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Indian-Americans and U.S. Politics Blog

The Crazy Lone Gunman

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Guest post by Inderpal Singh Mumick

Another senseless shooting, this one in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Every few weeks or months there seems to be a random shooting somewhere in America. The story line never seems to change much. A “sick” person, acting alone, decides to take the lives of many. In July, twenty people met an untimely end in Aurora, CO. Their “fault” – wanting to see the first showing of the latest batman movie. A year ago, Gabrielle Giffords was injured, and six innocent victims died just because they came to meet with her. And last month, Oak Creek upped the ante further by taking the unjustified, cold-blooded shootings to a place of worship. Six people are dead simply because they went to pray at a Gurudwara (Sikh place of worship).

Personally, the tragedy hit home like none other to date. This was a shooting in a Gurudwara, the place I go for peace. Much more than just a place to pray, the Gurudwara is a part of life. When our first son was born, my wife and I went to the Bridgewater Gurudwara to ask for God’s blessing, and to find out the first letter of his name, as is customary in Sikhism. The Guru Granth (holy book of the Sikhs) opened to a page starting with “K”, and we named him Kieraj. When our girl was born, we did the same (“R” led to Ruhani), and repeated it for our youngest son (“S” became Saran).

Was it an attack on the Sikhs, and our way of living? Were Sikhs being discriminated because of our unique identity? Sikh men wear turbans, and all Sikhs do not cut their hair. Was it meant to be an attack on Muslims? Many people in the western world confuse Sikhs to be Muslims. Either way, it was an attack on a place of worship, and an attack on one place of worship is an attack on every place of worship.

As a society, we need to reflect on what is going on in our beloved country that is leading to such hatred, craziness, and terror, so that we can find ways to prevent more tragedies.

I know I speak for my whole community when I say that our hearts go out to the innocent victims who gave up their lives on that unfortunate day, and to Lt. Murphy who acted with valor, and did not hesitate to protect his fellow Americans though they looked different from many other Americans, and worshipped in a different way. May WaheGuru (God) bring a speedy and painless recovery to him, and to the other injured individuals who are hospitalized.

The only way we can move forward is to think of the positive. One positive outcome of this horrid event is that various communities have come together like never before. The pastors, the bishops, the imams, the monks, the rabbis, and the community leaders have all shared the pulpit to deplore the violence and to ask for tolerance and love.

However, coming together is not enough. Education is the key to preventing future tragedies. We need to educate our law enforcement officers, the TSA, the airlines staff, the judiciary, the armed forces, the legislatures, and the teachers. Most of all, we need to educate school children and others in the younger generation. It is the younger generation that has the power to ensure that peace and tolerance will push out hate and ignorance. In Berkeley Heights, NJ, where I live, students are assigned a project in middle school where each student researches one religion, and presents it to the class. They make posters and powerpoints to share their learning. My two sons were the only Sikh boys in their middle school and therefore looked different from everyone else; yet they have been well assimilated into the school and into the community. Our daughter has just been elected President of her class. Kudos to Ms. Judith Rattner, the superintendent, and Mr. Frank Geiger, the principal of the middle school. I encourage every school in the country to adopt such a project in their curriculum so that they can foster a positive and tolerant environment.

Sikhs may dress differently, but are very much a part of our mainstream society. They are scientists, engineers, doctors, police officers, teachers, army men, businessmen, executives, governors, and prime ministers. The first Asian American congressman, Dalip Singh Saund, was a Sikh. Nikki Haley, the current governor of South Carolina, was born a Sikh. The current prime minister of India, Manmohan Singh, is a Sikh. Sikhs are hard working, peaceful people who believe in one god for all. Sikhs believe in equality amongst all people, regardless of race, religion, caste, and gender; thus, our Sikh values have much in common with our American values.

It is our duty as a community to eradicate the hatred that has been built against Islam, especially after 9/11. If Sikhs are being attacked because of being mistaken as Muslims, it begs the question: Why are we tolerating the hatred against Muslims? Muslims, like any other faith in this melting pot of America, have also made countless contributions to our society. Salman Khan founded Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org), helping educate children around the world for free. All three of my children use the Khan Academy regularly, as do their friends and classmates. The most well known actor in India today is Shahrukh Khan. His blockbuster movie “My Name is Khan” is an eye opener on how Muslims feel in America, and the challenges they face.

