STRATEGIC AFFAIRS

Unshackle Indias Strategic

Thinking
Atul Bhardwaj

As India is all set to ink the

Logistics Exchange Memorandum
of Agreement with the United
States, it must revisit its history
while formulating the current
policy of military-to-military ties
with the US. Indias strategy must
address the issue of freedom from
Western thought and question
imperial alignments ingrained in
such defence agreements.

n Lewis Carrolls Through the LookingGlass, a sequel to Alice in Wonderland,

Humpty Dumpty is asked why he
gives different meanings to commonly used
words. He replies, when I use a word, ... it
means just what I choose it to mean.
Such comic confidence is on display in
abundance in geopolitical memes that
originate from the West. Since 2008, the
Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific
have been integrated into a single strategic entity and named IndoPacific by
the Americans. The British did the same
during World War II, when Far East
was conveniently used to describe their
military operations extending from the
Solomon Islands to the frontiers of Burma
and India (Hubbard 1944: 179).
However, more comical is the ease
with which such idea-memes like Indo
Pacific and net-security provider get
replicated in the strategic discourse of
great power aspirants like India. The
net result of this sustained mimicry is
that India is now all set to ink the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) with the United States
(US) in the coming months. Going by
media reports, the LEMOA appears to be
a watered-down version of the Logistics
Support Agreement (LSA), which the US
signs with other military allies to facilitate
smooth exchange of logistics support,
supplies and services on a reciprocal basis.
Many see the formalisation of the Indo
US military relationship as a great leap
forward in making India a great power.
It is presumed that these developments
will open the floodgates to American
military technology for the budding
Indian military-industrial complex.
IndoUS Relations

Atul Bhardwaj (atul.beret@gmail.com) is an

Adjunct Fellow at the Institute of Chinese
Studies, Delhi.

10

It is widely believed that the latest Indo

US embrace marks a departure in Indias
foreign policy. However, the fact is that

barring a few years of Indira Gandhis

rule in the early 1970s, India has always
been closely aligned with the US. From
Korea to Congo, Jawaharlal Nehru rarely
failed the US. In 1955, Krishna Menon
personally visited Beijing to successfully
mediate the release of four American
airmen imprisoned in China (NMML
1955).
Indias vote in the United Nations
favouring the Soviets on the Hungarian
issue is often taken as a measure of
Indias non-alignment. However, the
IndoUS military and intelligence collaboration on the issue of Tibet is conveniently ignored. It is well-documented
that India provided a logistics base in
Kalimpong and Dharamshala for covert
American operations in Tibet. By the
mid-1950s, Kalimpong had become the
centre of international politics. Nehru
described it as a den of spies, which was
home to Tibetan aristocrats, European
Tibetophiles, wealthy Khampa traders,
British missionaries, Mongolian Buddhists, Indian intelligence officers, CIA agents
posing as tourists, Bhutanese royalty,
Burmese royalty, and more (McGranahan 2010: 69).
India further granted asylum to the
Dalai Lama at the behest of the US. A
major fallout for India was the India
China war of 1962. In order to defend
itself, India sought and was given American military assistance. While Nehru and
India carried the ignominy of defeat,
the war did help the US achieve its
strategic objective of widening the Sino
Soviet wedge.
While formulating its current policy
of military-to-military ties with the US,
India must revisit its history. Just as Americans are pampering Prime Minister
Narendra Modi with platitudes, they did
the same with Nehru, projecting him to
the AfroAsian community as a democratic answer to Mao. The fact that the
post-1957 upswing in IndiaUS engagement only brought defeat in war, a debt
crisis and weevil-infested, poor quality
wheat, is being ignored by Raisina Hill.
The fresh legalised impetus to the Indo
US intimacy gives the Indian navalist a
fresh dose of confidence to prepare for

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STRATEGIC AFFAIRS

a major fleet engagement against the

Chinese navy. The only disagreement is
that some navalists want to reach the
South China Sea to slay the enemy, while
others insist on maintaining position in
the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) to choke
the Chinese in the Malacca Straits.
However, what one fails to draw from
the discourse is the reason for strategising China to be a natural enemy, and
the US a preordained ally of India.
Indias aversion to imperialism and
violation of human rights cannot be the
plausible reason, because China is not
yet an imperial power. It has one military
base in Djibouti, as compared to the
700-odd foreign military bases the
Pentagon possesses. Moreover, on the
human rights front, if China has the
Tiananmen Square to its credit, the
American empires track record is much
worse. The mayhem it has unleashed in
Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria is
unprecedented. The US is the backbone
of Pakistani state and non-state terrorism.
Its stance on Kashmir, over the past six
decades, has unambiguously tilted in
Pakistans favour. It is bewildering that
in a tussle between two capitalist powers,
India prefers the US over China. It is
imperative to understand the reason
behind Indias choice, because without
it the Indian strategy appears to be
cloaked in sentimentality and devoid
of purpose.

