meeting Talbott as an equal.
"The Indians conducted their [nuclear] test knowing that
it would provoke American castigation, but also hoping
it might have another consequence: perhaps it would
force the United States to pay serious, sustained and
respectful attention of a kind the Indians felt they had
never received before," writes Talbott. India's nuclear
tests did lead to the first serious dialogue. In the end
Singh achieved more - a presidential visit in 2000
without really paying a price - than Talbott, who didn't
get India's signature on the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty, an agreement banning nuclear tests. The treaty
was already losing support within the US Congress as
Talbott was asking India to sign, allowing India to hold
out.
Meanwhile, the Americans were trying hard
to prevent Pakistan from conducting its own copycat
nuclear tests to match India's. Clinton offered every
bribe in the book to persuade then prime minister Nawaz
Sharif to hold back. He offered Pakistan billions of
dollars in aid being withheld from India by every major
donor, an invitation to visit Washington while India was
sent into the diplomatic corner, and even F-16s, which
Pakistan desperately wanted. "India is isolating itself
and should be allowed to stew in juices of its own
making," Talbott told Gohar Ayud Khan, the foreign
minister. As for Sharif, he did a "Hamlet act" of being
torn between competing interests. He asked if Clinton
would come to Pakistan and skip India, but Talbott
couldn't promise him an exclusive presidential visit. He
did think of drawing Clinton to get more involved in the
Kashmir dispute as a carrot to prevent the Pakistani
tests, but his team warned him of India's ire if the
Americans came in at Sharif's behest.
Finally,
Pakistan did conduct its own tests, just days after
India's, and faced severe censure. Talbott started a
parallel dialogue with Islamabad, but he found Pakistani
diplomats "querulous" and sometimes "abusive". Talbott
was almost attacked during a meeting, and his attacker
had to be "physically restrained". While he felt
intellectually engaged with the Indian team, he seemed
to be going through the motions with the Pakistanis.
Talbott says he found Pakistani policies to be
"knee-jerk" reactions to Indian moves.
An
episode that shows Clinton's decisive tilt toward India
came in 1999, when Pakistani forces had occupied Indian
positions in Kargil, crossing the Line of Control that
separates Indian- and Pakistani-administered Kashmir.
The crisis was threatening to escalate into war and the
Americans were worried. Sharif desperately sought a
meeting with Clinton to help him find a way out of the
mess. "We did not know whether Sharif had personally
ordered the infiltration above Kargil (doubtful),
reluctantly acquiesced in it (more likely) or did not
even known about it until after it happened (possible).
But there was no question he now realized it was a
colossal blunder," writes Talbott.
Clinton
granted him a meeting in Washington on July 4, the US
Independence Day, but on the condition that the
Pakistani withdrawal would be "immediate and
unconditional". "He then telephoned Vajpayee to report
on Sharif's request and his own reply," Talbott writes.
Vajpayee was full of anxiety that Sharif would "deceive
or co-opt Clinton". But no such thing happened as the US
president exerted all his weight on a feckless Sharif in
a tense encounter in Blair House, a building opposite
the White House. Sharif brought his family, leading the
Americans to wonder if he was seeking asylum. He had to
take a commercial flight since the Pakistani military
probably refused to give him an aircraft. His relations
with them were tense. The then military chief and now
leader, General Pervez Musharraf, was the architect of
the Kargil adventure.
Sharif first tried to get
Clinton to mediate in Kashmir as a quid pro quo
for Pakistani troops withdrawing from Kargil, an idea
dismissed as preposterous by the US president. Then he
asked Clinton to get India to resolve the Kashmir
dispute in "a specific time frame". "Clinton came as
close as I had ever seen to blowing up in a meeting with
a foreign leader," Talbott says of the meeting. "I'm not
- and the Indians are not - going to let you get away
with blackmail," Clinton exploded. After some more time,
Clinton asked Sharif if he knew that the Pakistani
military was preparing nuclear-armed missiles for
possible use against India. Sharif seemed surprised. But
they were no closer to an agreement on the withdrawal of
troops.
Finally Clinton threw in the big punch.
He said he would call the press and lay the entire blame
for failure of the meeting on Pakistan, and for good
measure add that Pakistan was supporting terrorism in
Afghanistan and India. At this Sharif became "ashen" and
looked physically and emotionally exhausted. He agreed
to a statement saying he would "take concrete and
immediate steps for the restoration of the Line of
Control". Kargil spelled the end of Sharif and he was
ousted by Musharraf in a bloodless coup soon after and
given a death sentence. But the Americans came to his
rescue and arranged for him to go into exile in Saudi
Arabia.
The high-stakes diplomacy around Kargil
went a long way in establishing trust between India and
the United States because Vajpayee saw Clinton as an
honest man doing the right thing. But no personal
chemistry developed between the two leaders, even though
they talked on the phone and met a few times. Vajpayee
received the rare honor of a White House dinner - the
largest thrown by Clinton in his eight years in office.
Finally Clinton made the long-promised trip to India in
2000, which by all accounts was a huge success. He spent
five days in India, but only five hours in Pakistan.
Talbott's memoir is a valuable addition to any
reading list, but especially one on South Asia. A
page-turner, it is an objective assessment of the
events, almost apolitical in its rendering but keenly
recorded by the journalist-turned-diplomat. It will sell
in both India and Pakistan when it is released next
month, but for different reasons.
Seema
Sirohi is a Washington-based correspondent.
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