Sour notes spoil India-U.S. rhapsody

If anyone had said that the foreign policy followed by India's current prime minister bore any resemblance in shape or form to former premier Inder Kumar Gujral, he would have been laughed out of court.

But if it is at all possible, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the man who is singularly responsible for realigning India firmly on the side of the only superpower, the United States, may indeed be harking back to the Gujral line, stopping short perhaps of embracing the Iraqi president as Gujral did in Baghdad during the Gulf War. Prime Minister Vajpayee has a completely new Foreign Office team - Yashwant Sinha, an in-your-face foreign minister,` who does not baulk at telling the West off on its "double standards" on terror; and Kanwal Sibal, a foreign secretary, who does not let diplomatic niceties get in the way of vocalising support for India's old friend, Iraq.

Behind them is the brooding figure of Brajesh Mishra, one of the architects of India's security policy, who visits Washington this week amid a gradual souring of relations between the two sides. The shift from what was seen as former Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh's celebration of all things American, has been largely driven by India's growing frustration with the U.S. over its inability to rein in what it sees as Pakistan-driven militancy in its troubled northern state of Jammu and Kashmir.

For three successive days last week, the fledgling state government of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed was attacked by militants bent on destroying the chief minister's efforts to bring a controversial "healing touch" to the insurgency-wracked northern state. He released several prisoners, who were in fact, largely irrelevant to the terrorist network. But the first heady promise of peace, which came with a largely peaceful state election, and the separatist All Parties Hurriyat Conference holding talks with Vajpayee's Kashmir point man Ram Jethmalani, lay in tatters. Senior Hurriyat leaders, who fear the same fate as Abdul Ghani Lone, who was silenced for his pro-peace views, told Gulf News that the recent attacks, especially on the two temples in Jammu, were an indication that the dreaded Lashkar-e-Toiba had been given the green signal to destroy Mufti's government.

"Muftisaab is going to see more of this, they have not given up," said a key Hurriyat leader. The stakes are, if possible, higher this time. Not only is a hard won peace in Kashmir at risk, so is India's need to establish itself as the pre-eminent player in the sub-continent. Without the U.S. underwriting its impetus, India's economic resurgence is in danger of stalling.

In that context, the talk of a Russia-India-China alignment may be no more than a red herring for now. The Russian President Vladimir Putin's interview to Indian publications ahead of his visit may have created a stir with its stridently anti-Pakistan line on the Pakistan-North Korea nuclear nexus. But with Russian energy giant Gazprom preparing to do business with Islamabad on the key Central Asian gas pipeline, and joint talks underway with Pakistan on countering terror in the sensitive Russian enclave of Chechnya, India's Russian alliance may need a makeover as much as its fraying links with the U.S.

Putin's visit to India, his second in less than a year, therefore, may be seen by some as the coming together of old allies. But many Russia watchers say that the pragmatic Putin's visit is mainly to secure arms purchases, specifically tying up details of the long drawn out negotiations over the aircraft carrier the Admiral Gorshkov, with the offer of leasing two to three nuclear submarines being the icing on the cake.

India will no doubt use the Putin manoeuvre to its advantage. The secondary message that is being sent out after all, is that India can fall back on the Russians, however unreliable the hardware, or the alliance, given China's strong relationship with Pakistan.

Mishra's visit which include meetings with the U.S.' troika of National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, is expected to drive home the message. Mishra is also expected to meet CIA chief George Tenet.

In a recent interview on BBC's Hard Talk, Mishra had made clear India's displeasure over Washinghton's policy in South Asia that warms up to arch rival Pakistan while leaving India out in the cold. Effectively therefore, Vajpayee's opposition of U.S.-led moves to replace Saddam Hussain stems primarily from the reality that aligning with the lone superpower has not brought the dividends the current administration has hoped for.

In the campaign against terror during the operation that ousted the Taliban in Afghanistan, India had allowed its port facilities to be used. In the campaign against Iraq, India, removed even further from that theatre has little to offer. And in fact, everything to lose.

Iraq had sent its minister of information to Delhi with a plea for help. Vajpayee's statement followed. Iraq's plea that "neutral Indian observers" be part of the UN weapons inspections team has fallen on deaf ears. Indian diplomats in the region believe that India should support Iraq simply because acquiescing in the break up of a nation will unleash centrifugal forces that can only set off complete destabilisation in the heart of Asia.

"We may be largely irrelevant, but it's precisely because of this, that we must stand up for Iraq, don't forget it was Iraq that supported India's stance on Kashmir, when no single country in the Middle East would," an Indian diplomat who has served in the region said. Another warned of the potential for anarchy in the region. Iraq after all was carved out by the British and the French as a buffer against rising Kurdish nationalism and the Turks in the north, and the restive Shias and Iranians in the east and the south. Any move to bring about a regime change will only weaken the iron hand that has kept these fissiparious tendencies at bay, for over 50 years, he said.

On the economic front, India, which imports 70 per cent of its crude requirements, has been buffeted by volatile international oil prices and fears a disruption of its oil supplies as and when the U.S. attacks Iraq. India, unlike the Russians who have done a separate deal with the U.S. on oilfields in Iraq, are scrambling to make up for lost time.

Faced with dwindling domestic production and rising consumption, Oil Minister Ram Naik admitted that the state run Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) was close to picking up equity in five countries including Iraq, as part of its policy to invest in oilfields abroad. ONGC recently bought the Canadian oil giant Talisman's 25 per cent stake in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Co, in Sudan, largely ignoring U.S. criticism of doing business with Sudan.

India also has thousands of workers in the Arab Gulf states, and spent enormous resources to evacuate them when Iraq attacked Kuwait. But while contingency plans may be in place for the Indians abroad, the realignment of its strategic goals in the light of changing realities has only just begun.

India's recent broadside against eastern neighbour, Bangladesh, on harbouring elements of the Al Qaida and ongoing talks with Nepal on the Maoist rebellion are an indicator of that change on the ground as it attempts to paint the widening