US-Iran conflict won’t leave India unscathed

Even though US President Donald Trump referred to New Delhi as one of the sites of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani’s alleged terrorist activities, India was clearly not on the priority list of nations that the US called after assassinating him last Friday.

Over the next two days US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke to Pakistan Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa, Chinese State Councillor Yang Jichei, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the British Foreign Secretary, the French and German Foreign Ministers and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. So, finally, on Sunday, India’s External Affairs Minister decided not to stand on ceremony and called Pompeo and his Iranian counterpart Javed Zarif.

India has significant interests in the Persian Gulf region, but it appears to have dealt itself out of the game by tamely skewing its Middle East policy in favour of the informal US-Saudi, Arabia-Israel coalition. Iran, which was one of the three pillars of India’s regional policy in West Asia, was given short shrift as New Delhi cravenly went along with Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ policy on Iran. New Delhi’s motives may have been practical.

First, given the draconian nature of US sanctions, India would have had to be very courageous in challenging the US, and the blunt fact is that India is no longer brave when it comes to Uncle Sam. There was a time when Indira Gandhi could stand up to Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger and lead a war to split Pakistan and achieve what has been India’s greatest military victory since Independence.

Second, Prime Minister Modi, who had made successful forays to the UAE and Saudi Arabia, probably calculated that getting investments from these oil-rich kingdoms was equivalent to the bird in hand, over a bird in the bush, like Iran. So, he loosened India’s traditional and successful policy of maintaining a balanced relationship with Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

India had been one of the few countries that did not profit from the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) and has been widely respected in the Middle-East. Gulf countries are an important source of oil for the country, but as of last year, India terminated

its imports from Iran because of the US sanctions.

In the narrow and immediate perspective, India’s relationship with the Saudi peninsula is much more important than Iran. Seven million Indian nationals work in the region, sending back an estimated $40 billion to the country. The UAE is India’s third largest trade partner and also a major investor. Modi has targeted the Saudi and UAE sovereign wealth funds for promoting infrastructure construction in India. They see India’s growing economy as a major destination for investment, but though tens of billions of dollars have been talked off, as of now, Gulf investments in India are moderate.

Iran does not have that kind of spare wealth and nor is it a destination for the Indian diaspora. Its value does lie in its vast oil and gas resources as well as its geopolitical location and market potential. It provides the route through which India, blockaded by Pakistan, can fulfill its Eurasian ambitions. The Chabahar project provides a route to Afghanistan and Central Asia, while the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) gives us overland access to Russia and Europe. In many ways, it can be our own Belt and Road Initiative.

There is political congruence, too, between New Delhi and Teheran in our hardline position against the Taliban in Afghanistan. In the 1990s, Iran and India joined hands in helping Ahmed Shah Massoud and the Northern Alliance against the Pakistan-backed Taliban.

Today, as the US readies for a pullout there, the Islamist group and its mentor Pakistan appear poised to once again become the dominant force in Afghanistan. That would explain just why Pompeo felt the need to call Bajwa, and not any Indian leader. You have to grant it to the Americans — when the push comes to shove, there is little time for niceties, only a relentless focus on self-interest — which in this case lies in getting a fig leaf to cloak their departure from Afghanistan.

Trump’s action against Soleimani is yet another instance of trashing international law, the first being the wrecking of the UN-approved Iran nuclear deal that triggered the current situation. The US claims that Soleimani, who was their ally against ISIS, was a terrorist. Actually, as a member of the IRGC, he was part of the official military of a sovereign country. His counterparts in the US, Israel or anywhere else would have planned and executed similar kinds of operations that he did. So, merely designating him terrorist means little.

The US has escalated things hugely and this has implications for the wider region. Though experts discount the danger of war and say that neither the US nor Iran wants one, there is always the danger of miscalculation. As in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, the US can certainly devastate Iran. But though the Iranians will lose, the US and its allies will not be unscathed. We know how ambiguous the US ‘victory’ in Iraq and Afghanistan has been.

