Running with hare & hunting with hounds by S M Hali

Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has just concluded a “successful” visit to Moscow, where he negotiated a multibillion-dollar arms deal, met the Russian President and Prime Minister and sealed a new civilian nuclear deal with Russia — which the Indian press hailed as even more advantageous than India’s similar technology-sharing agreement with the U.S.
Manmohan Singh told a Russian news channel, “We have been able to get equipment and technologies from Russia which were not available to us from any other countries.” This visit comes at the heels of Manmohan Singh’s visit to Washington, where President Obama rolled out the proverbial red carpet and hosted his first state dinner. President Barack Obama declared the U.S. partnership with India to be one of the defining relationships of the 21st century. The statement came on the occasion of the state dinner, where more than 330 guests attended the event, which was held in an elaborate tent on the White House lawn, instead of the usual location for such events, the much smaller State Dining Room. During the course of his visit, Dr. Manmohan Singh stressed on several key issues, including how Pakistan has not done enough to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack to book; prospects of the finalization of the Indo-US civil-nuclear cooperation deal that has been on the negotiating table for more than four years; how he expected the Obama White House to view India; his assessment of what has caused the global financial meltdown and how India has coped with it; and his views on India and China emerging as the economic power players of the Asian region. India’s founding Prime Minister Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru’s vision was of a “non-aligned” India. But the 21st Century India is a “most-aligned” India, an India which sells its soul to all and sundry for advantages. It dumped its traditional friends the Arabs for commercial advantages with Israel. India joined the U.S. and 24 other countries in voting to censure Iran’s nuclear program at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna on Nov. 27. This was the third time India had voted for a similar resolution, because India didn’t want to jeopardize its own safeguards agreement with the IAEA, so it dumped its erstwhile friend Iran. The Indian Defense Ministry has announced a massive modernization program estimated to cost as much as $100 billion over the next decade. Russia has long been India’s biggest defense supplier, but the civilian nuclear deals and safeguards agreement that India has signed with several countries opens the doors for U.S. and European companies to win some of that massive spending. The most closely watched deal will be the Indian Air Force’s planned purchase of 126 multi-role combat aircraft, a contract worth about $10 billion. The IAF has recently begun its field tests of the six finalists, who represent India’s old and new allies. In the running are Russia’s MiG35, Boeing’s FA-18, Lockheed’s F-16 and fighter jets from EADS, Dassault and Saab. This is the biggest single tender ever floated by the Indian military, and the decision will be influenced as much by geopolitics as by technical superiority. During the U.S. visit to Washington, Dr. Manmohan Singh made the right noises about Pakistan and Kashmir. On the eve of his visit, he announced the withdrawal of a number of troops from Kashmir, assured his hosts that Pakistan had nothing to fear from India and his Minister of State for External Affairs, Shahshi Tharoor went to the extent of stating that India was not worried about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. Of course all these comments scored brownie points with Washington. At the Kremlin, Manmohan Singh held talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedevon, as the two countries signed deals on nuclear energy and arms sales. India and Russia signed a raft of agreements, including one on cooperation in civilian atomic energy and another on the nuclear fuel import, which would guarantee unhindered supply of uranium for Indian reactors and the right to reprocess spent fuel. Russia is already building two nuclear power units in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu and has agreed to install four more nuclear reactors there as part of an agreement signed during Medvedev’s visit to India last year. Russia’s state-owned nuclear power firm Rosatom could build up to 20 nuclear power units in India in all, including four to six in the state of West Bengal. The visit also reportedly ended a spat over India’s purchase of a retired Soviet aircraft carrier, the 44,570-tonne warship, the Admiral Gorshkov, which has yet to be delivered amid delays and cost overruns in its refurbishment. India’s plans to acquire it have turned into a headache for New Delhi, with Moscow in 2007 demanding an additional 1.2 billion dollars to cover repairs of the 30-year-old ship. On the return flight from Moscow to New Delhi, Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said India and Russia were perturbed regarding the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. Both allies were concerned that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons would fall in the hands of the terrorists and threaten the region and the world. This was a direct flip over from the statement made by India in Washington. We notice that India is willing to change its stance at the drop of a hat, if it sees its own advantage, even if it necessitates backtracking on its previously stated position on regional issues. Its allies must see through its duplicity. Every country, with ethnocentric views, keeps its own priorities as the focus of its options. However, India is willing to change its options, even if sees a wee bit of advantage anywhere. Cognizance must be taken of India’s flip-flop according to the circumstances. Every nation keeps its own priorities in mind while negotiating with others, but in its endeavour for brinkmanship, India appears to have perfected the art of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.

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