Arms and the honoured guest

Abhijit Bhattacharyya

Barack Obama of the Occident is coming. India of the Orient is getting ready to receive the honoured guest. Suddenly there are hundreds of unknown faces across Delhi preceding the arrival of the VVIP. They are Americans in India for Obama's safety and security. They have emerged from nowhere, to be visible and active here, there, everywhere. They could have been tourists in normal times but cannot afford to be mere tourists in testing times of terror. They are 'on duty'.

Why? What is their mission deep in an alien territory? Does not the host country have its security apparatus in position? Yes it does. Yet the guest does not appear to have any confidence in the 'Old World' host's ability to take care of the president of the 'New World'. Hence those on duty are cold, careful, watchful, demanding and constantly looking sternly at all and sundry. It is India, an aspiring 'super power' of 1.20 billion heads. It has the nuclear bomb but cannot take care of the nitty-gritty of internal security.

It is 'socialist and secular' since 1976; that is what its Constitution enshrines vide the 42nd Amendment Act. But some of its leaders, with impressive criminal curricula vitae, have the most undesirable expertise and experience in violating the Constitution with impunity owing to their intellectual arrogance as well as their ignorance of the contents of the Constitution. Has not it been recently reflected in a recent book that 'Emergency' provisions do not appear to have been known by the rulers in the 1970s? Little surprise, therefore, that during the course of India's 67-year-independence, it saw the assassination of the 'father of the nation', Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi; the untimely and mysterious demise of a serving prime minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, in a foreign land while on an official visit; the unexpected death of Indira Gandhi's politically active son, Sanjay Gandhi; the assassination of Indira Gandhi in her own official residence when she was prime minister and the killing of the ex-prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, by a suicide bomber.

In reality, however, there is no match between the host and the guest. Both may have people's government, but they are poles apart. The guest is the superpower of the last 70 years. The host aspires to be the world leader without the foundation of the established norms and parameters that serve to get recognition from the comity of nations.

Since 2015 will see Obama as the first president of the United States of America to be the chief guest of India's Republic Day parade the importance of the occasion is understandable. But it is also happening at a time when the world is in turmoil owing to the fundamentalist threat. From Paris to Peshawar, New Delhi to New Jersey, Munich to Mumbai, and London to Libya everyone is on "high alert". The terrorists and religious fundamentalists are coming. That is the psychology. And that is the 'psychological war' with which all advanced countries as well as their 'advance parties' are dealing.

The entire world, including the present host and guest, have been adversely affected, yet there is no fool-proof convergence on the 'threat perception'. Thus, whereas Obama would like the containment of China through defence supplies to India, the Chinese 'use' of Pakistan as an indirect strategy to contain India does not hold much water in the eyes of the Western guest. In the process, the great game of power politics does not favour India. Not as long as the concerns of India remain unaddressed.

The difference in perception is understandable. The theatre of operations of the US is the world. India, on the other hand, continues to be bogged down in the Sino-Pakistan-centric war-on-two-fronts scenario. Some mandarins would not mind opening a 'third front' in Kabul after the departure of the Americans. They seem to have been convinced (and trapped) by the grandiose American plan to give both dollar and defence material if Indian soldiers make their presence visible on Afghan soil.

That would keep the pot boiling. The defence market and diplomatic assignments would soar. As is evident at present, the US was the largest exporter of major weapons in the period 2009-2013, accounting for 29 per cent of the global volume of deliveries in which Asia and the Oceania received 45 per cent of US major weapons which increased by 46 per cent between 2004-2008 and 2009-2013.

Understandably, aircraft accounted for 61 per cent of the volume of US exports in 2009-13, and 252 combat aircraft made up the bulk of these deliveries. The future, however, lies in the Lockheed F-35 development programme which faces technical hitches leading to cost escalations and delayed deliveries and the consequent cancellation/reduction of orders by Netherland and others.

Indeed, with reduced budgets of the West and the volatile contemporary political/petro-dollar market in the Middle East, India appears to be one of the few prospects at this stage, notwithstanding the existence of innumerable internal and regional knots.

Tanks or guns, aircraft or rotorcraft, Obama will definitely try to lure India to contain China, control Russia while providing surreptitious lollypops to mollify Pakistan. Why? Because there exists real economic power play back home. The US's defence hardware leads American diplomats to the high tables from Geneva to New York and from London to Tokyo. And the situation appears stark. According to IHS Jane's report for 2014-2015: "In the US, the manufacturing end is now in sight for the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III airlifter" (which India bought recently) "of which only a handful of 'white tails' remains to be built. Early alarms are being rung concerning the F/A-18 Super Hornet's production future." This too had unsuccessfully bid for India's multi-billion-dollar medium multi-role combat aircraft, which transaction continues to remain unresolved owing to price-escalation negotiation with the French manufacturers.

Can Obama turn the table of the Orient in favour of the extreme corner of the Occident? Or will India succeed? A few hours will give the answer.