The issue is, why does India consider

itself duty-bound to support the declining Western empires? In the post-war
phase, India felt obliged to help the
retreating British navy maintain a semblance of order in the IOR. And now, in
the 21st century, when the American
capacity to sustain its empire is on the
decline, India, once again, wants to stand
shoulder to shoulder with the West. The
Indian obsession with the IOR can be
traced to the seeds sown by the imperial
powers in the 1940s.
In 1943, a British member of Parliament, George Schuster, wrote two articles
in The Spectator, titled Indias WorldRole, parts 1 and 2. The main concern in
the first article was the loss of British
legitimacy in managing stability of the
IOR. It reiterated an urgent need to create a sufficient lawful power for the
peaceful management of the key-area
of the East, the broad belt of land and
sea between Aden and Singapore
(Schuster 1943a).
In his second article, Schuster discussed
K M Panikkars The Future of South East
Asia, which advocated the centrality of
India in the IOR security matrix and its
alignment with an external Great Power
on equal terms so as to discharge its
responsibilities in the region. Panikkars
structure for peace and security in Asia
was based on the concept of the Old
Indian Empire as a common defence
area secured through the creation,

not-of a greater Moghul Empire in Delhi,

but of a Triune Commonwealth in
which Pakistan, Hindustan and Burma
were united as a single defence entity on
the basis of equality and freedom, but
held together in collaboration with Great
Britain. Panikkars idea also included
in the security concert, countries of
Further IndiaThailand, IndoChina,
the Netherlands East Indies, Malaya and
Singapore (Schuster 1943b). Schuster felt
that Panikkars proposals were not feasible because the three competing nationalitiesIndia, Pakistan and Burma
could not be tied into an organic relationship in which defence was the only
common thread.
The Americans differed with the
British and wanted Britain to relinquish
the command of the commons. American
journalist Walter Lippmann was of the
view that the collaboration between India
and Britain had to remain confined to
trade exchanges and could not be
stretched to include security because
the policy of a naval garrison under the
long shadow of the Grand Fleet was
inadequate to meet modern security
challenges (Schuster 1943b).
Schusters article also discussed Lord
Halleys plan, which focused on making
a security coalition of sovereign countries in the region, including the US, and
also countries dependent on European
colonial powers. The plan extended from
the IOR to the Far East and encouraged

IOR and Imperial Legacy

The IOR is currently under the command
of the US Navy (USN). However, for some
strange reason, it is either assumed that
the USN is an invisible force in the Indian
Ocean or that the Indian navy is a
double of the USN that is required to
perform all naval stunts in the IOR. The
perception is that the British handed
over the IOR mantle to India before their
departure in 1947. Hence, the Indian
delusion that Chinese ships and nuclear
submarines are a threat to Indias raj in
the IOR! The reality is that the British
passed on the baton over the IOR to
America, and the Chinese naval fleet is
taking on the American empire in the
IOR. When the British casted off the
Indian shores in 1947, India was in no
position to command the IOR.
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11

STRATEGIC AFFAIRS

countries to pool in their individual

defence resources under the United
Nations umbrella (Eastern Economist
1944: 284).
The imperial concern spilled over to
Indian industrialists and the 1944 Bombay
Plan argued that in the absence of British
and the American preoccupation with
domestic affairs, it was Indias responsibility to uphold security in the Indian
Ocean. One of the leading business journals, Eastern Economist, argued, With
two highly industrialised colossuses like
the Soviet Union and China geographically sitting on our back, can India be
militarily defended if we have a rate of
industrial growth less ambitious than
that contemplated by the Bombay Plan
(1944: 284).
The journal further argued, Any
realistic appreciation of the power configuration in the postwar world should
assure us that a highly industrialised
India is one of the essential pedestals of
any tenable organization of world security (Eastern Economist 1944: 284). Thus,
in the minds of the Indian elite, rapid
industrialisation and security in the IOR

were visualised as being synonymous

with the British retreat.
Conclusions
A credible strategy must possess gravitas
to remain free of delusions of grandeur.
For more than 200 years, Indian strategy
was the sole preserve of the British. The
involvement of the Indian bureaucracy
was limited to implementing the colonial
strategy rather than devising it. Indian
leadership that took over from the British
was enamoured more with power than
with freedom. In Qubec (Canada) in
1942, B R Ambedkar told the Pacific
Relations Conference, what do the
Hindus stand for? Are they fighting
for freedom or are they fighting for
power? (Ambedkar 1943: 63). Ambedkar
asked the predominantly Hindu leadership of the Congress to declare their
post-war aims, especially in the context
of the rights they would grant the Dalits
after acquiring power. The question
remains relevant even today.
The Indian elite that fain stepped into
imperial boots continues to prefer power
over freedom. It is unable to comprehend

that power is restrictive, it ties you down

in chains; freedom is expansive, it opens
up new possibilities. It is to be understood that Kashmir and Tibet will
continue to simmer, till of course the
umbilical cord that ties them to the
imperial great game in Asia is cut. To
achieve this, more than power, Indias
strategy must address the issue of freedom from Western thought and question
imperial alignments ingrained in defence
agreements such as the LEMOA.
REFERENCES
Ambedkar, B R (1943): Mr Gandhi and the Emancipation of the Untouchables, Bombay: Thacker
& Co.
Eastern Economist (1944): The Balance of Power,
25 January.
Hubbard, G E (1944): The Place of the Far East in
World Reconstruction, International Affairs,
Vol 20, No 2, pp 17991.
NMML (1955): Department of State Telegram to
US Embassy, New Delhi, 28 May, Dwight D
Eisenhower Library Papers, 19531959, Nehru
Memorial Museum & Library, New Delhi.
McGranahan, Carole (2010): Arrested Histories:
Tibet, the CIA and Memories of a Forgotten War,
London: Duke University Press.
Schuster, George (1943a): Indias World-RoleI,
The Spectator, November.
(1943b): Indias World-RoleII, The Spectator,
18 November.

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