At a memorial service in Oak Creek, WI, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said,
“In the recent past, too many Sikhs have been targeted and victimized simply because of who they are, how they look, and what they believe. That is wrong. It is unacceptable. And it will not be tolerated.”

The people who carry out the heinous acts are “crazy.” If they survive the attacks, as they did in Arizona and Colorado, they are declared too mentally ill to even stand trial. At the same time, these “mentally ill” people are able to purchase guns and ammunition. Why is it that a mentally ill person can buy guns and tons of ammunition? Will we give a pilot license to a mentally sick person and allow him to fly an airplane. Will we allow a pilot to keep his license if he becomes mentally ill.

Eric Holder has called for a national discussion on changing laws to prevent future shooting attacks. Should we require a certification of mental stability to buy a gun or to buy ammunition? Should there be a re-certification every few years?
Let us have a debate, and let us work to prevent future shootings by “The Crazy Lone Gunman,” who, unfortunately, has made himself a familiar presence in our society.

(This post was originally published at http://mumick.blogspot.com and has been republished here with the author’s consent.)

India-US Relations Blog

Missed Opportunities, Promising Trends

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The year was filled with missed opportunities but also promising developments in U.S.-India relations.  2012 is shaping up to be the same.

 

President Obama’s state visit to India in early November 2010 appeared to impart new dynamism to a bilateral relationship that had been listless since his inauguration. The trip offered an effective tonic for Indian concerns that he had forsaken New Delhi in pursuit of G-2 collaboration with Beijing. The president spoke of India as “an indispensable partner of the 21st century” and dramatically endorsed its long-standing bid for permanent membership on the United Nations Security Council. Reporting on his giddily-received address to a joint session of the Indian Parliament, the Times of India noted that the “audience lapped it up, with no less than 25 rounds of applause in a barely 45-minute speech. The cherry on the cake, of course, was the ‘Jai Hind’ [Hail India] with which he concluded.”

But the promise of re-energized partnership quickly dissolved as leadership capacity in Washington and New Delhi dramatically waned. In retrospect, the trip’s maladroit timing and messaging should have been a tip-off. That the president’s Democratic Party received an electoral “shellacking” just days earlier meant that he arrived in India a much diminished political figure – a condition that became increasingly evident as time progressed. The White House also put out the word that the trip was essentially a jobs-hunting mission rather than one connected to grand strategy, telegraphing how domestic economic anxieties would continue to take attention away from the foreign policy agenda.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also was about to undergo his own political declension. A week after the state visit, the multi-billion dollar 2G telecommunications scandal exploded, igniting a crisis of governance and corruption that continues to engulf Mr. Singh’s administration. For the past year, Singh has been forced to deny that he is a lame duck even as his Congress Party colleagues openly pine for his replacement by Rahul Gandhi and his coalition partners – especially Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress – feel increasingly free to defy him. As 2011 unfolded, it became more and more clear that Singh’s government was adrift and ineffectual.

The leadership void has contributed to the “Delhi disillusionment” that is now a staple of Washington’s foreign policy conversation as well as the transactional approach some advocate vis-à-vis India. Experts now debate just how steadfast this “indispensable partner” really is. Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns even felt it necessary to make a rhetorical nod to this discussion with this title to a recent address: “Is There a Future for the U.S.-India Partnership?”

Whatever its technical merits, New Delhi’s rejection of Boeing and Lockheed Martin’s bids in its lucrative fighter aircraft competition – an issue on the Obama administration lobbied aggressively – was handled so ineptly that it reportedly hastened Ambassador Timothy Roemer’s departure from New Delhi. Indeed, many discerned a deliberate snub of Washington. Ditto for the stringent nuclear liability law that is so divergent from international norms that it effectively locks out U.S. participation in India’s nuclear power sector – something that the nuclear cooperation agreement was suppose to bring about. Last week’s debacle on retail sector liberalization underscored U.S. concerns that New Delhi has permitted domestic political concerns to impede closer economic interactions, while the WikiLeaks revelations about the Indian debate over the nuclear accord further undermined confidence in New Delhi’s credibility as a serious strategic partner.

All of these episodes only sharpened questions in Washington about whether New Delhi is as compelling a geopolitical collaborator as the Bush administration had envisioned. They also help explain why the Obama administration has yet to bother nominating Roemer’s successor.

