Rules Of American Engagement

Rules Of American Engagement

- Shyam Saran

It was during his landmark visit to India in the year 2000 that the then US President Bill Clinton described the Indian subcontinent and the Line of Control in Kashmir as “the most dangerous place in the world today”. Clinton was voicing a sentiment deeply ingrained in American perceptions about South Asia, exacerbated by India and Pakistan coming out of the nuclear closet with back-to-back nuclear tests in May 1998. Srinath Raghavan’s well-researched book picks on this enduring element in the US narrative on South Asia as a template to examine the drivers of its engagement with our region since the birth of the American republic. In this description are embedded notions of Anglo-Saxon superiority and entitlement, that nuclear weapons are safe in responsible American hands but not in immature South Asian hands, that the leaders of South Asian countries are incapable of knowing what is good for their countries and in need either of constant hand-holding or raps on their knuckles to be kept out of mischief. The value of Raghavan’s book lies in the historical context it provides to the changing texture of US relations with the Indian subcontinent under British colonial rule and later with the successor states of India and Pakistan. There are cultural and psychological prisms that colour US perceptions and these change slowly. But there are also historical processes that compel both the US and its partners in South Asia to constantly adjust their attitudes and relations to a rapidly changing geopolitical environment. It is a complex story but in the hands of a truly accomplished historian, it is a most compelling and absorbing read.

The focus is on US interactions with undivided India before 1947 and with India and Pakistan thereafter. Afghanistan figures, but mainly because it impinges on Pakistan and for its role in the post 9/11 US war on terror.