In all this, we in India will be collateral casualties. The disruption of oil supplies and possibly large-scale destruction in the region will have a direct impact on our economy.

We rode out the Islamism unleashed by the US-Saudi jihad in Afghanistan, as well as the ISIS fallout in Syria-Iraq. But given our domestic climate today, a new wave of Islamism could well have a different outcome.

Tribune January 7, 2020

US Airstrike Kills Soleimani: What Does India Stand to Lose?

What is the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, all about? And what will be its consequences for the region and India? Can it even be termed an ‘assassination’? Or is it a ‘targeted killing’ – the type through which the US has killed scores of terrorists, but also hundreds of innocent people through drone strikes. The difference is not just word play – since, officially at least, there is a self-imposed ban in carrying out assassinations of foreign leaders in the US.

As a result of the Church Committee hearings on the attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro, President Gerald Ford passed the Executive Order 11905 in 1976, which prohibited the US government from conspiring or engaging in any political assassination anywhere in the world. The current version of the ban is Executive Order 12333 of 1981, which simply bans US governmental role in assassination.

How US Killed Soleimani

Being the warlike nation that it is, the ban, which was imposed in a fit of very American ‘morality’, has been contested within and undermined through subsequent presidential orders based on various legal interpretations which remain secret. The Global War on Terror (GWOT) eventually led the US to throw out all the old rules of war. Terrorism was declared outside the pale of civilised conduct, and an ‘everything goes’ approach was adopted, which has led to the US fighting two wars, many smaller campaigns, and the killing of numerous terrorists like Osama bin Laden, and the incarceration-without-trial of scores of people in the Guantanamo Bay prison.

Soleimani was killed when an American airstrike took out his car convoy on its way to the Baghdad airport; along with him died Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, Commander of the Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Units. This was just days after their forces stormed the US Embassy compound and burned some of its outlying buildings on New Year’s Day.

A President like Trump may be committed to bringing the US troops back home and resisting foreign entanglements, but in the case of Iran, he has taken a different tack. Not only did he take the US out of the Iran Nuclear Agreement – also known as the JCPOA – in May 2018, he also played an active role in shaping the informal Israel-Saudi Arabia and UAE coalition to roll back Iranian influence in the region. He also re-imposed draconian sanctions on Iran with a view to bringing it to its knees.

The US has charged that, with the use of the Quds Force, the Iranians have been expanding their influence across the region.

It says that in recent months, rockets have been fired at US bases in Iraq and in Syria; Iran had built a new base called Imam Ali on the border with Iraq. And, of course, in Yemen, they have been backing the Houthi militia against Saudi Arabia and UAE.

18 Months of Tension in the Gulf

The last eighteen months have seen constant tension in the Gulf, threatening oil shipments. In April 2019, the US declared the IRGC, which is the principal Iranian military force, as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO).

The reason, the US said, was that the organisation operating through its Quds Force and associates like Hezbollah in Lebanon, was involved in attacks on US forces and interests.

In May 2019, four commercial ships, including two Saudi tankers, were damaged in the Gulf of Oman. The US began to talk about redeploying significant force in the region. In June 2019, things went from bad to worse when the Iranians shot down a US drone over the Gulf of Hormuz. Following the attack, Trump ordered a retaliatory military strike, but then withdrew the order. Later that month, Trump ratcheted up the sanctions, targeting the senior officers of the IRGC, Ayatollah Khamenei, and the Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. He maintained his hands-off posture even after the drone attack on Saudi Arabian company Aramco’s principal facilities in September 2019, knocking off half of the kingdom’s oil supply. By this time, his hawkish National Security Advisor, John Bolton – who had been advocating a tough response on Iran – had resigned and left.

The immediate crisis that led to Soleimani’s assassination was the rocket attack on an Iraqi base that was hosting American soldiers.

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The attack of 27 December killed a US contractor and wounded many others. The US blamed Kata'ib Hezbollah headed by al-Muhandis for the attack. On 29 December, the US conducted airstrikes against Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria, killing 25 Kata'ib Hezbollah fighters. The attack on the US embassy was revenge for that attack. In turn, 48 hours later, came the American response in killing Soleimani and al-Muhandis.

