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India-US Relations Blog

Taking the Long View

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Over time, the expansion of Chinese strength will undoubtedly push New Delhi to tighten its security relations with Washington, though the process will neither be as smooth nor as speedy as many would like.

Just as US-India ties were at a nadir following New Delhi’s nuclear tests in 1998 – and just as the United States and China were declaring their own strategic partnership – Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee famously characterized Washington and New Delhi as “natural allies” who would form “the mainstay of tomorrow’s stable, democratic world order.” Two years later, Vajpayee reaffirmed this description.

Judging by the dense bilateral links the two countries have crafted over the past decade, Vajpayee phrase seems to have been vindicated. Not only have a landmark civilian nuclear accord and a spate of defense contracts been concluded, but the two countries have established some 30 bilateral dialogues and working groups on a wide gamut of issues, and the United States holds more bilateral military exercises each year with India than with any other nation.

Yet U.S. elites are suddenly shying away from the term “ally.” Assistant Secretary of State for South & Central Asia Robert Blake, for instance, states that “India and the United States will never be allies in the traditional sense of the term.”  Strobe Talbott, who as Deputy Secretary of State in the Clinton administration began the first institutionalized dialogue between Washington and New Delhi, contends that the countries “are not now, and may never be, allies.” Stephen P. Cohen, dean of U.S. South Asianists, likewise maintains that “India is a friend, not an ally” and the new US-Indian strategic alliance is “still more symbolic than real.”

All three underscore the distinction between long-standing U.S. allies, such as the United Kingdom, Japan and South Korea, and partners like India that are not bound by formal security commitments. And Blake’s statement was undoubtedly in deference to Indian sensitivities about being sucked into America’s strategic orbit, although he adds that India can no longer be considered a non-aligned country given the “increased convergences in strategic outlook” between Washington and New Delhi. But Talbott and Cohen are less sanguine on this count. The former argues that:

“One reason we may never be [allies] or not in the any foreseeable future, is because there is still a huge constituency in support of India’s non-aligned status, despite the fact that I would say that non-alignment and the non-aligned movement is very much an artifact of the Cold War. I remember having a conversation with Natwar Singh [retired Indian diplomat and Manmohan Singh’s first foreign minister] when Congress was out of power and him saying to me that the proudest moment of his career was being secretary general of the non-aligned movement. That sticks in my mind. I took that as a sign that there are still a lot of Indians who take non-alignment seriously.”

Cohen strikes a similar note: “New Delhi has a deep commitment to strategic autonomy, as indicated by its insistent use of the moderating prefix ‘natural’ to describe its U.S. relationship. In the end, India got what it needed from Washington, including recognition of its nuclear weapons program and support for its permanent membership on the United Nations’ Security Council, at little or no cost.”

Believing that strategic ties remain, at best, “aspirational,” Michael Auslin, at the American Enterprise Institute, likewise notes that the

“continued adherence to Jawaharlal Nehru’s non-aligned strategy clearly animates the worldview of most thinkers [in India], even if the language used to describe it no longer partakes of such Cold War imagery. There is a firm commitment in New Delhi not to have any firm commitments to any one state. It seems the Indians have taken to heart, far more than the Americans, George Washington’s warning against entangling foreign alliances.”

All of these comments come at a time of widespread disappointment in Washington that the bilateral relationship has not lived up to the strategic and economic possibilities that seemed so alive just a few years ago. As my last post noted, some observers are even questioning whether the Bush-Singh nuclear deal has succeeded in its primary aim of invigorating US-India geopolitical cooperation in the face of a rapidly growing and more assertive China.

The Bush administration devoted singular energy to courting New Delhi as a key part of its strategy of strengthening security links with China’s neighbors. In a widely-read article, Condoleezza Rice, then serving as chief foreign adviser to the George W. Bush presidential campaign, observed that Washington “should pay closer attention to India’s role in the regional balance.” She pointedly noted that “India is an element in China’s calculation, and it should be in America’s, too.” In his first major foreign policy address as a candidate, Bush argued that “we should work with the Indian government, ensuring it is a force for stability and security in Asia.”