To be sure, the Indians have valid reasons to complain about the paucity of American leadership. President Obama’s announcement of an accelerated disengagement from Afghanistan – a decision driven more by the exigencies of domestic politics than by a careful assessment of U.S. security objectives in South and Central Asia – affects India’s security interests in unpalatable ways. Looking towards the exits, Washington does not seem overly concerned about the exact details of a possible political settlement while New Delhi is all too focused on how the strategic terrain in its neighborhood is shifting to its detriment. This lack of solicitude explains why, according to one analysis, “few tears are being shed in the top levels of the Indian establishment over the state of ties with the US.”

Yet beyond the top-level ructions, the past year also witnessed the growing density of bilateral affairs, especially the accelerating pace of economic interactions. Even with the global economy in the doldrums, 2010 was a banner year for the trade relationship, with two-way goods exports surging nearly 30 percent to $48.8 billion. Merchandise exports were also up significantly in the first half of 2011 compared to the same period last year. All told, India is now America’s 12th largest goods trading partner and one of the fastest-growing destinations for U.S. exports. This is a welcome trend, as increased private-sector linkages are key to limiting the risks that today’s political and diplomatic frictions could escalate and disrupt the overall partnership.

Notwithstanding the disappointments over the fighter competition, the United States has also become a critical player in the ambitious military buildup India is undertaking. New Delhi was the third largest buyer of U.S. weapons this year, with purchases amounting to $4.5 billion – a level ahead of such long-time American allies as Australia, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Japan. Indeed, over the past year or so the Indian government has either purchased or taken possession of a number of key weapons systems: the AH-64D Apache attack helicopter, the C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft, and the C-17 Globemaster III strategic transport aircraft.

Finally, as the constant parade of Cabinet officers and senior officials between the two capitals attests, bilateral relations have acquired a scope and depth that were unimaginable less than a decade ago. Among other things, Washington and New Delhi now hold regular consultations on policy vis-à-vis China, Deputy Secretary Burns has just concluded talks in New Delhi about strategic and economic cooperation, and a trilateral U.S.-India-Japan security dialogue will meet for the first time next week. Indian foreign policy elites are growing more comfortable with the notion of strategic intimacy with the United States. And the expansion of Chinese strength will undoubtedly push New Delhi to tighten its security relations with Washington in the years ahead, though the process will neither be as smooth nor as speedy as many Americans would like.

All of these factors are contributing to the steady accumulation of bilateral bonds. The key question for the approaching year is whether Washington and New Delhi will exhibit the constancy of leadership needed to capitalize on these favorable developments. Alas, the prospects do not appear promising. With 2012 shaping up to be one filled with turbulent politics in both countries, the focus of President Obama and Prime Minister Singh will continue to remain inward.

India-US Relations Blog

A Marshall Plan for South Asia

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The war of words between the United States and Pakistan in recent weeks has put in stark relief the two core strategic conundrums Washington has vis-à-vis Islamabad, as well as the integral role India plays in both of them. The first is to encourage a more constructive Pakistani approach in Afghanistan, which Islamabad regards as a theater for its endemic rivalry with New Delhi. The second is to steer a nuclear-armed but deeply dysfunctional Pakistan away from failed state status, a harrowing prospect that many believe is all too plausible unless Islamabad is convinced that its prospering neighbor to the East actually represents an economic opportunity rather than an existential threat.

The Obama administration entered office believing that Pakistani cooperation on Afghanistan was a function of addressing its acute security anxieties regarding India. Two weeks before the November 2008 election, Barack Obama declared that resolving the perennially-inflamed dispute over the Kashmir region was one of the “critical tasks” for U.S. foreign policy and worthy of “serious diplomatic resources.” It was a valid observation but the manner in which Washington pursued it guaranteed a quick failure. Moves to appoint a turbo-charged envoy (in the person of Richard Holbrooke) with the mandate of mediating the Kashmir issue– similar to U.S. efforts to broker the Middle East peace talks – met with Pakistani approval but proved too much for the sovereignty-conscious Indians to accept.

For the past three years, Washington has struggled to find a way to bring the two sides together and focus them on their common interests. Fortunately, the parties may have found one themselves. Despite the obvious displays of mutual suspicion in both capitals, a consensus is growing in the two countries – especially evident in their business communities – that the time has come for a more normalized relationship.

