US-India Relations Research Articles

‘Where Liberty is Not, There is My Country’: Nineteenth-Century American Abolitionist Writings on India and its Legacies

ABSTRACT This article examines nineteenth century American abolitionist writings on India. My sources include abolitionist newspapers, primarily focusing on William Lloyd Garrison’s newspaper the Liberator, but also incorporating other abolitionist newspapers. These include the Friend of Man and publications of individual abolitionists like Lydia Maria Child’s The History of the Condition of Women, in Various Ages and Nations. By looking at their writings on Christian missionary activities in India, Indian women, and British rule in India, this article argues that although many abolitionists Orientalized India, they at the same time found many parallels between Indian society and the US. Although they did not develop a full criticism towards colonialism in the antebellum period, their criticism towards Empire matured by the early twentieth century. My scholarly intervention centres on acknowledging the hitherto unknown role of abolitionist writings on India in the intellectual history of American abolitionism and US-India transnational history. By not fully engaging with India, the scholarship on US-India relations and abolitionism misses a critical dimension of the abolitionist movement’s intimate relationship with related causes of feminism, anti-clericalism, and anti-imperialism. Most importantly, this article demonstrates that abolitionist writings on India far exceeded Orientalism as the only frame of understanding.

India as a restorationist state: implications for US-India relations and South Asian politics

India as a restorationist state: implications for US-India relations and South Asian politics

Engagement sans commitment: a new phase of US-India relations

ABSTRACT The ‘historic’ Biden-Modi Summit (2023) yielded significant concessions and advantages for New Delhi, but did it fundamentally change the relations between the world’s two largest democracies? This article examines the causes of tensions between the two countries and contends that relations between Washington and New Delhi can only be deepened if the former meets the latter’s primary security and economic concerns while also reducing public criticism of its state of governance. The article argues that there is a ‘new’ phase in the partnership because the onus of strengthening the pace and depth of cooperation lies with Washington. It also argues that while Washington has initiated measures to woo New Delhi to its corner, the latter is unlikely to change its approach towards Russia or align itself with the US and its foreign policies. India’s insistence on ‘strategic autonomy’ and engagement in multilateral frameworks that conflict with the US’s national interests demonstrate that considerable disagreements remain between the two states. Although India and the United States have strengthened their mutual engagement, the broader issue is that ties have grown more transactional in nature.

BETWEEN “STRATEGIC ALTRUISM” AND “SELECTIVE COOPERATION”: US POLICY DILEMMA TOWARD INDIA

This paper discusses the US dilemma of policy making on India. The paper begins with a retrospective look at the US-India relations since Modi came to power, and a predictive analysis of the policy on India under the Biden administration, in order to show how the US perspective on India’s role in US global and regional strategies has changed. The paper demonstrates that China is one of the pivotal external variables that promote US-India relations. The review of policy is followed by a discussion of strategic assessments of India policies by US analysts and experts on India. These can be classified into two policies: “strategic altruism” and “selective cooperation,” each of which represents a type of US-India relation. Through comparing these assessments, the paper concludes that the United States faces a dilemma in policy making on India, with US policy makers unable to reach an agreement on fundamental issues concerning US-India relations.

Constructing nuclear responsibility in US–India relations

Abstract In 2005, the United States recognized India as a ‘responsible state with advanced nuclear technology’. How did India go from pariah to a legitimate nuclear state? This article historicizes the concept of nuclear responsibility to explain India's shifting place in the nuclear regime. Existing perspectives view responsibility as a function of discrete state behaviors to the detriment of understanding the relationship between power and responsibility as a discourse. This article tracks the evolving discourse of early proliferators, such as the US, UK and France, who legitimated their possession of nuclear weapons by linking responsibility with deterrence. In its early nuclear history, India challenged these hegemonic perspectives but more recently adopted the deterrence model of responsibility to be granted recognition and legitimacy in the global nuclear regime. The article concludes that nuclear states’ success in linking deterrence with responsibility complicates the place of disarmament as an alternative nuclear responsibility discourse. Tying deterrence to responsibility reshaped the global order around the continual presence of nuclear weapons, narrowing moral agency and limiting a nuclear weapon-free future. Reclaiming responsibility will require moving beyond the typical state-centric politics of blame towards institutional and structural approaches to moral agency.

Hegemonic stability in the Indo-Pacific: US-India relations and induced balancing

The United States has improved relations with no other country during the Trump administration as much as it advanced its relationship with India. US-India relations have arguably marked their historical high points since Trump entered office and India seems to be overcoming its suspicion of closer cooperation with the US. Given these developments, this article aims to theorize the relationship through the hegemonic stability theory and explain US strategy toward India. We first demonstrate why India is accepting the hegemonic standing of the US in the Indo-Pacific and then – since balance of power politics are still a staple of policymakers’ approach to stability in the Indo-Pacific – we introduce the notion of induced balancing to show what approach the United States has adopted to empower India to expand its balancing capacity vis-à-vis China. The last section of the article empirically maps the various incentives that Washington offers to New Delhi in order to situate it in the desired position of a proxy China-balancer.