Once the nuclear deal was unveiled at a July 2005 summit between Bush and Prime Minister Singh, Rice justified it by calling India “a rising global power that we believe could be a pillar of stability in a rapidly changing Asia.” At the summit, a senior Indian diplomat was quoted as saying that “Bush has a vision that we in India often don’t have. With Europe in decline and China rising, the U.S. sees India as a future global power with the ability to maintain [the] power balance in the 21st century.” A Bush administration official closely involved in the making of policy toward New Delhi commented that “China is a central element in our effort to encourage India’s emergence as a world power. But we don’t need to talk about the containment of China. It will take care of itself as India rises.”

Singh-Wen_PhotoIn the years since, has the growth of Chinese strategic power nudged Washington and New Delhi into tighter security collaboration, as many in the Bush administration expected? Or is Michael Krepon, one of the nuclear deal’s prominent detractors, correct in arguing that “New Delhi continues to titrate improved strategic cooperation with the United States” and that it “continues to improve ties with Beijing.  It is folly to presume that Washington can leverage New Delhi’s dealings with Beijing.”

There’s no denying the American disillusionment caused by India’s rejection of Boeing and Lockheed Martin’s bids in its $11 billion fighter aircraft competition and by the prolonged inability of U.S. companies to capitalize on the nuclear deal due to an Indian liability law that does not conform to international norms. It is also true that India and China have aligned to thwart U.S. objectives in global negotiations on trade and climate change, and that they often take the same side in UN deliberations.

But stepping back a bit in order to take in the wider perspective, it is clear that some fundamental geopolitical forces are at work in spurring India-China strategic frictions.  Instead of being the fraternal titans that drive the Asian Century forward, as envisioned in the “Chindia” chimera, it is more likely that their relationship in the coming years will be marked by increased suspicion and rivalry. The relationship has never really recovered from the trauma of their 1962 border war, and the strains have only increased over the past five years or so. Beijing is now taking a much more hawkish line on territorial disputes in the Himalayans, including asserting a brand new claim that the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh is actually “Southern Tibet.”  It is also expanding its presence in territory controlled by Pakistan, and trying to block New Delhi’s efforts to play a greater role in regional and international institutions.

Much is made of the fact that China is now India’s largest trading partner and that two-way trade soared from $12 billion in 2004 to $60 billion in 2010, and that the countries are on track to reach $100 billion in 2015. When Premier Wen Jaibao visited New Delhi last December, he brought along a larger business delegation than President Obama did a month earlier, and the $16 billion in resulting trade deals eclipsed the $10 billion-mark struck by the Americans. Yet compared to US-India economic links, there are far more competitive elements, and far fewer complementary features, operating in India’s business interactions with China.

All of these developments have not gone unnoticed by the Singh government.  Famous for his cautious, taciturn nature, Singh has caused a stir with his public expressions of disapproval regarding what he terms Chinese “assertiveness.” In a September 2010 interview he complained that Beijing sought to “keep India in a low-level equilibrium” and that “it would like to have a foothold in South Asia.” Three months later, he shocked his Chinese guests during the Wen visit by refusing to reiterate India’s traditional endorsement of the “One China” policy or customary recognition of Tibet being an inviolable part of the People’s Republic.

Indian military planning is also increasingly focused on the threat from its northern neighbor, from taking major steps to fortify its northeastern border to accelerating the development of the Agni-V ballistic missile. With a reach of over 5,000 kilometers, and capable of carrying multiple warheads, the missile puts China fully within range of a retaliatory nuclear strike.

The strategic entente with India is Washington’s first geopolitical partnership to be forged in the post-Cold War era, meaning that its rhythm is bound to be quite different from the security alliances the United States rapidly created in the aftermath of World War II. Back then, the national power of Washington’s new-found allies was in stark decline, while India’s current power trajectory is visibly upward. The structural dynamics of a bipolar global order also were simpler than today’s messy multipolarity.  Over time, however, the expansion of Chinese strength will undoubtedly push New Delhi to tighten its security relations with Washington, though the process will neither be as smooth nor as speedy as many would like.