After a three-year hiatus caused by the 2008 terrorist strikes in Mumbai, India and Pakistan have restarted their peace dialogue. In July, Pakistan’s new foreign minister, the 34-year-old Hina Rabbani Khar, held unexpectedly warm talks in New Delhi, where she emphasized that a “mind-set change” was occurring among younger Indians and Pakistanis. Last month, for the first time in 35 years, Pakistan’s commerce minister visited New Delhi, bringing with him a notably large business delegation. The trip was especially productive. The two countries pledged to more than double their two-way trade flows – to the $6 billion annual level – by 2015. They agreed to ease visa rules for business travel and to open a new customs post at the Wagah border crossing that lies midway between Lahore and Amritsar. Islamabad also committed to extending “most favored nation” trade status to New Delhi, reciprocating the status India earlier conferred upon Pakistan. This last development promises to enliven the 2006 South Asia Free Trade Agreement which up until this point has been all but a dead letter. India’s commerce minister, Anand Sharma, captured the spirit of the meeting when he exclaimed that “only shared prosperity can bring lasting peace.”

The annals of India-Pakistan relations are filled with numerous false dawns and the current moves toward greater economic engagement could well founder upon the sharp historical animosities that regularly bedevil bilateral affairs. But things may be different this time. Reports out of Islamabad indicate that the Pakistani government realizes the country is in desperate economic straits and that closer ties with India constitute a much needed lifeline. The military establishment is also said to understand that the eastern border needs to be stabilized so resources can be focused on combating rising internal security threats.

If enhanced trade ties were to develop between South Asia’s largest economies, they would produce significant economic and (eventually) security dividends for both countries. Despite the common civilizational and historical bonds that permeate South Asia, as well as the unified market forged by the British Raj, the region today is remarkably fragmented economically. Trade flows between India and Pakistan, for instance, represent a miniscule fraction of each country’s overall trade portfolio.

Wagah is the only vehicle crossing along the 1,800-mile-long international border. The two-lane road there is only open a mere eight hours a day and the cargo that passes through it must be unloaded and transferred to local trucks. Indeed, the crossing, which some refer to as the “Checkpoint Charlie of South Asia,” is better known for the Kabuki-like displays put on by the border guards than as an efficient transit point.

The pervasive barriers to bilateral economic cooperation have also spurred circuitous and highly inefficient trade patterns. A booming India requires cement for its construction sector yet is forced to import it from Africa instead of Pakistan, where the cement industry has excess capacity. Off-the-books trade – the value of which easily rivals official levels – is also conducted via third countries like Dubai, Singapore and Afghanistan. According to various studies, a more liberalized trade regime would increase bilateral exchange at least 20 times above current figures as well as boost economic prosperity in both countries.

The Obama administration would do well to reinforce the current stirrings by launching a Marshall Plan-like initiative geared toward the expansion of cross-border economic linkages between the two countries. One of the keys to the Marshall Plan’s far-reaching success was the major financial inducement it gave European countries devastated by World War II to frame their economic futures in conjunction with their neighbors. By putting an emphasis on reconstruction projects that crossed national frontiers, it was an important catalyst for the historic reconciliation between France and Germany and paved the way for the deep economic integration embodied in today’s European Union.

A similar vision should inspire a U.S. effort to bolster cross-border economic cooperation between India and Pakistan. This initiative would be aimed at helping the two countries, on a joint basis, upgrade and expand the meager transportation infrastructure presenting connecting them. It would support projects that increase road and rail linkages, as well as the number and capacity of customs posts. It would help provide resources for modernized seaport facilities that enable more two-way trade. And with each country plagued by chronic power shortages, it would help bankroll cross-border energy projects such as joint electrical grids or the proposed natural gas pipeline connecting Central and South Asia via Afghanistan.

This effort would dovetail well with the “New Silk Road” initiative that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced in Chennai this past July, to foster the economic integration of Central and South Asia. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was born in what is now Pakistan, has spoken eloquently of the powerful role stronger economic linkages can play in bridging South Asia’s deep political fissures. In early 2007, he spelled out his vision for regional integration:

“I dream of a day when, while retaining our respective identities, one can have breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul. That was how my forefathers lived. That is how I want our grandchildren to live.”

For his part, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has even expressed the hope that India and Pakistan could one day join together in an economically-unified zone like the EU.

