It is rightly said that great things have small beginnings. And the small beginning to end the estrangement between the world’s largest democracies began with a tryst on the terrace of a hotel room in a Mexican resort town in 1981. On the sidelines of the Cancun Economic Summit, Ronald Reagan and Indira Gandhi, two contrasting personalities as there ever were, met to bury the hatchet that had troubled United States-India relations for over three decades.
The birth centenary of Ronald Wilson Reagan on Feb. 6 is a fitting occasion to recount the 40th American president’s statesmanship, vision and personal charm that transformed Washington’s relations with New Delhi.
If his sunny disposition and easy manner charmed the original “Iron Lady” during their first encounter in Mexico, his administration’s ingenious framework to strengthen bilateral relations laid the foundation on which today’s U.S.-India strategic partnership rests.
In a clear departure from the preceding administrations – including the sympathetic Kennedy, Johnson and Carter administrations and the nearly hostile Nixon White House – President Reagan decided to engage India on areas where there was agreement and mutual interest instead of trying to resolve outstanding issues that were intractable.
The significance of this seemingly simple solution should be seen against the backdrop of the tumultuous state of international affairs in the early 1980s. The Cold War was in full swing, thanks to the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Washington was still grappling with a popular revolution in Iran, which had brought in a radical Islamic regime, and the humiliating hostage crisis. Closer home, in Nicaragua, it was preoccupied with radicals who overthrew a close American authoritarian ally; and in Europe, it was coping with a heightened state of tensions sparked by an arms race in theater nuclear weapons.
President Reagan moved into the Oval Office determined not just to contain the communist threat, but roll back Soviet influence. The key to the success of this Reagan Doctrine was Pakistan, which was the conduit for U.S. aid to the Afghan mujhahideen fighting the Soviets.
The Reagan White House had to placate Islamabad – which was hell bent on gaining a military edge over India – without either weakening or hurting New Delhi, which was already furious at Washington’s move to arm Pakistan and cast a Nelson’s eye on its nuclear program.
The Reagan administration accomplished this impossible balancing act by rejecting the notion that U.S. relations in South Asia were a zero-sum game.
So, while it appeased Pakistan’s Zia-ul Haq with aid and arms, it upped the ante on political and business relations with India. The president went about it by establishing personal relations with Indian leaders, including lavishly hosting Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and, later Rajiv Gandh, at the White House.
Unlike his predecessors, who regarded Indira Gandhi to be somewhat recalcitrant and obstinate and approached her warily, Reagan respected her forthrightness and strength.
Toasting Gandhi at the White House dinner in July 1982, he said, “I have been struck by the strength, the intelligence and the determination of the prime minister, not only in explaining her views but in seeking a clear understanding of ours. The dialog of discovery that we began at Cancun matured in our discussions today and will, I trust, bear important fruit in the days and years ahead.”
On her part, Gandhi, too, reciprocated evenly to American overtures – she was a much chastened leader after she returned to power in 1980, following her humiliating defeat two years before. In the altered security environment of the 1980s, she also realized that she had to restore the equilibrium in India’s foreign policy that was tilted too close to an expansionist Soviet Union.
She understood that India could not lessen its dependence on Moscow and also alienate Washington, which was playing a more aggressive role in India’s neighborhood. Tacitly acknowledging the centrality of Pakistan’s role in Reagan’s Afghan/Soviet policy, Gandhi calculated that the only way to check Islamabad’s designs against India was to go along with a rapprochement with the U.S.
Notwithstanding the mutual national interests in furthering ties, it was personal chemistry that facilitated the thaw in relations – primarily, Reagan’s ability to peel away Gandhi’s distrust of American intentions and attitude toward her person.
Until then the U.S. foreign policy establishment had been openly critical of Gandhi’s dictatorial and dynastic ways, but Reagan refocused attention on the place of the Gandhi family in India’s modern history. He cleverly, and much to her delight, drew a historical parallel between the Nehru-Gandhis and the (John and Quincy) Adams family – the Brahmins from Boston, not Kashmir, he joked.
But it is not as though Reagan’s India policy was all atmospherics. He conveyed the importance he attached to it by dispatching to the country a number of his senior Cabinet members, including Casper Weinberger, the first American defense secretary to visit India.
The Reagan administration re-established defense ties with India, including military-to-military exchanges, and deepened science and technology cooperation and dramatically increased trade relations. The seeds of renewed cooperation in nuclear energy were also sown during his administration – Reagan allowed France to supply fuel to the Tarapur Nuclear Plant, which came under U.S. sanctions after India's 1974 nuclear test.
India, it can be safely said, was an abiding interest of President Reagan during his two terms. After the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984, he wasted no time in inviting Rajiv Gandhi to Washington and gave him the (then) rare honor of addressing a joint session of the U.S. Congress. He was so impressed by the young and handsome prime minister that he even assigned his vice president, George H.W. Bush, to accompany Rajiv Gandhi on his visit to Texas.
In many ways, India was a perfect fit for Reagan, who was both an ideologue and a realist. If pragmatism prompted his decision to set aside the differences and further ties with India, India’s democracy immensely appealed to the anti-communist ideologue in him.
To understand how much he valued India in a developing world that was then awash in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, one has to recall his own words: “India's experience since independence exemplifies the gathering strength of the democratic revolution. And India stands in eloquent refutation of all those who argue that democratic institutions are not equal to the task of dealing with today's problems, or are irrelevant to the needs of today's developing nations. For these reasons, India serves as a beacon not only to developing nations which seek to emulate its experience but to all of us who seek renewal of our faith in democracy.”
Clearly, President Reagan understood the idea of India much better that any president before him or since.