India-US Relations Blog

Change of Helm in Washington; Nirupama Rao to be the Ambassador

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The road to becoming the Indian Foreign Secretary most certainly runs through the ambassadorships in Beijing, Islamabad and probably Kathmandu and Colombo. Nirupama did Beijing and Colombo and now after a successful stint as Foreign Secretary, is slated to become India’s most high profile ambassador – in Washington. It is customary to say that appointments like these take place at a critical or crucial juncture.  Is it a crucial time? Not more than at any other time.

credit: theindiaexperts.comAlthough a number of reasons can be found to explain why the Indo-US relationship is currently in a parlous condition. The biggest blow comes undoubtedly from the elimination of the U.S. from the MRCA competition, quite probably for purely technical reasons. But there is another side to the Nirupama story. That is the story of the U.S. ambassador in New Delhi. After the performance of absolute cracker – Jacks like Robert Blackwill, Frank Wisner, Dick Celeste and many others, the performance of the current US ambassador in Delhi has been entirely forgettable. If it meant much to the U.S. to get short listed in the MRCA competition, one wouldn’t have guessed so from the activities or the lack of them at Roosevelt House. The U.S. ambassador’s office and residence was constantly buzzing during the time of the U.S. nuclear deal, but that was probably a stunning one – off performance – when the U.S. embassy mustered a huge public relations campaign on behalf of the deal, and followed it up with a command performance at the NSG waiver at Geneva.

Since then it’s all been downhill. No visiting congressmen in Delhi – or if there were, they kept a low profile. The result of all this is that Nirupama Rao has a job in hand- putting some heat into the relationship. As the PR blurbs say, the Indo- U.S. relationship is so multi-faceted that many parts of it run on automatic. So if the U.S. didn’t get the MRCA, it did get the torpedo deal, the C -17 deal and will probably get the howitzer deal. Institutionally the Indo-US relationship is incredibly strong, running as it does through 13 forums or dialogues. These include the Strategic Dialogue, Foreign Office Consultation, Defence Planning Group, Joint Working Group on Counter Terrorism, the US-India Economic Dialogue, the CEO Forum, The Trade Policy Forum, The Energy Dialogue, Global Climate Change Dialogue, Information & Communication Dialogue, Science and Technology Forum, Education Dialogue and Health Cooperation Framework. That list should knock anyone out – but more importantly demonstrates how many joint bodies can be set up to produce very pedestrian results. In the entire run-up to the Obama visit probably one or two of these forums actually produced tangible agreements for the heads of state to sign.

The question also arises rather sharply, that if the state to state relationship runs through 13 standing forums, what can one ambassador do? Actually, she can do a lot. Because if even one or two of these forums actually click, the results can be spectacular. But this raises the important issue, of how much of the relationship is ‘managing’ and how much is old fashioned ‘diplomacy’? It probably is still a mixture, with more and more work between the two countries being conducted ‘outside’ the embassies and through the forums and through communities. Actually it was a US congressman (unnamed) who came to Delhi may years ago and said that U.S. foreign policy is controlled more through congress. According to him, other countries need to imitate China, in building up lobbies within congress rather than running formal diplomacy through the Embassy. This may or may not be true, but Nirupama has very little time to find out as she heads West to represent India in Washington. We certainly don’t want to repeat the NRI ambassador fiasco but if Nirupama can yet go beyond Foggy Bottom to get to grips with her job it would be worth watching.

India-US Relations Blog

The Surge Recedes

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President Obama’s announcement of far larger and more rapid withdrawals of U.S. forces from Afghanistan than many had expected affects Indian security interests and the U.S.-India relationship in significant ways. While it is unfair to characterize the decision as a rush to the exits, it is clear that a deliberate pace is being set.

Obama Speech

Beyond the immediate numbers and timetables involved, the speech’s most memorable line – “America, it’s time to focus on nation building here at home” – signals a new era in South Asia’s geopolitics. U.S. involvement in regional security affairs has oscillated between deep engagement (as in the 1950s, 1980s and the post-9/11 decade) and relative indifference (the 1960s-1970s, and the 1990s). Mr. Obama’s remarks confirm that the pendulum has now begun its swing toward the latter position.

The address will set in motion a train of momentous events for all of Afghanistan’s neighbors. And it is noteworthy that Mr. Obama’s decision was driven more by the exigencies of domestic politics than by a careful assessment of U.S. security objectives in South and Central Asia. As the Washington Post comments , Obama “failed to offer a convincing military or strategic rationale for the troop withdrawals.” The debate inside the administration was reportedly intense but brief, and White House political operatives have not even tried to disguise the fact that the President ignored his top Pentagon advisers.

