India and America at Odds

Abstract

T HE persistent inability of the United States and India to work out a mutually acceptable relationship has been one of the central features of modern Asian politics. Occasional episodes of co-operation between the world's two largest non-communist nations, such as occurred when they were motivated by a similar antipathy to China for some years after 1959, have been overshadowed by the tension and antagonism that accompanied the Korean and Vietnam wars, American emphasis on military alliances in Asia, and India's close relations with the Soviet Union. These erupted into open hostility during the Bangladesh upheaval in 1971 when India, inundated by nearly ten million refugees fleeing the Pakistani army's reign of terror, invoked the principle of Bengali self-determination and dismembered its hostile neighbour. American support for Pakistan's national integrity won widespread support in the United Nations, but the Nixon Administration's attempt to use the nuclear-powered carrier Enterprise as an instrument of gunboat diplomacy was a dismal failure. Relations between the United States and India quickly plummeted to an all-time low. Both countries, however, feel uneasy when they are at loggerheads, and towards the end of 1972 they began a cautious effort to improve relations. American agreement to a rescheduling of India's foreign debt repayments was interpreted by Indian leaders as a step in this direction; New Delhi's restrained comments on United States policy in Vietnam when the ceasefire hung in the balance were viewed in a similar light by Washington. However, this beginning could suffer the same fate as several false starts which occurred in 1972. (Mrs. Gandhi's biting attack last February on American actions in Vietnam, and the sharp American reaction, illustrate this danger, as does the American decision the following month to sell several million dollars' worth of military equipment to Pakistan.) President Nixon and Mrs. Gandhi periodically asserted their desire for friendly relations, but such pro-forma statements were overshadowed by acts regarded as hostile by the other country. New Delhi maintained that the reference to Kashmir in the joint communique signed by President Nixon and Chou En-lai in Shanghai in February 1972 was interference in India's internal affairs. The United States regarded New Delhi's silence over North Vietnam's 1972 invasion of