Foreign Policy In Focus Special Report: Nationalist Ideologies and Misperceptions in Indo-US Relations

By Arun Swamy
Arun Swamy is a visiting Assistant Professor and Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Oberlin College's Politics Department.

The most prominent story in U.S. coverage of President Clinton’s March 2000 visit to India was the public rebuke issued to him by India’s ceremonial head of state, President K. Narayanan. At an official banquet Narayanan broke with protocol to chide Clinton for describing South Asia as “the most dangerous place on earth,” charging that such remarks would encourage the very violence Clinton feared. Oddly, though, Indian reporting of the event focused more on the tenor of U.S. reporting than on the remarks themselves. The difference reflected a contrast between the tones of American and Indian coverage that, though the reverse of what one would expect, confirms the very different perspectives of the U.S. and India on this chronically troubled relationship. American coverage was somber, focusing on Clinton's failure to convince India to give up nuclear weapons. In India, where this outcome was never in doubt, reporting was more upbeat, seeing a belated American acquiescence to India’s nuclear status and role in world affairs.

In foreign policy, misperception is seen as a source of conflict. At times, though, India-U.S. relations suggest the opposite. Periods of increasing contact occur when each side believes the other has finally accepted its view of the world. When nothing turns out to have changed, relations between the world’s “two largest democracies” revert to testy indifference. If the current flirtation proves different, it will be because the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India has brought a different mindset to foreign policymaking.

Mainstream Indian nationalism, represented by the once-dominant Congress party, was shaped by the experience of racial discrimination and economic exploitation under British colonialism. It consequently identified India’s interests with the third world at large and emphasized economic and technological self-reliance. Moreover, the gradual pace by which British colonial power expanded from ports granted by local rulers led to the conclusion that even small concessions on sovereignty, such as granting bases to seemingly benign powers, would lead to foreign domination. British India’s abysmal record on poverty—even compared to independent India’s mediocre one—makes it easy for Indian nationalists to defend this concern about sovereignty against charges that military expenditures hurt the poor. For the Congress party, though, formal recognition of the equality of sovereign states is as important as military strength.

For the rival “Hindu nationalist” tradition of the BJP, India’s humiliation at the hands of foreigners began in the 13th century when Islamic kingdoms were established in the subcontinent by central Asian conquerors. The BJP is therefore both less inclined to identify India’s national interest with the third world generally and more concerned with military power as a means for preserving sovereignty. This difference was reflected in the past in, for example, a more sympathetic attitude toward Israel, and it shaped the twin decisions to conduct the first nuclear tests since 1974 and then to negotiate nuclear policy with the United States.

India’s foreign policy shift is not from a moralistic or reflexively anti-American Congress party policy to a pragmatic or pro-American BJP one. Congress governments have often used force to obtain their goals, were influenced by the desire for guns and oil in shaping their policies toward the Soviet Union and Iraq, and have made concessions to Washington in return for aid. The difference lies in the means the Congress party and the BJP choose to pursue India’s interests in the global arena. The Congress party has sought to change the rules of the international game and to create broad third world coalitions, believing that India’s interests could only be safeguarded through collective action. The BJP is more inclined to try to improve India’s position within the existing rules and to strike opportunistic bilateral deals to India’s advantage, even if they are not favored by developing countries generally.

The danger is that the Clinton administration could misperceive India’s foreign policy shift. The BJP is willing to make small shifts in exchange for specific concessions. Even in this, it faces resistance both from a Congress-led opposition that controls the upper house of parliament and from suspicions of U.S. intentions among the Indian elite. Dissatisfaction with what was seen as a weak-kneed Congress approach to the West after 1991 helped the BJP come to power, and Indian excitement after the 1998 nuclear tests was as much due to the act of defiance they represented as to any attachment to nuclear weapons themselves.

Origins of the Congress and BJP

Modern Indian nationalism began in 1885 when the Indian National Congress was founded by members of a new professional elite of Indians educated in English. The early Congress party focused on equal opportunity and political representation for educated Indians and did not demand independence until the 1920s. Under “Mahatma” Gandhi, the Congress party developed links to the peasantry and sought to reassure minorities. It dominated politics until the 1990s, losing power briefly in 1977 and 1989. India’s electoral system allowed the Congress to win parliamentary majorities with less than half the vote, as long as the opposition was divided.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) grows out of a rival nationalist stream that emphasized Hindu cultural regeneration. The principal vehicle for this cultural revival, the National Volunteer Corps (RSS), founded the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, an electoral party that was anticommunist, procapitalist, favored promoting a single national culture, called for a stronger military (including nuclear weapons), and was especially militant in its opposition to Pakistan. It merged with other opposition parties in 1977 to defeat the Congress party. The resulting Janata Party broke up in 1979, but Jana Sangh politicians, legitimated by the experience, attracted many conservative politicians who were not Hindu nationalists to a new party, the BJP. The BJP became the principal opposition party in 1991 and formed a coalition government in 1998.

Nationalist Ideologies and Misperceptions in India-US Relations

Nationalist Ideologies and Misperceptions
in India-US Relations