Parallel to the troop drawdown, President Obama sounded the end to U.S. nation-building efforts in Afghanistan, stating that “we won’t try to make [it] a perfect place.” He underscored Washington’s burgeoning disenchantment with Hamid Karzai’s government in Kabul by once again prodding it to “step up its ability to protect its people, and move from an economy shaped by war to one that can sustain a lasting peace.” Both objectives, however, will prove impossible in the absence of strong U.S. support. A new report by the Democratic majority staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee offers a very bleak assessment of Afghanistan’s economic viability in a post-withdrawal era. Yet a day after Obama’s remarks, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gave notice that the “civilian surge” – which dispatched a thousand U.S. officials to work on governance and development projects in Afghanistan – has likewise peaked.

Karzai’s antics have played a role in this fundamental shift in Washington, with one analyst concluding that “the United States has now clearly washed its hands of the Karzai government.” Tellingly, there was nary a word of praise in Mr. Obama’s remarks for the Afghan president, and one wonders how committed Washington will be to his regime’s survival in any political settlement with the Taliban.

Of course, this is the same government in which New Delhi has invested so much over the last decade. Only six weeks ago, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh traveled to Kabul with the aim of broadening India’s engagement in Afghanistan . He unveiled a significant expansion of Indian aid, with a further commitment of $500 million over the next few years. He and Karzai also issued a joint declaration that the two countries intended to move towards a strategic partnership. According to one analyst , Singh’s purpose was to demonstrate that, unlike Washington, New Delhi has no “exit strategy” in Afghanistan.

The diplomatic process leading to a possible political settlement of the Afghan conflict is only just beginning. But as it unfolds, it is likely that key differences will emerge between the United States and India. Looking towards the exits, Washington may not be too picky over the settlement’s exact details, while New Delhi will be all too focused on how the strategic terrain in its neighborhood is shifting.

Speaking of political settlements, Obama assured all that “the light of a secure peace can be seen in the distance.” But he was virtually silent on the principles he would pursue in the diplomatic endgame. What would constitute such a peace and how the United States would seek to effect it were items left unmentioned. Nor did Obama address how the Taliban and its Pakistani benefactor could be persuaded to support such an outcome when he has so plainly telegraphed America’s disengagement from Afghanistan.

The coming period will witness an intensified regional scramble for influence in a post-withdrawal Afghanistan. India has strong strategic interests in ensuring that any government in Kabul is strong enough to be a bulwark against Pakistan as well as a gateway to trade and energy links in Central Asia. Both goals would be undermined if a Taliban-dominated regime were to come to power. Yet India’s own capacity to shape the course of events is quite limited in a country with which it shares no borders. For this reason, India will seek to move closer to Iran, whose interests in Afghanistan are roughly congruent.

Indeed, this process has already started. A year ago, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao (now slated as India’s new ambassador in Washington) highlighted the “unique” civilizational ties and “the instinctive feeling of goodwill” between India and Iran. She spoke of how links with Tehran are a “fundamental component” of New Delhi’s foreign policy and how there has been a recent “convergence of views” on important policy issues. Regarding bilateral cooperation in Afghanistan, she argued that India and Iran “are of the region and will belong here forever, even as outsiders [read the Americans] come and go.” A senior Indian official described the outreach to Iran as a policy “recalibration” necessitated by the “scenario unfolding in Afghanistan and India’s determination to secure its national interests.”

Earlier this year, India’s national security advisor, Shivshankar Menon, visited Tehran seeking to shore up strategic ties. In early June, the deputy secretary of Iran’s National Security Council was in New Delhi to continue the talks. New Delhi now has even less incentive to go along with U.S. economic sanctions directed against Tehran, and both countries may go so far as to revive their cooperation during the 1990s that provided critical support to the non-Pashtun militias battling the Taliban regime. The Americans will surely grumble about the cozying up with Iran, but the geopolitical logic of the Obama withdrawal leaves New Delhi little choice.

