India’s foreign policy started with a policy of non-alignment, submitting neither to the US nor Soviet Russia, the two poles of the Cold War era. Pakistan was subservient to American designs right from the beginning and as its democracy was overtaken by Muslim communal politics, the role of the US Ambassador, the Mullahs and Army came to the foreground there. Even today, fundamentalism in the name of Islam dominates in Pakistan, while its Army plays a very strong role there. Either there have been military dictators one after the other, or the Army has a strong say in political affairs.

The lunch invitation of US President Donald Trump to Field Marshal Asim Munir tells a tale. While there are other components of Pakistan’s foreign policy, it was clearly marked by its pro-US orientation. Jocularly it was said that Pakistan is ruled by three As -- Allah, American Ambassador and Army. This may be gross generalisation but what became clear was that when politics in the name of religion came to dominate the social scene, such a situation did happen in our neighbouring country.

India had its own path of non-submission to super powers and carved its path of all-round development, taking the help of different countries in development of technology, industries and education. One apparent example is the establishment of the five initial IITs, each with the help of different major countries.

India did not submit to super powers’ pressure, most exemplified on the eve of the formation of Bangladesh. Richard Nixon, then US President, asked for India to keep off the happenings of East Pakistan, when the Pakistan Army was wreaking havoc in East Pakistan, leading to a massive exodus of refugees into India. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi boldly refused this diktat of Nixon.

Instead, Indira Gandhi signed a ‘Treaty of Friendship’ with Soviet Russia and despite the seventh fleet of US in Bay of Bengal, the Indian Army intervened and helped Mukti Bahini to liberate East Pakistan from the clutches of the West Pakistan, which was trying to exploit the East Pakistan, to the extent of trying to impose Urdu as the national language of Pakistan. The Bengali-speaking East Pakistan rebelled and India did not bow to the US threats and came to the rescue of the people of East Pakistan.

From 2014, there has been a gradual shift of Indian foreign policy, which is coming under the sway of the US and is developing close relations with Israel. Our traditional relations with Iran and Palestine are being sacrificed for the political orientation of the new regime.

In the aftermath of Operation Sindoor, there was military action between Pakistan and India. While India claimed that ceasefire was brought in due to mutual discussion and a request from the Pakistan side, US President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that his administration had brought in ceasefire between these two countries using the threat of economic pressures.

So far, in India, Pakistan has always been projected as enemy number one. There were people-to-people interactions through the Pak-India forum, and valuable initiatives, like ‘Aman ki Asha’ (Ray of Hope) between India’s national newspaper Times of India and Pakistan’s newspaper Daily Jang. Government-level blame games were always there. Kashmir remained a hot issue. Kashmiris kept suffering the fire of militants and terrorists coming from Pakistan, and the presence of military in the civilian area for such a long time.

Now, it seems the stance of RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) and BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) toward Pakistan seems to be changing. Dattatray Hosabale, the number 2 in RSS, has said that doors of dialogue should be open between India and Pakistan. The RSS combine kept raking up the Kashmir issue and blaming Nehru for mishandling the Kashmir issue.

The turmoil in Kashmir continued. It is true that earlier also, during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee regime, he took a bus to Lahore to sort out matters. Despite that, the stalemate continued even after the reciprocative visit to India by Pakistan’s dictator Pervez Musharraf. Now, the statement of Hosabale comes as a breath of fresh air, giving a different impression toward Pakistan than the usual one. RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat tries to link it with the idea of ‘Akhand Bharat’. As such, the earlier experiment of SAARC was not much promoted by the BJP regime. SAARC was a great experiment of regional cooperation amongst the South Asian countries.

While Hosbale claims that this has been the RSS policy all through, the emphasis on keeping the doors of dialogue open now has a different flavour in the political ecology of India-Pakistan relations. This statement of his comes after his recent US visit.

Many suspect that such a statement at this juncture may be under US pressure. One is not sure of that, but one thing that is definitive is that India’s subservience to the US is on the rise. This was confirmed by the recent happenings where India quietly submitted to the US pressure of raising the tariff from 3% to 50% and then bringing it down to 18%. India meekly following instructions of the US not to buy oil from Russia, was also part of the same series.

This got further confirmation from the statement, which was later withdrawn, by Ram Madhav, a prominent RSS-BJP leader. While talking in Washington's Hudson Institute, he said that India had tried to work with the US by conceding to its demands for a hike in tariff and not buying oil from Russia. The gentleman went on to say, “Where exactly is India not doing enough to work with America.” When criticised he was prompt enough to withdraw it, anyway the cat is out of the bag.

Right from the beginning, the RSS was pro-US to the extent of even supporting US in its invasion of Vietnam. Its earlier political progeny, Bharatiya Jansangh, was also against the cooperative model and public sector which built the industrial structure of India. As Pakistan was under the umbrella of the US, it did not develop any substantive industrial, educational and research infrastructure.

The present Indian regime is focussed more on identity issues, temples, cow-beef, rejection of Darwin's theory and removal of periodic table at the same time promoting the blind faith Baba’s of the ilk of Dhirendra Shastri, while playing second fiddle to the US!

This submission to US might is in a way following the path of Pakistan, which right from the beginning submitted to US and in the process blocked the avenues of development of democracy and development in the country. 


  The author is a former Professor of Biomedical Engineering at IIT Bombay and writes on political and social issues. The views expressed are personal.