The original Marshall Plan entailed a staggering sum of money – well over $100 billion in today’s terms – and an austerity-minded U.S. Congress would certainly balk at any scheme with a similar price tag. But the initiative outlined here need only entail a modest level of expenditures – say, $50-75 million per year over a five-year period – and could be paid for by redirecting funding already authorized under the 2009 Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act. Better known as the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill, the act provides $1.5 billion annually in non-military assistance to Pakistan through 2013. But due to a variety of factors, much of its economic development funds remain unspent.

To avoid potential concerns in New Delhi and Islamabad that Washington might try to extract diplomatic concessions from specific funding decisions, resources could be routed through the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank, where professional staff would assess the viability and impact of proposals submitted jointly by the two countries and make final judgments on which projects go forward. Additional countries, such as those assembled by Secretary Clinton in New York last month to discuss the New Silk Road plan, also could be invited to contribute resources.

Obviously, this initiative offers no magic bullet for transforming the singular intensity of the India-Pakistan strategic rivalry. But it would be a creative investment in nurturing promising developments already underway in both countries, which if they take root over the long term would help lead to a game-changing situation in South Asia: One in which Islamabad looks upon New Delhi more as a partner than as an outright enemy. If such a development came to pass, U.S. interests in the region would be vastly easier to safeguard than they are today.

Defence And Strategic Affairs Blog

Afghanistan Antagonists

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Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Afghan President Hamid Karzai

India has begun maneuvering to fill the potential power vacuum in Afghanistan.

As an earlier post argued, the quickening U.S. disengagement from the Afghan conflict that President Obama signaled four months ago will inevitably spark an intense regional scrimmage for influence as that country’s neighbors scramble to fill the resulting vacuum. The last few weeks have witnessed India making its opening moves in this jockeying by signing a strategic partnership agreement with Afghanistan and by repairing strained relations with Iran.

The strategic partnership that India and Afghanistan sealed last week – the first of its kind that Kabul has entered into – will significantly enhance New Delhi’s profile in Afghanistan. The arrangement provides for increased cooperation in counter-terrorism operations, as well as for expanded Indian training and equipping of Afghan security forces. It opens the development of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth (which may be worth nearly $1 trillion) and newly-discovered hydrocarbon resources to Indian companies. New Delhi also pledged to work with Iran to develop trade routes to Afghanistan that bypass Pakistan. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who signed the agreement during a two-day trip to New Delhi – his second visit this year – praised India as a “steadfast friend and supporter” of his country, while Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh promised that India would “stand by the people of Afghanistan” even after the 2014 pull-out of U.S. and NATO forces.

Although Karzai insists that the partnership is not directed against Pakistani interests, it coincides with a serious deterioration of relations between Kabul and Islamabad. In the past week, the Afghan government has accused Pakistan of being behind the September 20th assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, Karzai’s chief envoy to the fledgling peace negotiations with the Taliban, as well as a foiled plot to kill Karzai himself. Standing in New Delhi, Karzai termed Pakistan a “twin brother” to his own country, but that was hardly enough to disguise the fact that his government was openly spurning Pakistan’s professions of friendship in favor of a wide-ranging covenant with its arch-nemesis.

The partnership underscores that New Delhi, unlike Washington, has no exit strategy in Afghanistan. Since the start of the Afghan conflict ten years ago this month, India has emerged as the country’s largest regional donor. It has invested more than $1 billion in assistance, mainly in infrastructure and development projects, including constructing the new parliament building in Kabul. It has also undertaken small-scale training of the country’s police, army leadership and bureaucrats. Prime Minister Singh traveled to Kabul this past May seeking to broaden India’s engagement. There he unveiled a significant expansion of Indian aid, committing an additional $500 million over the next few years.

Besides shoring up the precarious Karzai government, New Delhi is also moving to patch up strategic ties with Tehran, whose interests in Afghanistan are roughly congruent. India has traditionally relied upon Iran to help blunt Pakistan’s influence in Central Asia and to serve as a bridge to trade and energy opportunities there.  Relations between New Delhi and Tehran have been strained for the past few years as India, at America’s behest, supported several international censures of the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Prime Minister Singh turned down a number of invitations for a state visit to Tehran, and his government engaged in a convoluted exercise to avoid having Indian payments for crucial energy imports from Iran run afoul of U.S. sanctions against Tehran.

Yet the prospect of a geopolitical vacuum in Afghanistan is driving the two countries closer again. Singh met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly annual conclave in New York last month and pointedly accepted a renewed invitation to visit Tehran in the near future. The two countries have also established a new payments mechanism for Iranian oil exports and are setting up a joint commission to explore even closer economic and security links.