As the United States progressively takes leave of Afghanistan, its dependence on the (epically dysfunctional) security relationship with Pakistan that the 9/11 attacks brought about will correspondingly lessen. The impact of this development on India is variable. The drawdown in U.S. forces will decrease the logistical requirement to run critical supply lines through Pakistani territory. And as the commando assault on Osama Bin Laden and the marked ramp-up in drone strikes testify, Washington is increasingly willing to do without Pakistani cooperation and conduct military operations on its own.

As the need for Islamabad’s collaboration diminishes, Washington will begin to pull back on the significant military assistance – nearly $20 billion so far – that has caused so much consternation in New Delhi. The Bush administration’s “de-hyphenation” policy – one that pursued relations with India and Pakistan independent of the other – will also re-emerge. Seeing Pakistani cooperation on Afghanistan as a function of addressing its acute security anxieties, the Obama administration put the policy on hiatus and started making noises about the Kashmir issue and discouraging New Delhi from too deep an involvement in Afghanistan . With Washington’s solicitude vis-à-vis Islamabad’s sensitivities coming to an end, the U.S.-Indian security partnership will more and more run on its own dynamics.

On the other side of the ledger, however, the Pakistani military establishment could try to offset the loss of U.S. support by entering into an even tighter security alliance with China. This prospect, which would exacerbate India’s strategic concerns, cannot be ruled out, though Beijing so far has shown a reluctance to be encumbered by Pakistan’s deep internal problems . The rather bizarre trip Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani undertook to Beijing in late May is a case in point . Despite Gilani’s profession that Pakistan and China “are like two countries and one nation,” Beijing appeared discomforted when Islamabad put out the word that the Chinese navy was welcome to take up residence in Gwadar, a strategic port at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.

A more worrisome possibility is that U.S. strategic disassociation with Islamabad will also be expressed in a sharp reduction of economic assistance, leading to even greater volatility in Pakistan. In that event, India would find that Pakistan as a failed state is much more of a security headache than it ever was at the peak of its national power.

As the United States markedly reduces its presence in regional security affairs, some hard choices await New Delhi policymakers.

India-US Relations Blog

The Voice of the Majority – 3 – Religion & Government Legitimacy

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Our second article in this series was based on the proposition that:

  • A regime that is seen, felt and recognized to be respectful and supportive of the majority religion tends in turn to be supported by the majority of the people.

In this article, we examine the related hypothesis:

  • A regime that is seen, felt and recognized to be disrespectful and unsupportive of the majority religion tends to be opposed by the majority of the people.

Think back to America in 2008 and 2009. Remember the 2008 election and the now famous quote of Candidate Obama about people in small towns “clinging to their religion and guns”? Though denied and explained away, this quote lives on as one of the more visible symbols of disrespect of religion and belief systems of the American majority.

The early policies and the tone of the Obama Administration persuaded the American majority that its core belief systems were being trampled. The result was the rise of the Tea Party, a movement that sprung like a geyser from the core of the American majority. The American Elite derided the Tea Party as backward, uneducated, right wing, prejudiced and overtly religious. That did not work.

The emotional and loud protest of the Tea Party culminated in a sweeping victory in the 2010 mid term election. The 2010 victory cooled down the temperature of the country. Gone are the rallies, the placards and the hot emotion that bubbled in 2009 and 2010.

This is why America is a shining validation of our hypothesis. On the other hand, India represents a seemingly perfect counterexample.

Last month New Delhi, India’s capital, witnessed a vicious attack in the dead of night by hundreds of baton charging policemen on a crowd of 50,000 people sleeping peacefully. This crowd had gathered to support a fast until death by Baba Ramdev, an Indian Guru with a national and international following. His fast was a protest against the deep corruption that has reportedly engulfed parts of the Indian Government including Cabinet Ministers.

Unlike another protest by Anna Hazare, a secular “Gandhian” activist, the protest by Baba Ramdev, the Indian Government believed, could become a religious “Hindu” movement. And, based on the 60-year track record of the Congress Government, a “Hindu” nationwide protest was deemed intolerable by the Congress Regime. And so the Indian Government behaved exactly like the minority Bahraini Government and launched a vicious night attack on a large group of peaceful, non-violent sleeping protestors.

