Chester Bowles, the only US ambassador to serve India twice,
for more than seven years (1951-53 and 1963-69), was told by US president Harry
Truman before his first India posting, “The first thing you’ve got to do is to
find out if Nehru is a Communist.” At the height of the Cold War, Bowles developed
a close personal rapport with Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru, who trusted
Bowles’s discretion, would turn to him directly when he wanted Polaroid films
or a Ford sedan for his personal use. In fact, Bowles was often criticised in
Washington for acting as the Indian ambassador to the US for advocating more US
aid to India. Despite his best efforts and having dealt with three prime
ministers — Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi — the
Indo-US relationship never gained the momentum Bowles wanted, as is evident
from his book A View from New Delhi.
Four and a half decades later, in the summer of 2014, when
Richard Verma got a call from national security advisor Susan Rice, he was
surprised by the offer. “She told me, ‘President Obama wants you to go to
India’. I asked her, ‘To visit?’. ‘No’, she said, ‘As the US ambassador to
India’,” he recalled on Wednesday night at the Roosevelt House, before friends,
diplomats and family.
Verma was coming after a particularly low point in the
relationship between India and the US, as the Devyani Khobragade episode had
marred years of hard work on the ties. With US President Barack Obama agreeing
to visit India as chief guest for the Republic Day celebrations in January
2015, he arrived as the first Indian-American to serve as the Indian envoy,
after a last-minute Senate confirmation in December. “He was sent to clean up
the damage, and he was the Fix-It guy,” an official recalled.
Verma, whose term has been cut short abruptly with the
change in the US administration, saw a fresh momentum in the ties during his
term — something that Bowles would have been envious of. While there hasn’t
been a “nuclear deal moment” in the past two years, there have been some
substantive outcomes. This is particularly true for defence, where India was
granted ‘major defence partner status’, and New Delhi, in a rather radical
departure, signed the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) with
the United States, which will allow their militaries to work closely and use
each other’s bases for repair and replenishment of supplies. The nuclear deal
was also operationalised in this period, with the civilian nuclear liability
issue being resolved and Westinghouse moving forward on nuclear plants.
The two sides have developed closer interaction on
counter-terrorism than ever before, acknowledge Indian and US diplomats. The
Paris climate change agreement too fructified during Verma’s term, though the
negotiations got a fillip from the top. Under Verma’s leadership, the visa
regime stabilised, with the number of Indian students in the US reaching 1.6
lakh, the highest ever. Trade numbers are up too, and the two countries are
collaborating on the Asia-Pacific region more publicly than ever before.
While many of the decisions were also the result of the
frequent Modi-Obama meetings — nine, at last count — Verma’s experience on the
Capitol Hill and the Legislative branch came in handy. “He was someone you
could deal with to get things done, since he had the ability to bring in his
network on the Hill, his legal experience, and was able to come with solutions
on tricky issues,” a top Indian official who dealt with him told The Indian
Express.
Within the American diplomatic mission, Verma was always
known as the “nuts-and-bolts guy” who would be into the “details” of every
aspect of the relationship. He famously has a yellow-pad which he divides into
four squares and writes his to-do lists and then strikes out what is done. However,
there were some failures during his time. The two major ones include India not
being able to make it to the Nuclear Suppliers Group and Jaish-e-Mohammad chief
Masood Azhar not being listed as global terrorist by the UN — both faced the
Chinese wall despite the US backing India’s diplomatic outreach.
A political appointee, Verma was known to speak his mind at
times. In the backdrop of the regulatory action against several NGOs, including
the Ford Foundation, he made one of his most important remarks, expressing
“concern” on the “potentially chilling effects” of the regulatory steps taken
against NGOs in the country. Again, last year, at a time when student protests
were on at JNU, he said that free speech is the “central tenet” of what India
and the US “hold dear”. Verma visited all the 29 states during his time in
India, and tweeted from each.
However, mostly, he was a naturally quiet ambassador —
unlike predecessors at the Roosevelt House known for their flamboyance or outspokenness
or deep access to the prime ministers of the country.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1961-63) was an internationally
acclaimed economist who came to India first as part of the team drafting the
second five-year-plan by Prof P C Mahalanobis. In his book Ambassador’s
Journal, Galbraith talked about his easy relationship with Nehru and even
easier access to Teen Murti House. When the India-China war broke out, Prof
Galbraith had an unprecedented role and voice in India’s war campaign. Senior
Army generals and the Ministry of External Affairs officials were in and out of
Roosevelt House, keeping the Ambassador briefed. Kenneth B Keating (1969-72) is
remembered for his valiant role in speaking about the genocide in East
Pakistan, along with consul general in Dhaka, Archer Blood, and had earned the
wrath of US president Richard Nixon, who even called him a “traitor” and
had threatened to fire him.
Richard Frank Celeste (1997 to 2001) had the unenviable task
of managing the relationship after the Pokhran-II tests, and bringing it back
on track with the famed Strobe Talbott-Jaswant Singh talks.
All these ambassadors, including the recent ones such as
Robert D Blackwill, David C Mulford and Timothy Roemer, had one thing in common
— they were all political appointees. Of the 23 US ambassadors since 1947, 16
are said to have been political appointees. Of the seven in the last two
decades, five have been political appointments.
Mulford (2004-09), who saw through the negotiation of the
historic Indo-US nuclear deal, wrote in his book Packing for India, “…the
reality in India, and the historic record since independence in 1947, is that
US ambassadors to India have been prominent political appointees, known
personally to the US President. US Foreign service officers, however skilled
and well-prepared, are not seen in the same light as senior political
appointees with direct access to the President.”
As US President Donald Trump takes charge, all eyes are set on the next nominee
to the Roosevelt House. Already, Asia policy expert like Ashley Tellis and
Indian-American businessman Shalabh Kumar’s names are doing the rounds, but
Washington insiders say that the transition team is still talking to a couple
of potential candidates and that they are nowhere near making a decision.
As concerns over H1-B visa cuts, more emphasis on
job-creation in America and protectionism loom large, many feel that the
Indo-US relationship will be on “auto-pilot”. But, as an American diplomat
summed it up, “Diplomacy is like gardening… You have to work hard every day for
better outcomes.”
No comments
Post a Comment