WASHINGTON: On the eve of Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to India on Sunday, 180 Congressmen and 40 Senators have written angry, accusatory, India specific letters to President Obama and Kerry virtually asking them to sanction New Delhi if it cannot be brought to heel on a raft of issues? These range from the Indian government's decision to buy certain IT and clean energy equipment only from domestic firms, to court decisions on life-saving drugs that Washington sees as violation of intellectual property norms.
"We urge you to press for swift action and make clear to your Indian counterparts that the United States will consider all trade tools at its disposal if India does not end its discriminatory practices," lawmakers, primed by industry pressure groups, sternly told the administration in an unprecedented letter, even as US businesses launched something called an "Alliance for fair trade with India," a pressure lobby of the kind they have not put together even against China.
It turns out that the United States and India have much to disagree about on the margins of the strategic dialogue, although the good news is that they will do so without being disagreeable. Beneath all the broad smiles and bonhomie, there will be much grinding of teeth as both sides push back at each other in the trade and economic sphere, the US intent extending its economic primacy and India determined to ensure that does not happen at the expense of its people. On its part, India has already indicated that it will not be browbeaten. "We are not going to lie down and play dead," one Indian official said at a background briefing on the visit.
While the strategic dialogue has been frontloaded with this unprecedented attack on India from Congress and industry over trade ties, bickering over economy and commerce are not the only wrinkles. New Delhi has deep misgivings over the speed and manner in which Washington has allowed Taliban, Pakistan's proxy in Afhganis, to come to the negotiating table in Doha, with prospect of a power grab in Kabul.
The move jeopardizes Indian equities in Afghanistan, and Kerry's statement that "US and India share a strong and enduring commitment to Afghanistan's peace and prosperity" sounds lame judging by the speed with which Washington is abandoning Kabul, leaving New Delhi holding the can. Mercifully for India, Kerry spiked a proposed Pakistan leg of this visit, which had raised the bogey of a re-hyphenation following a sell-out to Pakistan over Taliban, although Indian officials said they had not made this an issue. Kerry will go to Pakistan next month, US officials said, even as the media pack accompanying him was more interested in his stopover in Doha, where he will discuss the Syria and the upcoming dialogue with Taliban.
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