Soleimani’s Killing: Implications for India & the Region

It is difficult to forecast what will happen now. Soleimani’s death will definitely be a setback to the Iranians and their Iraqi allies. Given the history of the region, you can be sure that there will be some military response. The IRGC has a wide network of allies in the region and are also militarily capable of executing complex attacks, as was done in the case of the drone attack on the Aramco terminal in September. But, given the American power, Iran will certainly think hard before it acts.

Equally, of course, the US and its allies will ensure that they do not do anything to precipitate. Iranian forces are well equipped with missiles, and geography gives them an advantage in the Gulf. An outbreak of war could see the blockage of oil supply through Hormuz, and the prosperous cities of America’s allies coming under Iranian missile attack.

New Delhi was forced to cut all trade – including that of oil – with Iran as a result of US pressure.

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It has also dampened its enthusiasm for the Chabahar project. The net result of this is that Tehran has been drifting closer to China and Pakistan. Two-thirds of the 80 percent of oil we import, as well as half of India’s LNG, comes through the Straits of Hormuz.

War in the Region Wreak Havoc on Indian Diaspora Across Saudi Peninsula

In 2018 -2019 India is expected to spend USD 115 billion on oil imports alone – this is a growth of 30 percent over the 2017-2018 when we spent USD 88 billion. A USD 1 increase in prices hikes the import bill by Rs 3,000 crore. And if the exchange rate rises by Rs 1 to a dollar, the net import bill will be up Rs 2473 crore. Oil prices surged near USD 70 a barrel following the Soleimani assassination. Should things deteriorate, they could go up to USD 100 as well.

Since June 2019, Indian naval vessels have been keeping an eye on things in the Gulf, though they are not part of the American coalition patrolling the area.

War or something akin to it could have devastating consequences for the Indian diaspora spread across the Saudi peninsula.

These are the people who are India’s biggest source of foreign remittances. India may actually find itself having to carry out emergency evacuation of its nationals who number in the millions from the region.

The Quint  January 3, 2020

Who’s lawless? Protests are taking place worldwide, in dealing with them the norm is proportionate force

At the heart of democracy lies the concept of ‘rule of law’ and at the core of this the notion of ‘due process’, or procedural justice. A king or dictator can dish out justice, but it will be arbitrary and, possibly, whimsical. In a democracy, there is an elaborate mechanism that ensures the delivery of justice in the fairest way, with safeguards all along, even for those accused of a crime. Professionals deal with the law and its procedure which are codified, and there are multiple appellate layers punishing someone for a crime.

No one individual, be he/ she the president of the country or its prime minister, has the right to arbitrarily dispense justice, leave alone punishment, no matter how trivial; it can only be done through due process of law.

So what can we make of UP police whose actions in the recent protests were tantamount to punishing alleged perpetrators, rather than merely upholding the law? The force, of course, has a history of assuming the role of judge and executioner, having killed 103 criminals in ‘encounters’ in the past two years.

In this instance, the police certainly confronted violent civil protest that damaged public property. Such protests are taking place all over the world. But the UP reaction was more in the manner of the police in Sudan, Iraq or Iran, rather than that of modern societies like France, Spain or Lebanon where the norm has been a response of proportionate force and avoidance of any hint of collective punishment.

In our digital era there is visual evidence of the excesses. They are videos, some may be manipulated, but many are not. They show wanton force unleashed by UP police, deliberately destroying private vehicles, shops and mercilessly beating all and sundry including onlookers.

UP police claim that they had 62 personnel suffering from firearm injuries yet not a single policeman was killed, while 21 alleged protesters were killed, many from gunshot injuries. This brings to mind a comment of General KV Krishna Rao, then governor of Kashmir. Told by BSF that dozens of hardcore militants had fired at them in Bijbehara in 1993 where 31 protesters had been gunned down, the General, who ordered a magisterial inquiry, acerbically remarked “I don’t think militants fire that inaccurately,” since no soldier had been killed.

