World’s oldest and largest democracies,
have so much in common. Though the history we share is not that great but still
the future seems much more opulent and optimistic. It won’t be incorrect to dub
India as the Asia’s budding America (those who don’t concur with this sentence
must know that the USA became independent 240 years ago and we got the gush of
independence just 69 years ago). The way our nation in progressing ahead,
breaking all the stereotypical barriers of past is matter of envy to all the
nations around the world and the pace we are recording day by day in our growth
is truly reaching paradigm level. The GDP growth of 7.6% in the previous
quarters truly proves the potential our various economic sectors especially
manufacturing and designing sector has and truly envisages a bright journey
ahead. Though even today a lot needs to be done but still coming up to the
league of top nations around the world and matching up to the standards of the
United States as well as other super powers in big deal for a nation which has
long way to even reach the centenary of independence.
The 21st century is going to
be the century of three nations India, the United States of America and
People’s Republic of China. All the three nations’ peace of growth is a paragon
and the signs ahead even cue towards a much more holistic growth of the three
nations. This century is also a century of togetherness. It’s clear that no country
can ever develop in this century in an insular atmosphere and as all the
nations have already realized the fact a long ago, everyone is busy looking up
strategically for partners which can help their growth. While talking about the
three fast growing above mentioned nations, one can easily deduce that
permutation China with either India or the United States has never been a
cordial and developmental one and hence for both the US and India, there leaves
only one combination and more propitiously, this combination is favored by the
both the nations and is much more useful and powerful that than of any other
nations.
It all started after the Indian
Independence. Politically, economically and strategically the world had two big
powers the United States of American and the USSR. The cold war was marred by
complete bipartisanship of the world leading to low trade and also numerous
number of problems in various facets of relations. As our nation went on to
take the NAM (Non Aligned Movement), the India US partnership never came up,
because of the strategic conditions of that time. Time went on and the
relationship remained cold, things deteriorated further during the time of
Richard Nixon and after him the relationship didn’t take up until the end of
the previous century. When the relationship started taking up again, India’s
nuclear test, again set the things out of motion and everything came to a
stalemate, but finally as time went by, today the US recognizes that it need a
top regional power cooperation in Asia and India too has much to do with the
United States.
Keeping aside the political relationships, our relationship go
back to days immemorial. Swami Vivekananda promoted Yoga and Vedanta in America at the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago, during the World's Fair in 1893. Mark Twain visited India in 1896 and described it in his travelogue Following the Equator with both revulsion and attraction
before concluding that India was the only foreign land he dreamed about or
longed to see again. Mahatma
Gandhi had an important influence
on the philosophy of non-violence promoted by Martin
Luther King, Jr. in the 1950s.
In the 1930s and early 1940s the United States gave
very strong support to the Indian independence movement in defiance of the British
Empire. The first significant
immigration from India before 1965 involved Sikh farmers going to California in
the early 20th century.
Everything changed in World War
Two, when India became the main base for the American China Burma India Theater(CBI)
in the war against Japan. Tens of thousands of American servicemen arrived,
bringing all sorts of advanced technology, and money; they left in 1945.
Serious tension erupted over American demands, led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, that India be given independence, a proposition Prime
Minister Winston Churchill vehemently rejected. For years Roosevelt had encouraged
Britain's disengagement from India. The American position was based on
principled opposition to colonialism, practical concern for the outcome of the
war, and the expectation of a large American role in a post-colonial era.
However, in 1942 when the Indian
National Congress launched a Quit
India movement, the British authorities immediately
arrested tens of thousands of activists. Meanwhile, India became the main
American staging base for aid to China. Churchill threatened to resign if
Roosevelt pushed too hard, so Roosevelt backed down.
But after independence the things
could not go right, as I mentioned above due to various inevitable and ineludible
circumstances. Though the charismatic Sir. John F Kennedy, the former US
president did a lot to help India but soon after his assassination everything
changed and the destruction of relationship only aggravated but with the dawn
of this century came a new revival of the relationship.
Soon after Atal Bihari Vajpayee became Indian Prime Minister, he
authorised nuclear weapons
testing at Pokhran. The United States strongly
condemned this testing, promised sanctions, and voted in favour of a United Nations Security Council Resolution condemning the tests.
President Bill Clinton imposed economic sanctions on India, including cutting off all
military and economic aid, freezing loans by American banks to state-owned
Indian companies, prohibiting loans to the Indian government for all except
food purchases, prohibiting American aerospace technology and uranium exports
to India, and requiring the US to oppose all loan requests by India to
international lending agencies. However, these sanctions proved ineffective
- India was experiencing a strong economic rise, and its trade with the US only
constituted a small portion of its GDP.
Only Japan joined the US in imposing direct
sanctions, while most other nations continued to trade with India. The
sanctions were soon lifted. Afterward, the Clinton administration and Prime
Minister Vajpayee exchanged representatives to help rebuild relations.
India emerged, in the
21st century, as increasingly vital to core US foreign policy interests. India,
a dominant actor in its region, and the home of more than one billion citizens,
is now often characterized as a nascent Great Power and an "indispensable
partner" of the US, one that many analysts view as a potential
counterweight to the growing clout of China.
In March 2000, U.S.
President Bill Clinton visited India, undertaking bilateral
and economic discussions with Prime Minister Vajpayee. During the visit, the Indo-US Science & Technology Forum was established.
Over the course of
improved diplomatic relations with the Bush Administration, India agreed to
allow close international monitoring of its nuclear weapons development,
although it has refused to give up its current nuclear arsenal.
After the September
11 attacks against the US in
2001, President George W. Bush collaborated closely with India in
controlling and policing the strategically critical Indian Ocean sea lanes from the Suez Canal to Singapore.
Since
2004, Washington and New Delhi have been pursuing a "strategic
partnership" that is based on shared values and generally convergent
geopolitical interests. Numerous economic, security, and global initiatives -
including plans for civilian nuclear cooperation - are underway. This latter
initiative, first launched in 2005, reversed three decades of American non-proliferation
policy. Also in 2005, the United States and India signed a ten-year defence
framework agreement, with the goal of expanding bilateral security cooperation.
The two countries engaged in numerous and unprecedented combined military
exercises, and major US arms sales to India were concluded.
After George W. Bush, the Obama
Administration has left no stone unturned in changing the way the two nations
interact. Mr. Obama visited India in the November 2010 and also addressed the
joint session of Indian parliament in which he bolstered India’s stand for a
seat in United Nations Security Council (UNSC). In his administration only the
US cleared $1.2 billion sale of P-8
Poseidons to India while the General F414 engines and C-17 Military aircraft
sale to India established the US as one of the top three military suppliers to
India. US military too has its ties with Indian military by carry through
various defence engagement programs. US
Undersecretary of State William
Joseph Burns also said, "Never has there been a moment when India
and America mattered more to each other."
Today India imports
commodities worth $20.5 billion from America. The imports include machinery,
military equipment, aircraft etc. and on the other hand America too benefits a
lot from us. It imports from India almost double the amount of its export. It
imports things worth $46.6 billion. The United States is also India's largest
investment partner, with a direct investment of $9 billion.
This is just a short
overview of the great relations between the two countries. The need to today,
for both the nations, is to strike the right chords because this partnership is
the authentic partnership of the 21st century and both the nations
must move ahead with this great resonance.
JAI HIND, JAI BHARAT
JAI MA BHARTI
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