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India and US should clear the air through talks, says Abid Hussain

Dr Abid Hussain, former diplomat and vice-chairman of the New Delhi-based Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Contemporary Studies, has said India and the United States should hold a dialogue to clear each other's misconstrued security perceptions.

The primary reason for an estrangement of relations between the two countries is due to a lack of awareness of each other's security perceptions, Dr Hussain said while delivering the fourth S L Memorial lecture on the subject 'Indo-US relations' organised by the Centre of Advanced Strategic Studies in Pune yesterday.

Before 1954 when American security concerns were confined just to their own territory and geography, the relationship between India and the US blossomed. He said even during the pre-independence era, American presidents like Roosevelt always supported the Indian cause.

But after America started its endeavour to contain the former Soviet Union and began arming Pakistan, relations between India and the US took a downward plunge.

Sordid relations between the two countries continued till the end of the Cold War after which there was again a shift in the relationships for the better, Dr Hussain said.

But, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US began searching for ''unseen enemies'' which could pose possible threats to its superpower status. In this endeavour, the United States created three blocs in Eurasia so that the blocs maintained a balance among themselves through their pulls and pressures, thereby assuring US of its status quo, Dr Hussain said.

It is in this context that the US viewed the Indian nuclear tests as being inimical to the balance of power and went ''crazy'' after Pokhran II, Dr Hussain stated. And it is for the same reason that the US is willing to have Japan and Germany to be included in the Security Council but nobody else, he added.

Emphasising the need to clear these paranoidal delusions of the US through dialogues, Dr Hussain also felt that India should create a strong Indian lobby in the United States as has been done by other countries like China. In this regard, Dr Hussain ruled that the resources of Non-Resident Indians had not been exploited.

Further, Dr Hussain said the centres of power in the US had shifted from the White House and the Pentagon. New centres of power have been created in the US and they include the corporate and the financial sectors. India needs to tap these newer centres of power by speeding up her own reform measures, he said.

UNI

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