It is difficult to determine on what basis the UP authorities are now demanding ‘compensation’. The Supreme Court and the Allahabad high court have rightly called on those who destroy public property to pay compensation. But this is meant to be a law-driven process, not extorted through the might of the police. Last week a police officer accepted a cheque from some Muslim citizens of Bulandshahr. There was nothing to suggest that they were responsible for the vandalism so getting a community to shell out the money is a clear violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention to which India is a party. It prohibits punishing anyone for an offence that they did not personally commit, or assigning collective responsibility for offences.

The biggest tragedy is that a lot of the actions have been undertaken on the basis of laws and practices adopted by the British to rule India, such as those declaring protests as ‘unlawful assembly’, charging people with ‘sedition’ or inflicting punishment on a community.

In UP, what we have seen is a deliberate exercise of lawless power by those who have sworn solemnly to uphold the law. Foremost among these is the chief minister whose response to violent civil protests in his state was to declare that he wanted “revenge” against those who had destroyed public property. Never mind that the august chief minister has hardly been known to be a man of peace.

Times of India January 4, 2020

CDS Rawat to Face Hurdles & Sabotage Unless Rules Are Rewritten

Being the first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) gives General Bipin Rawat two great advantages. First, he will be writing on a blank slate and can therefore leave his own imprint on the office that comes with onerous and multi-faceted responsibilities. Second, he has the trust of the current political establishment and has been hand-picked by the National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval.

But, even so, he will need enormous will, bureaucratic guile, and a generous measure of good luck to succeed.

Some of the areas of responsibility given to Rawat, listed in the 24 December notification, are new, but most of what he is being asked to do is currently the responsibility of others. So, he will have to systematically prise them out of their hands and reorganise the manner in which they are done.

First Among Equals

At one level, the issue involves his erstwhile colleagues – the chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force. At another, they relate to the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), which currently runs the Ministry of Defence.

While the Service Chiefs have long been used to being their own bosses on matters military, and the powerful IAS babus have kept military expertise at bay in the MOD, things will have to change and that will not be an easy process.

At each stage, he will face obstruction and even sabotage. And there will be limits to the extent he can run to Doval or the prime minister to get help.

The CDS, who will also be the Permanent Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee (PCCSC) does not have a higher rank; he is like the other Service chiefs, a four-star general.

But as the government notification details, there are a myriad of little ways in which he is very much primus inter pares or the first among equals, something the existing chiefs have not been used to.

When it comes to their own Service, the chief’s word is law, but now the government has clearly ordered the CDS/PCCSC to wade in and change things in the interests of jointness and “reducing wasteful expenditure.”

Role of Department of Military Affairs

The new Department of Military Affairs (DMA), which he will head, is tasked with dealing with the “armed forces of the Union”, the army, navy and air force HQs, the territorial army, works relating to the three Services and the procurement arising out of the revenue budget such as rations, ammunition, spares and POL (petrol, oil and lubricants).

The new DMA has also been inserted into the civilian MoD. Just what kind of shape the DMA will assume is difficult to say. But you can be sure it will have a significant component of uniformed personnel and expertise.

This will not be easy for the babus, because till now, they have been used to dealing with uniformed personnel at a distant, through their principal weapon – procedure and process, though not substance.

The 24 December press release is that the CDS/PCCSC will be a Secretary of the Department in the formal sense, just as the Defence Secretary, Secretary Defence Production and the Secretary, Research and Development are.

As Secretary, it would create an anomaly since the CDS as well as the army, navy and air force chiefs already outranks the Defence Secretary in protocol terms. The three Service chiefs are supposed to be the equivalent of the Cabinet Secretary and get the same remuneration.

Ideally, the current Chief of Integrated Defence Staff (CISC), who is of a Lieutenant General rank, ought to be designated the Secretary. Currently, the CISC serves the Chiefs of Staff Committee. Now, the CDS will be the Permanent Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee and the CISC will be his deputy of sorts.

