Irrespective of what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's spin doctors in South Block say, it is as plain as daylight that the Obama Administration is not taking India seriously. True, our Prime Minister is the first to be formally invited for a state visit after President Barack Obama took over the US presidency. However, one cannot ignore the numerous indicators over the last few months about what Mr Obama thinks of India's position vis-à-vis China in global geopolitics.

The US likes to make a show of how upset it is whenever human rights violations take place anywhere in the world. It had denied Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi an American visa citing the post-Godhra violence that took place in 2002. Yet, Mr Obama did not see fit to remark on China's authoritarian ways and human rights abuses during his recent visit to that country. If he did at all object, it is not there in the joint statement issued by him and Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Mr Obama could not even get his host to commit to the worldwide demand that China revalue its currency to its natural level, which is at least 20 per cent more than what it is presently pegged at. China has contributed to the global imbalance in currency flow by keeping the renminbi valued around 1980 level. This gives China an enormous advantage in terms of its exports, enabling Chinese goods to be manufactured and sold cheaper than the rest of the world.

That Mr Obama put off his meeting with the Dalai Lama just because he did not want to annoy China is another example of how much the American President is willing to bend in order to please the Chinese. On top of this, Mr Obama openly conceded that Tibet is an integral part of China with the weak rider that "the United States supports the early resumption of dialogue between the Chinese Government and the representatives of the Dalai Lama." This, when the Tibetan leader has already announced that such dialogue is futile.

It is a fact that Mr Obama got nothing from China on his maiden trip there as President. On the contrary, he virtually conceded to China the whole of South Asia as its sphere of influence through this key sentence that was part of the joint communiqué: The US recognises China's role in South Asian peace and specifically in India-Pakistan dialogue.

By this the US has practically endorsed what China has been seeking to do through its support to insurgent groups in India, its aggressive naval expansion in the Indian Ocean and its support to Pakistan.

It is true that our External Affairs Ministry has reacted strongly to this joint Obama-Hu communiqué. But the fact that the joint statement came on the eve of Mr Singh's visit to Washington is even more significant. It is enough to make perceptive observers in New Delhi wonder whether any purpose will now be served by Mr Singh's visit.

Newsweek's international editor, Fareed Zakaria, has rightly commented on what you could expect from Mr Singh's visit: "There will be nice words said in public about the ties between two great democracies. But underneath this lies an unease." A historic parallel can be drawn in President Nixon's overture to China behind India's back in the early 1970s that stunned the Indian foreign policy establishment and then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

The danger of the Indian Prime Minister also being the country's foreign policymaker and having a nominal External Affairs Minister is all too well-known. But the Congress continues with this practice even now. Mr SM Krishna was nowhere to be seen at the time of the India-Pakistan meeting on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement Summit at Sharm el-Sheikh in July. Subsequently, he could hardly explain the abject diplomatic surrender of the Government to Pakistan on that occasion.

Mr Singh seems to believe that he is best suited to conduct foreign policy on behalf of the country because he succeeded in winning the previous US administration's support in getting the India-US Civil Nuclear Co-operation Agreement through. Compare this to what Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee had done as Prime Minister in talks with Gen Pervez Musharraf at the Agra summit. Mr Vajpayee had got his colleagues to go through the proposed agreement on that occasion and, as a result, was able to reject the trap that Gen Musharraf had laid.

Core to Washington's perception about South Asia is that it needs a face saver in Afghanistan to get out of the situation there, and Pakistan, with its influence over the Taliban, alone can do this job for the Americans. This is a departure from the Bush Administration's determined stand that the Taliban should be exterminated. What this country wants to know from Mr Singh is whether he will stand up to President Obama and tell him that such a move in Afghanistan would be interpreted in India as a surrender to Pakistan's use of terror as an instrument of state policy and that it would also further endanger India's security.

If Mr Singh is unable to talk his host out of such a surrender, out of accepting Pakistan's goal of setting up "a pro-Pak Government in Afghanistan," as Zakaria puts it, all talk of India being a 'strategic partner' of the US will simply be meaningless. Also, it would be prudent to ask whether Mr Singh has an alternative policy by which he can tell the American President that India can move forward on its own strength and build a strong country that can counter a growing China-Pakistan-US nexus.

To get the Obama Administration to perceive the Indian advantage and reorient its foreign policy, India must have a Government that believes in building national strength through a framework that inspires a billion people with one purpose - to become a superpower. But within the ruling Congress, nationalism and national culture are dirty words. Thus, Mr Singh finds the need to appeal to his celebrity host. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister's spin doctors have to spot the glitter in the lunch and dinner that President Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have thrown in Mr Singh's honour, in order to divert the people's attention back home.

Courtesy: www.dailypioneer.com, November 27, 2009