THE REPUBLICNon-proliferation Treaty (1968) which was jointly sponsored by the
United States and the Soviet Union. The two superpowers had arrived at
an informal division of labour with regard to the campaign for getting
other nations to sign that treaty and India was among those nations
which the Soviet Union was supposed to convert. But India turned a deaf
ear to repeated Soviet appeals. There was a general consensus in India
that the treaty should not be signed as it only secured the hegemony of
the existing atomic powers once and for all. India should keep the
nuclear option open. But there were differences of opinion as far as the
actual exercise of that option was concerned. During his term of office
Shastri refrained from it; Indira Gandhi did go in for it, though only in
the limited way of one underground test of a ‘device’. Nevertheless, this
immediately got her into trouble with the United States which had
supplied uranium for India’s reactors and now suspended further
deliveries. This was only one of the many irritations which had spoiled
Indo-American communication almost from the very beginning of their
diplomatic relations.
Initially, India had been well predisposed to the United States as
President Roosevelt had tried his best to foster the advance of Indian
independence. But in the first years of the new republic the United States
missed a chance to help India at a time of a serious food crisis and Nehru’s
first visit to the United States in 1949 proved to be a mutual
disappointment. When John Foster Dulles subsequently organised the
global pact system, which India regarded as a threat to its own security as
Pakistan had joined it with a vengeance, Indo-American relations were at a
low ebb in spite of American economic aid for India. The short-lived
administration of President Kennedy was a ray of hope. India was
considered to be a major partner, the world’s greatest democracy, and thus
an asset to the free world. But soon after Kennedy’s untimely death Indo-
American relations deteriorated once more as the Indochina war escalated.
After American disengagement in Vietnam, President Nixon wooed China
and alienated India at the time of the liberation of Bangladesh. The
enthusiastic reception of Brezhnev in New Delhi in 1973 and the explosion
of India’s nuclear device in 1974 could be interpreted as deliberate acts of
defiance by Nixon, whose ‘tilt’ towards Pakistan was well known. Indira
Gandhi’s ‘emergency’ of 1975 received wholehearted support from the
Soviet Union and silenced American friends of India who had praised the
subcontinent as the world’s greatest democracy.
The election of President Carter in November 1976 and the restoration
of democracy in India seemed to augur well for an Indo-American
rapprochement. The new Indian prime minister, Morarji Desai, had the
reputation of being for the West and against the Soviet Union. A major
shift in Indian foreign policy was expected. But when Carter visited India,
the disagreement about the supply of uranium and the nuclear option