India’s Obama Dilemma

What if Barack Obama is the next US President

STATECRAFT BY HAPPYMON JACOB

The charismatic and eloquent African-American, Senator Barack Obama, is likely to become the President of the most powerful state in the world. This is something to be watched with great interest, not just because he would the first black man to become the US president (if he does), but more so because he carries an important message for the world which today is deeply divided on the basis of religion, race, colour and ethnicity.

The importance of Obama comes not from an argument of affirmative action or positive discrimination, but from the urgent need of the hour to provide a healing touch to the American people: blacks and whites, right and left, young and old. Indeed, the significance of the Obama phenomenon is not to be restricted to the Americans alone but to all societies where we still, unfortunately, have racial, caste, religious and gender discrimination. The importance of Obama comes from the fact that he is willing to address one of the most vexed problems in the American society – race. At a time in his presidential campaign when rumour emails have been circulating claiming that Obama is a ‘Muslim‘ and that he refuses to salute the American flag, and at a juncture when opposition politicians were gleefully using his former pastor Mr. Jeremiah Wright’s statement that the US is racist, against him, the statesman and visionary in Obama spoke up and said that the US has to come out of the “racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years”. He further said, touching the hearts of many an American: “The anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races”.

That said, the Indians seem to be uneasy of Barack Obama. The general feeling among foreign policy experts and US watchers in New Delhi is that he might end up as unfriendly towards India in his fervor to revive the Democratic agenda of liberal internationalism. New Delhi’s apprehension about Obama comes mostly due to the very close relationship it had with the Bush administration. Bush administration offered India membership in the nuclear club (through the backdoor though), made India one its key foreign policy priorities and stopped talking about the Kashmir issue. However, while the Indian government has been very close to the Bush administration (except perhaps when it invaded Iraq), the general Indian public has been clearly uneasy about the Bush policies. Like a large number of people in most parts of the world, Indian public also considered George Bush to be an insensitive administrator and a divider of communities and people.

New Delhi fears that an Obama administration could potentially go back on the nuclear deal with India or radically amend some of its provisions, ask India to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) like the previous Democratic administration had done, push the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), and revive the Kashmir issue. Some Indian analysts have said that in order to gain Pakistani sincerity for the war on terror on the Afghan border, US could stop talking about Pakistani support for militancy in Kashmir. While Obama will not have the neo-conservative religious fervor in his interventionist stances, he may not rule out intervention as a possible American foreign policy strategy. On the other hand, his Republican opponent John McCain has promised to implement the Indo-US nuclear deal in its entirety. He is also unlikely to push the FMCT or the CTBT and is likely to continue the strategic partnership with India.

However, I wish to take a second look here at the Obama dilemma that we face in India. Obama’s election as the US President is significant and important for India for a variety of reasons. First of all, the Republicans are likely to follow the Bush policy of undermining the United Nations and international law. In other words, the unilateralism of the US hyperpower will only scale new heights under John McCain. No one wants the US do more Iraqs and make the already dangerous world more dangerous. Respect for the United Nations and international law is something that the world needs so badly. While the democratic liberal interventionism under Obama is likely to preach to the countries of the world how to govern, it is unlikely that an Obama administration will behave like Bush did in Iraq to impose its wishes. Democrats are likely to strengthen the hands of the UN. Secondly, I do not think that the Indo-US nuclear deal could have been the best thing that could have happened to India. We can do without the deal and can still continue our relationship with the United States. The US administrations had pressurized India to sign the CTBT even before (under Clinton administration), but despite not signing it India had maintained an excellent relationship with the US.

Thirdly, and perhaps more importantly, Obama will be able to send out a clear message that there is actually no civilizational conflict between Islam and the West (Obama doesn’t buy the argument that extremism in the name of Islam is what Islam teaches as a religion). Even as some Hindu fundamentalists in India would like to see a clash between Islam and the West, one needs to keep in mind that India will not only be a direct victim of such a clash, but more importantly this will have long-lasting implications for communal relations for a country which has the world’s second largest Muslim population. There may be some immediate and tactical gains from a McCain presidency but prudence lies in looking for strategic and lasting gains which an Obama presidency can offer.

While some sources of India’s Obama dilemma seem to be genuine, many of its fears seem to be misconceived or born out of a short-term approach to understanding and conceiving foreign and security policies of the country.
(Happymon Jacob is Assistant Professor at the Department of Strategic and Regional Studies, University of Jammu, J&K. Feedback at happymon@gmail.com).

Source: Greater Kashmir; June 18, 2008. URL: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?Date=18_6_2008&ItemID=5&cat=11