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Reset Relations
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Some deep introspection could reset India-US ties on a positive track |
President Barak Obama flanked by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and
Foreign Minister S.M.Krishna
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Pravin Sawhney and Ghazala Wahab
Had someone read Ralph Waldo Emerson’s thoughts on ‘self-reliance’ to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on 17 July 2005 when he sat undecided in Washington’s Willard hotel suite wondering how to ward off US pressure on the bilateral nuclear deal, he would have spared himself unwanted anxiety, India unnecessary compromises on its national security, and waded the relationship away to India’s advantage rather than allow the US to set the agenda of seeking a tight embrace. ‘To believe your own thoughts, to believe what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, that is genius,’ said the American essayist on virtues of soul-searching.
That fateful evening, his impetuous foreign minister, Natwar Singh kept goading
him to agree on the nuclear deal, which Manmohan Singh said he would have
difficulty in selling back home.
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His intuition was counselling him to not go that far; it was clear that the US’
prime motive was non-proliferation and not to help India become a major power.
While the Prime Minister has not said so, his concerns then were that India had
not decided what it eventually wanted out of this unequal partnership. Moreover,
he had not informed the cabinet committee on security and the government
coalition partners about the historic document in Washington. Sensing Singh’s
reluctance, even US President George W. Bush was reconciled to the slow pace of
growing bilateral relationship. But, the US secretary of state, Condoleezza
Rice, the architect of the game-changing plan was not happy. With help from
Natwar Singh she managed to meet and persuade the Prime Minister to sign the
bilateral framework document on 18 July 2005. This has been written by Rice in
her recently released memoir: No Higher Honour. |
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