This brings to fore the decades long suppression of core Indian belief systems by the Indian Elite. Much like American Elite Liberals, the self-proclaimed “modern”, “secular”, “progressive” Indian Elite have waged a coercive battle against India’s “Hindu” majority. This suppression of India’s majority is organized and planned with the full resources of the Congress Regime. The list of other deliberate legislative, executive acts against India’s majority religion would fill several such articles.

This might surprise many but the American and Indian people are very similar in their belief systems. Both societies are deeply religious and spiritual. In contrast, European and Asian societies are not. Both American and Indian societies are multi-religious, multi-ethnic and tolerant at heart. But their belief systems run deep. This is why foreign films, books and culture do not make inroads into these societies. This is why global Hollywood has not been successful in making inroads into India and US TV Networks have to create purely Indian channels to become financially successful in India.

Then, unlike the American majority, why does the India’s majority tolerate the trampling of its religion and belief systems by its governing regime?

  • One reason is that India’s majority has been under the rule of India’s minority religions for the past 1,000 years. So the behavior of the Congress regime is a continuation of the British and Mughal Regimes.
  • Secondly, India’s majority is totally focused on raising its economic standards. That is today’s top priority for the Indian people. So all other issues are being put aside. But they are not ignored.

But the calm you see on India’s surface is covering up the deep anger within India’s majority. Jim Yardley of the New York Times used the term “visceral rage” to describe the sentiments of India’s Middle Class. This Middle Class is the new factor in Indian society, a factor that will come to dominate India’s Society, Government Policy and its relationship with America in years to come.

India’s middle class is becoming broader, richer and more secure in demanding its rights. It is also much more religious and conservative than the Indian Elite who run India’s Government, NGOs and Media. It is beginning to feel confident in expressing its views in the terms and framework of its religion, culture and belief systems. This will put it in direct conflict with the self-proclaimed mission of India’s Elite to suppress India’s majority religion at the altar of a “modern, secular, progressive” culture.

As we saw in its reaction to the attack on Baba Ramdev, the Indian-American community is beginning to participate in the struggle of the Indian Middle Class. And this community understands the lessons of America’s Tea Party.

Will the Indian-American community succeed in helping India’s Middle Class attain the confident fighting spirit of the American majority? Will India’s majority and its driver, the Indian Middle Class, succeed in changing the regime of India’s Ruling Elite? The answers will drive both India and its relationship with America.

India-US Relations Blog

Lights, Camera, Action

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Bollywood & Hollywood
Among the latest tranche of WikiLeaks cables released by The Hindunewspaper is one that throws light on an under-noticed dimension of U.S.-India relations: Their compatible strengths and convergent interests in the area of global entertainment and media. For all the glamour attached to Hollywood and Bollywood* in their home countries, their potential in fostering bilateral ties has been scarcely appreciated.With the United States and India possessing the world’s largest entertainment and media sectors, both in terms of sheer output and global popularity, the opportunities for collaboration are large for jointly producing new content, forging new creative collaborations and accessing new markets. With a growing middle class, a large English-speaking populace, a booming number of multiplexes and television channels, and a cinema-obsessed popular culture, India is a natural destination and partner for Hollywood studios.

Besides a burgeoning market, India possesses another alluring if sometimes overlooked quality: It is Asia’s most liberal market for foreign media companies, both in terms of investment regime and political climate. On both counts, Star Network relocated its Asia hub from Hong Kong to Mumbai last year (see here and here ), and India has become the most important country for News Corporation’s Asian regional business. As a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers report suggests, India – not China – is emerging as Asia’s media hub.Bollywood firms are similarly expanding their global reach, including in the United States. Reliance ADA Group, one of India’s headline industrial houses, is aiming to create a world-wide entertainment conglomerate. It has entered into a high-profile joint venture with Steven Spielberg to form a new movie studio and has cut deals with a number of Hollywood heavyweights to fund the development of scripts and jointly present proposals to studios. Last year, the company also entered into talks with Universal Studios about creating India’s first film-themed amusement park, as well as purchased a majority stake in IM Global, a Los Angeles-based company specializing in foreign-rights sales.Yet, as a February 2010 dispatch from the U.S. consulate in Mumbai makes clear, greater effort is required in order to exploit synergistic possibilities. Despite Hollywood’s growing interest in the Indian market as a way of offsetting its own sluggish box office sales, the cable notes that the U.S. movie industry has still not found a good working model for partnering with Bollywood. Hollywood films face constrained revenue potential in India, due to much lower box office prices compared to the U.S. but also because cinema-goers prefer big-budget action movies over Hollywood’s other fare.