Under Direct Watch of NSA

Besides his fellow chiefs and secretaries, the CDS/PCCSC will also have to contend with the ‘shadow CDS’ – National Security Adviser Doval. It may be recalled that in early 2018, the government had constituted a Defence Planning Committee (DPC) under the NSA.

The DPC was given widespread powers relating to the country’s national security strategy, the defence production base, boosting defence exports, prioritising capability development plans and so on.

Though these are areas of a wider remit, there could be places where the CDS’ responsibilities create friction with those of the NSA. There is no protocol problem here though, since the NSA, who has a Cabinet rank, clearly outranks the CDS/PCCSC.

By appointing the CDS/PCCSC, the Modi government has gone where others feared to tread. No one, in any case, would accuse the government of pusillanimity on any issue. What remains to be seen is just how serious it is in the steps that it has taken.

To be frank, till now, barring the use of armed forces to promote its own hyper-nationalistic agenda, the government has done little for them. Budgets have been drifting downwards and key acquisitions have been languishing. On the other hand, there has been a disturbing tendency of military officers to hold forth on political issues.

So, the sincerity of the government to restructure and reform the defence system will become apparent only if we see them push ahead with changes in the Allocation of Business Rules (AOBR), Transaction of Business Rules (TOBR), and the Civil Service (Classification, Control & Appeal) Rules.

Rules and Responsibilities

Under the AOBR, the Department of Defence of the MoD has been given the responsibility of the “defence of India and every part thereof including preparation for defence and all such acts as may be conductive in times of war to its prosecution.”

The accompanying TOBR makes it clear that the “Secretary” of the Department of Defence “shall be the administrative head thereof and shall be responsible for the proper transaction of business.”

On December 30, the government notified a changed rule, but one which undermined the CDS’s authority. The new rule added to the language above and said that the Defence Secretary would now be responsible for “defence policy and preparation for defence…” The crucial addition of the responsibility of “defence policy” takes away the meat from the role of the CDS.

These rules, issued in the name of the President, are the core algorithm on which the defence of the country rests. Indeed, the AOBR is silent on the responsibilities of the three chiefs.

This is where the IAS babus derive their authority from. Changes are needed, too, in the CCS (CCA) Rules if civilian babus are to work under military officers in the new Department of Military Affairs.

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Unless these rules are rewritten to reflect the letter and spirit of the government’s Christmas eve notification, Rawat will find that his hands are tied. At every turn, he will confront the rule-book.

The Quint January 2, 2020

Economy stuck in a rut

WHEN the future looks increasingly uncertain, there is some value in looking back to navigate towards our future. We seem to have lost our way as an economy, if not as a nation. Just before the General Election, Rathin Roy, a member of the economic advisory council to the Prime Minister, warned that India could be headed for a structural crisis that could leave us stagnating in the low middle income trap.

‘Middle income traps’ are the stuff of academic debate, but their essence is that you remain stuck where you are. In our case, a country with just about 100 million of our 1.3 billion as a consuming middle class, while the others remain at the bottom, with no money, no healthcare, education or prospects.

Worries about the economy have now been superseded by concerns over the unity of the country itself. There is a blithe assumption that India will overcome all challenges to its integrity, just as it has in the past 70 years. But today, those charged with running the country seem to have become the biggest threat to it.

The Indic civilisation is an ancient entity, but India, the nation-state, only emerged in 1950. That Republic was a compact, based on a written agreement called the Constitution, that knit together the rump of British India left over after Partition and 560-odd Princely States. This India was created by the efforts of Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru, Sardar Patel, BR Ambedkar and generations of freedom fighters whose ideals and ideas were personified in the Constituent Assembly.

There was no certainty, even as late as May of 1947, as to what would be the shape of the country we know as India today. According to VP Menon, last Viceroy Lord Mountbatten got approval from London of a plan that would make the seven large provinces of British India as independent successor States, allow the Princely States to cluster with them, and only then work out the kind of central authority that would run the country.