Fateful triangle: how China shaped US–India relations during the Cold War

Fateful triangle: how China shaped US–India relations during the Cold War

Pakistan’s nuclear future: continued dependence on asymmetric escalation

ABSTRACTIn 2019, the geostrategic landscape of South Asia significantly changed. A crisis between India and Pakistan involved air strikes across international boundaries for the first time since the 1971 war. Pakistan came close to economic collapse, while India re-elected hawkish Narendra Modi as prime minister in a landslide. These developments, alongside the United States’ efforts to strike a deal to leave Afghanistan and rapidly improving US-India relations, portend new challenges for Pakistan’s security managers—challenges that nuclear weapons are ill-suited to address. Despite the shifting security and political situation in the region, however, Pakistan’s nuclear posture and doctrine seem unlikely to change. This article explores the roots of Pakistan’s reliance on the traditional predictions of the nuclear revolution, most notably the notion that nuclear-armed states will not go to war with one another, and argues that this reliance on nuclear deterrence is a response both to Pakistan’s security environment and to serious constraints on moving away from nuclear weapons toward an improved conventional force posture. Pakistan’s central problems remain the same as when it first contemplated nuclear weapons: the threat from India, the absence of true allies, a weak state and a weaker economy, and few friends in the international system. While 2019 may have been a turning point for other states in the region, Pakistan is likely to stay the course.

The dragon in the room: the China factor in the development of US–India ties in the Cold War

ABSTRACTIn recent years, as China has continued to rise as an economic, political and military power, there has been increasing consideration of its role in shaping US–India relations over the last two decades. However, this article, considering the period 1949–1979, shows that American and Indian perceptions of and policy toward China shaped the US–India relationship even during the Cold War. In doing so, the article seeks not just to bring China back into the story of past US–India relations, but also shed light on the China–India–US triangle of today and of tomorrow.

It's About Time: Reading US-India Cold War Perceptions Through News Coverage of India

Recent attempts to recalibrate the US-India relationship require a clearer understanding of how this relationship began. To that end, this essay traces the themes characterizing early US-India relations through a rhetorical analysis of Time magazine cover portraits and articles from 1951 to 1962 featuring the first Prime Minister of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru. Acting as an index of the US administration and partly conveying the attitudes of its editor-in-chief toward India, Time advanced a set of arguments about India's unreliability as a Cold War ally and the essential correctness of the US administration's stance against communist nations and those who eschewed open alignment with the US during the Cold War. Time's coverage formed a narrative arc that admonished India's attempts at friendship with China and Cold War neutrality while vindicating the US cause during this period. I conclude that Cold War themes linger in US news reporting on India, argue for more scholarship on non-Western nations, and suggest that, along with verbal texts, images are rich sources of foreign policy rhetoric.

Linking China, India, and the United States

China and India in the Age of Globalization. By Shalendra D. Sharma. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 321 pp., $85.00 hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-0-521-51571-9); $27.99 paperback (ISBN-13: 798-0-521-73136-2). Professor Shalendra Sharma's China and India in the Age of Globalization provides an informative and timely contribution to the literature on the rising role and status of China and India in world affairs. Sharma's treatment of the political economy of both countries and implications for future-defining Sino-Indian, US–China, and US–India relations is richly detailed, current, and informed by consultation with much of the voluminous relevant literature concerned with the two emerging powers. Professor Sharma's decision to compare China and India, and to analyze his chosen subject within the context of relations with the United States, will be welcomed by many readers. Within this comparative framework, he raises and addresses questions of importance for today's students of comparative politics and international studies, policymakers in all three political systems, and others generally interested in understanding the contemporary “contradictions and paradoxes” (p. 271) of globalization. His key questions include: Will China become a “responsible global stakeholder” (also see Bhattacharya 2005)? Will growing economic convergence further solidify Sino-Indo relations? I would add: How will the economic, social, and political implications of unparalleled disparities in aggregate national income relative to per-capita income play out over time in China and India? Sharma's approach to his subject is thorough, balanced, and cautious. He effectively interweaves historical analysis with recent developments. Table 2 (p. 57) listing “major reform steps in China: 1978–2006” is particularly helpful. His critical analysis of China's banking and financial sectors (pp. 116–27) is illuminating. The book certainly does not avoid informed speculation on the future, but Sharma typically hedges his bets.1 Based on power-transition theory, for instance, he expects China's rise to destabilize the international system.2 At the same time, he envisions the prospect that the United States can further facilitate integrating China “into the international economy and embedding it in the …

Perceptions, Reality and the Changing Nature of US-India Relations

Perceptions, Reality and the Changing Nature of US-India Relations

Forecasting India's potential

Forecasting has a poor record—and India‐watching is no different. India is clearly going places, based on recent performance and a post‐cold war approach to internal reform and external affairs. This exciting democracy is a country to watch. But much depends on functional progress. Issues like poverty, migration and HIV/AIDS are unlikely to vanish. The Commonwealth now needs India, and India can now draw upon the Commonwealth to its advantage. After all, India is an exemplar of Commonwealth values. Many of India's problems reflect Commonwealth functional concerns. Meanwhile, India's independence is reflected by an increasing cultural orientation towards, and bilateral relationship with, the USA. This cultural change is as important as the political realignments post‐1989. As US–India relations have improved, and India pursues a global political footprint, the Commonwealth retains its relevance. Peter Lyon's interest in this fascinating country endures, as should ours.

Dennis Kux. Estranged Democracies: India and the United States 1941-1991. New Delhi: Sage Publications. 1993. Hardbound. Indian Rupees 375.00.

Cold war US-Soviet relations were characterised by a large gap between hostile talk and cautious action, though both countries backed and armed rival sides in wars in the third world. During the cold war US foreign policy was detennined by the sole objective of containing Soviet territorial and ideological 'expansionism'. This was also the defining element in US-Indian subcontinent relations in the coldwar period. Thus the main reason for the estrangement in US-India relations is not hard to discern-while the US aggressively sought partners in its anti-Soviet alliance system, India nurtured its economic and military supplies relationship with the Soviet Union. Furthermore, while there persisted a fundamental conflict between Pakistan and India over the Kashmir issue, Pakistan participated in the US sponsored anti-Soviet alliance system and gained from US military and economic assistance.