U.S. and Indian studios have entered into a number of high-profile co-production deals, though to date none of them have enjoyed much commercial success. Given its vital market, U.S. studios will continue searching for the right formula for success. But the cable casts doubt that co-productions will pay off anytime soon given that Bollywood fears opening the door too widely to Hollywood’s presence.

Still, the cable points to useful synergies in a number of behind-the-scenes areas. The Indian film industry, which has rarely enjoyed global success beyond diasporic communities , would profit from Hollywood’s expertise in international marketing and distribution, as well as from sourcing U.S. production and technical talent. In turn, Hollywood would benefit from shipping animation and post-production work to India, taking advantage of its modern facilities and affordable workforce. One might add that Indian studios, which are leaders in experimenting with innovative ways of film distribution, like the Internet and mobile applications, could also be a valuable source of new business models for their Hollywood partners.

Yet even if bi-national movie collaborations have yet to live up to expectations, other interactions in the entertainment and media space are bearing fruit. India is one of the world’s fastest growing entertainment and media markets; a new forecast by the KMPG consulting firm puts its size at $28 billion by 2015 . The number of television-viewing households has exploded in recent years. The country also has the second largest pay-television market after China, with an estimated 105 million Indian households currently subscribing to terrestrial analogue cable, satellite and digital networks.

These headline numbers explain why so many U.S. media companies, including Walt Disney, News Corporation, Time Warner and Viacom have joined up with Indian partners to launch channels over the past several years. Last August, CBS Corporation likewise jumped into the game, hooking up with Reliance ADA Group to launch several English-language channels.

Although many of these venues simply offer a platform for U.S.-made fare, jointly-produced content is also beginning to emerge. Indeed, TV productions that combine U.S. and Indian strengths present a large opportunity, both in India and far beyond. According to the consultancy Media Partners Asia, there is a huge, largely untapped global market with a cultural affinity to television content from India, including Mauritians who watch Hindi-language TV and people in Saudi Arabia, which does not have a local media industry.

All of these developments signal a new era in global entertainment. Although U.S. and Indian government officials would not naturally think of it, enhanced partnership in the entertainment and media sector has important policy implications. Since Hollywood and Bollywood are successful exporters of cultural content, the two countries have a major shared interest in keeping global markets open for their products. Washington and New Delhi should thus craft a common approach on cultural market access and use their combined weight to advance it in international trade negotiations. True, the two governments have been at loggerheads in the Doha Round of multilateral trade talks. But a joint proposal on cultural access would focus U.S. and Indian energies on discrete, easily-managed trade issues in which the mutuality of economic benefit is self evident. Beyond its commercial ramifications, the initiative would have political value, further solidifying the U.S.-India partnership and providing an important example of joint leadership in the global economy.

With broadband penetration continuing to accelerate worldwide, the private sectors and governments in both countries similarly have a common interest in advancing the digital transformation of the global media industry. Washington and New Delhi should thus convene a summit of all relevant parties in both countries to consider implementing this objective on a joint basis. Real-time creative and production partnerships could also be enhanced by the development of advanced fiber-optic networks capable of transmitting data at a rate of one gigabyte per second between the two countries. Efforts now underway by U.S. and Indian universities to create collaborative network tools need to be encouraged by adequate government funding on both sides. Such networks would not only spur interactions in the entertainment and media field but in other innovation economy sectors as well.

Policymakers gathered at next month’s U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue in New Delhi will no doubt concentrate on matters like defense cooperation, the endgame in Afghanistan, and Pakistan’s volatility. But a focus on things like global entertainment collaborations is also worth their while, given the importance of private-sector and societal linkages in helping bind the bilateral relationship together .

* With apologies to the vibrant local-language film industries in southern India, Bollywood is used here as a shorthand signifying the Indian entertainment sector writ large, though strictly speaking it refers only to the Hindi-language movie industry centered in Mumbai.