Fortunately, on the eve of announcing this plan, Mountbatten showed it to Nehru, who was his house guest at the Viceregal Lodge in Shimla. Nehru was aghast and told the British Viceroy in no uncertain terms that there was no question of the Congress Party accepting any plan that could see seven Indias rather than one. Mountbatten then ordered Menon to dust off an earlier plan, one based on Partition of the country into two successor States — India and Pakistan.

The point in recounting this is to emphasise that the India we know today was not some God-given eternal entity, but a state born out of a difficult compromise and laboriously nursed into adulthood by a far-sighted generation.

The issue today is the wanton destruction of the arrangements of 1950. The derogation of Article 370 that linked Jammu & Kashmir to the Union and its demotion to a Union Territory was just the first step. Now, we are at an even more dangerous juncture, one that could see the alienation of the 200 million-strong Muslim community that has stood steadfastly with the Indian Union since the constitutional compact of 1950.

We now confront a double whammy. On the one hand, decisions taken — or not taken — by the government are threatening to consign India to the permanent status of an underdeveloped country. Sustainable high growth that the country needs to escape from the low middle income trap requires a massive mobilisation of the country’s financial and human resources. Yet, we see virtually no effort in this direction. On the contrary, the economy has been grossly mismanaged through bizarre decisions like demonetisation and the squandering of resources to shore up electoral outcomes.

But the bigger danger are the policies relating to Kashmir, the NRC and CAA which could result in an unravelling of the State that was so painstakingly constructed in the aftermath of the British departure from the country. Given the size and pattern of Muslim habitation in the country, there will not be — as the more extremist Hindutva chauvinists expect — a cleansing of Muslims from the country. What will happen is that the social and political fabric knit in 1950 will be shredded.

Those who see the government’s actions as some kind of creative destruction will soon realise that it is only destructive, nothing more. What this country needs, as Devesh Kapur recently pointed out, is an Arjuna-like focus on the ‘eye’ of the problem — the country’s sinking economy. But this is not just about structural reforms, PSU disinvestment and Ease of Doing Business rankings. This is about paying urgent attention to longer-term challenges of generating employment, climate change, sharply raising the quality of healthcare, education and skill policies which would take decades to roll out. And need a domestic climate of social peace and stability.

Actually, if there is a pattern in the government’s madness, it is not so much the pursuit of some Hindu Rashtra, but the quest to remain in power with an unassailable electoral majority. And this is sought to be obtained by sharply polarising the electorate. It will avail the BJP little to win all the elections and remain in power forever, if in the process the country descends to the status of a failed State, which is where it is headed right now.

Tribune December 24, 2019

India-US Dialogue: Was Jaishankar ‘Myopic’ in Not Meeting Jayapal?

Clearly, the 2+2 dialogue in Washington, DC on Wednesday, 18 December, was underwhelming. So, was it responsible for Union External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s ‘tantrum’ against Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal ?

According to the Washington Post, the External Affairs Minister (EAM) “abruptly cancelled” the meeting with senior members of the US Congress after they refused demands to exclude Jayapal from their delegation. As a result, Congressman Eliot Engel, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called off the meeting.

S Jaishankar later told the Indian media that he felt that Jayapal was being unfair in her report on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, and in characterising the Indian government’s actions there.

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In view of that he said, “I have no interest in meeting her.” Earlier this month, Jayapal had introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives urging India to lift the restrictions on communications in J&K.

Also Read : Kamala Harris Decries Jaishankar’s Decision of Not Meeting Jayapal

‘Not Engaging With US Congress is Myopic’

Jaishankar’s action was questioned by Ashley Tellis, an India scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who said that “not engaging with Congress, which has traditionally been a bastion of strong support for India, is shortsighted.” It was also criticised by other PIO (Person of Indian Origin) politicians like Kamala Harris , Democratic Presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and other commentators.

There are several troubling aspects to Jaishankar’s action. First, the job of a diplomat, which Jaishankar is by training, is to not just shore up friendly opinion, but critically, to reach out to reshape or neutralise the views of adversaries. In other words, engagement is the first word in the dictionary of diplomacy, and here, the minister has clearly been a cop out.