Pakistan has long considered Afghanistan to be its strategic backyard. With so much of its national security posture driven by an obsessive focus on India, Islamabad is bound to regard New Delhi’s growing involvement there as a grave provocation. Pakistan regularly charges (see here and here) that India is using its large diplomatic presence in Afghanistan to funnel covert support to separatists in the restive province of Baluchistan, and the new India-Afghanistan partnership will be taken as further confirmation that New Delhi is intent on encircling and dissecting the country. Likewise, the renewed coordination between New Delhi and Tehran will be interpreted as a return to the role they played a decade, when their support for the Northern Alliance helped frustrate the Taliban regime. (Indeed, there are increasing signs that the remnants of the old anti-Taliban movement are being reconstituted.)

Given the region’s geopolitical dynamics, India has strong strategic interests in ensuring that any government in Kabul is capable enough to be a bulwark against Pakistan. And so India’s maneuvers are predictable enough. Inevitable, too, is the blowback from Islamabad. The nascent thaw in bilateral relations that has developed in the wake of the mid-July visit to New Delhi by Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar is now in jeopardy. Also expect increased attacks by Pakistan-based jihadis targeting Indian interests in Afghanistan, like the bombings of the Indian embassy in Kabul in July 2008 that killed 58 people, including the Indian defense attaché, and in October 2009 that left 17 Afghans dead.

India-US Relations Blog

Blowing hot and cold

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As many news reports noted, the past week was significant just for the numbers of Indian ministers in the United States at a given point in time. However, the more did not necessarily make the merrier.

cdn.wn.comNo less than nine members of the Indian Council of Ministers were in the US, including the primus inter pares, PM Manmohan Singh. The PM was in the  U.S. to address a session of the UN General Assembly and  his speech was notable, as one commentator put it, for its reference to “old ideological positions and  old constitutencies,” meant to signal his “disappointment with the West.” The PM seemed to emphasise the point by having a bilateral meeting with an old foe of the West, Iranian President Ahmedinajad, an event described by another commentator as a virtual affront to the United States. What India has to be disappointed about is unclear, and whether the disappointment will be followed up with distancing remains to be seen. Whether that is the most appropriate strategy is also moot in the rapidly changing global scenario.

Many of the Ministers, from Commerce to Power, to Finance were in the U.S. to drum up investment for mega- infrastructure projects back home. There were the usual assortment of think tank reports and seminars that usually coincide with such ministerial visits, but increasingly, they offer only new wine in old bottles, reflecting the current stalemate, if not slump, in relations.  An address by the recently promoted Deputy Secretary William J Burns at the Brookings Institution was even titled “Is there a Future for the US-India Partnership?”

Commerce Minister Anand Sharma made a valiant effort to break the logjam on the Totalization Agreement issue but came a cropper. This issue has been attacked from various angles, having earlier being piloted by the Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs. Mr Sharma made the point to his interlocutors that there was no reason not to sign an agreement with India pleading incompatibility between social security systems since India had signed totalisation agreements with many European countries  with which the U.S. had an agreement but this argument cut no ice.  This was not surprising since Under Secretary Blake had made it clear in his last read-out on US-India relations that the U.S. was in no mood to transfer over a billion dollars to India in the current economic mess it found itself in. There was also talk of progress made on a Bilateral Investment Treaty, even though it is almost as if when one side blows hot, the other side blows cold.

The other legs of the relationship, business and the diaspora, can, at best only play a supporting role, and are to an extent affected by the buffeting winds of the strategic relationship. The India-US CEOs forum also held its annual meeting in Washington this past week, but has increasingly less to show for being such a high-powered gathering. While India has a ready-made constituency in the U.S. in the form of the Indian Diaspora, Hillary Clinton’s public diplomacy initiatives are beginning to show results at least in India, with U.S. embassies and missions making all out efforts to engage with the average Indian through all the resources available from   social media to innovative meetups titled Charcha, Chai aur Coffee. The American Center in Delhi even provides a venue for Startup Saturday, a forum for young entrepreneurs to come together to share and learn from each other.

The blow hot, blow cold phase of the relationship into which we have entered seems set to continue into the foreseeable future with, as William Burns himself admitted in his speech, both governments distracted and pulled in different direction by a combination of domestic and external issues.