A piece of good news that came last week concerned the US Congress passing an India-specific waiver to CAATSA (Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) sanctions for purchasing the Russian S-400 missile system. Given that the US has sanctioned Turkey and China under CAATSA—Turkey for buying the S-400—the sanctions waiver to India is a hugely positive step and will help in the deepening of India-US relations at a time when the hegemon from the east, People’s Republic of China, is casting its malign shadow on the rest of the world. The S-400 is considered the best in its class of missile systems and India needs it to secure its borders against China and Pakistan. The US had been making noises against India’s purchase of the system, but India did not budge from its stand, given its own security concerns. It cannot be a sitting duck at a time when China is believed to be deploying the S-400 along the Line of Actual Control. And though the amendment needs to go a few more steps before it gets the final nod, now that the waiver has got bipartisan support in the US Congress, it is being assumed that understanding of India’s position is growing in the US.
If the US had gone ahead with its sanctions against India, it would have been a strange situation where Washington would have taken punitive measures against a country with which it has signed four foundational agreements for defence intelligence cooperation, a country with which it has a global strategic partnership, and has bilateral cooperation covering a wide range of areas—from defence and security to trade (worth more than $20 billion and growing) and investment, cyber security, civil nuclear energy, space technology, and environment and health, among many others. These two countries have more than 50 government to government dialogue mechanisms, apart from having major people to people relations. Apart from being “major defence partners”, India and the US are also natural partners as the world’s two most consequential democracies. Then of course, there is the Quad, where India is fundamental to US’ Indo-Pacific strategy. There cannot be a Quad without India, an economic and military powerhouse that is a counter to China. Of all the Quad partners, India is the only nation to share a land border with PRC, with which it is currently locked in an eyeball to eyeball standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). It has a major role to play in keeping the sea lanes in the Strait of Malacca region open and in a sign of deepening partnership, has already offered refuelling facility to US military aircraft in Andaman and Nicobar Islands. In fact, there has been a suggestion of making the Andaman and Nicobar Islands the operational base of the Quad, given their proximity to the Strait of Malacca. And all this is just scratching the surface of the increasing convergence between the two nations on matters bilateral, regional and global.
The US ran the risk of jeopardizing all this and much more by sanctioning India, apart from pushing New Delhi into the arms of Moscow to sustain its military needs. That Democrat Ro Khanna pushed the sanctions waiver amendment, should indicate that the shove to “embrace” India is coming from the highest levels. This “volte face” has to be seen in the context of Ro Khanna’s diatribe against the current Indian government and his identification with the anti-Hindutva cause in recent years. The only Democrats who voted against the waiver were all a part of the group known as the “Squad” and comprise leftist radicals such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the pro-Pakistan Islamist, Ilhan Omar—people who have been voicing their “concern” about the state of the minorities in India, although, in Ilhan’s case, not making a peep about the persecution of minorities in Pakistan when visiting that country.
This brings us to the larger question of the recent sanctimonious lectures that India has been getting from the likes of Antony Blinken. The US Secretary of State has been making unsolicited comments on the human rights situation in India, thus adding fuel to the spurious narrative of India’s backsliding on democratic values. It is again his department’s USCIRF (United States Commission on International Religious Freedom) that has been wanting the US government to label India as a country of particular concern, just as Ilhan Omar has been doing. And then take the non-stop diatribe against India in the western legacy media, leading some analysts to wonder if it was pressure tactics by some unseen hands to make India bend and do their bidding. That India withstood all this pressure and stayed firmly focused on its own security and that of the Indo-Pacific, is a matter of credit to the Indian establishment. But India can do without the needless needling. It is time to cut out the noise and concentrate on deepening India-US strategic cooperation and tackle the biggest threat on the horizon, the PRC.