Monday, November 24, 2008
Pramit Pal Chaudhuri
India is among the few dozen countries, largely clustered in Asia and Africa, where sentiment in favor of the United States actually rose during the administration of George W. Bush. Nonetheless, more Indians favored the election of Barack Obama than they did John McCain. What explains this seeming contradiction?
At the heart of the Bush administration's success with India was a belief that India was a nation whose rise was beneficial to US interests. This led Bush to seek to adjust the international order to India's benefit, most notably by negotiating an exemption from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty for India. The net result was a closer Indo-US relationship and a positive view of Bush that overrode unpopular actions such as invading Iraq.
Obama's election - the success of a member of a non-white minority in the world's oldest democratic polity - has seized the imagination of many Indians. He is exhorted in the media and among the intellectual classes. Among the most fervent supporters of Obama in the US have been the nearly 3 million-strong Indian-American community. "You can't swing a dead cat in the Obama camp without hitting an Indian-American," said an Obama adviser.
In the run up to the election, many Indians could not believe that an African-American would ever be chosen to reside in the White House. His election inevitably enhanced the standing of the US as a land of genuine opportunity, a nation whose multicultural credentials were as great if not better than polyglot and poly-ethnic India.
The greatest skepticism about an Obama presidency lies among the Indian strategic elite, who are focused on promoting India's economic and political interests in the wider world. They found an ally in that cause in Bush. Whatever Obama's ethnic credentials, India's government has detected in his statements reason to believe that he will be less supportive than Bush.
First, India is wary that any Democratic administration will include the same proponents of nuclear non-proliferation who opposed Bush's exemption for India. Obama has publicly said he intends to push for a comprehensive test ban treaty, a treaty that India opposes because it feels its own nuclear deterrent remains incomplete.
Second, Obama has attacked the outsourcing of service jobs to places like India and the offshoring of manufacturing jobs to Asia as a whole. His advisers also indicate that they will seek to incorporate social provisions, like labor standards, into future international trade negotiations. Though candidates tend to roll back from protectionist stances once they come to power, the Democrats' control of both houses of Congress may not give Obama that leeway.
Third, a Democratic administration has said it will put climate change at the forefront of its global policy concerns. If the focus is about mitigating carbon production through technological means, there will be few concerns. However, if the policy slips into more coercive measures such as carbon tariffs and the like, the result is likely to convert climate change into an energy security struggle. It will also pit the big carbon emitters of the future, like India and China, against present polluters like the US and Europe.More:
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=5&article_id=97920
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