Also Read : India, US Sign Industrial Security Agreement During 2+2 Dialogue

Has MEA Jaishankar Caught the BJP ‘Bug’?

But Jaishankar, as Tellis noted, is an “incredibly thoughtful and articulate” person. So why this action? There could be many reasons for this. First, Jaishankar and the government have decided that in the present deeply polarised political atmosphere in the US, Indian interests would be better served by hanging on to Trump’s Republican Administration which seems to be on course to be re-elected.  In any case, the historical Ministry of External Affairs’ view of the US is that the Republicans ‘deliver’, while the Democrats tend to ‘preach’.

The second possibility is that Jaishankar has now caught the BJP ‘bug’, where negative feedback is not considered important.

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From the ‘Big Boss’ onward, the government seems averse to dissenting voices or contrarian views.

The third possibility is, of course, that Jaishankar was reacting to the way his maiden ‘2+2’ talks went. As it is the second round of the dialogue that concluded in Washington, DC on Wednesday, fell through the cracks of the news-sphere — the impeachment proceedings against President Trump, and the widespread political protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) hogged all the attention.

Also Read : CAA Protests: The 12 Hours That Unfolded After Daryaganj Violence

Focus on Kashmir & Religious Freedom in India

Whatever may have been said in the joint statement or public remarks, the subtext of the second ‘2+2’ dialogue that concluded in Washington, DC on Wednesday, was religious freedom in India, and the situation in Kashmir.

It is evident from the remark of a ‘senior State Department official’ who briefed the media after the meeting, that this issue was not quite swept under the carpet. As the official noted: “ I think Secretary Pompeo was quite clear, that we care deeply about the right of minorities… and the need to protect religious freedom.” He did soften the blow by noting that a “debate was going on in India” over this legislation (the Citizenship Amendment Act) which would be reviewed by the courts.

In response to another question on Kashmir, the official said that the United States remains concerned over “the prolonged detentions of political leaders as well as other residents of the Valley,” and the restrictions on cell phones and internet. Asked whether any ultimatum was given on this, he again evaded by saying that the issues are being “debated” and “reviewed by the judiciary.” He did, however, concede that the issues of the CAA and Kashmir were, indeed, discussed in the meeting.

As the official himself, somewhat lamely, concluded that while a range of issues are discussed in such meetings, “the actual 2+2’s agenda is more focused on the Indo-Pacific and military inter-operability and our security initiatives.”

The two sides put out a 7-page joint statement, but the US also put out a one-page highlights document on the talks which focused on their decision “to work together in support of a free, open, and inclusive Indo-Pacific region.” Along with this, there were a grab-bag of issues relating to regional and global threats, terrorism, disaster relief and so on in which the two would cooperate.

What’s New In This Year’s ‘2+2’? Not Much

The second issue the highlights document focused on was the “21st century defense partnership.” This highlighted their first tri-services exercise and the various “defense enabling agreements” to promote defence trade and collaboration between the private sectors of the two sides.

Beyond this, there seemed to be little new in this year’s ‘2+2’. Last year, the signing of the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) and the announcement of the tri-service exercise were the highlights of the talks. The two sides did sign the Industrial Security Annex (ISA) but this is an enabling agreement more than anything else. It depends vitally on the interest that the Indian private sector will show in collaborating with US defence firms. The problem, however, is that the acute scarcity of funds have severely constrained Indian defence acquisitions.

The Limits of the India-US Relationship

What is evident is that even though the two sides have excellent official relations, both are coming to terms with the limits of their relationship. On one hand, the US is understanding that India has a limited appetite to take on China. On the other, the US has not quite moved to redefine the Indo-Pacific to incorporate Indian interests in the western Indian Ocean.

Further, India is learning that China remains an important economic destination for the US, one that could become even more so after the Phase I trade deal.

Equally significant is the fact that India and the US have not been able to arrive at a closure to their trade and tariff differences. These may appear trivial compared to the US-China dispute, but it is important enough to add dissonance in their relationship.

The Quint December 21, 2019