India will never be America’s ally

Edward Luce

We in the west habitually misread the character of India’s world view

‘The west’s capacity to misread India — and assign it roles for which it has not auditioned —
endures.’ © AFP via Getty Images

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The west’s habit of projecting its desires on to India has an ancient pedigree. Edward Said
famously called it “orientalism”. Though most of us have long since dropped the snake charmers
and timeless mysticism that bewitched our forebears, the west’s capacity to misread India — and
assign it roles for which it has not auditioned — endures. The latest version is to assume that India
is basically part of the west even if it does not yet want to acknowledge it. Pride may stop India
from becoming a formal treaty ally of the US, or any other power. But New Delhi essentially shares
our worldview.

This is an easy mistake to make. Think of the prominence of Indian-born figures in US public life.
Sundar Pichai heads Alphabet, one of America’s largest companies. Satya Nadella is chief executive
of Microsoft. Arvind Krishna heads IBM, and so on (Neal Mohan, YouTube; Shantanu Narayen,
Adobe; Raj Subramaniam, FedEx etc). Ajay Banga, the former chief executive of Mastercard, is
about to become the next World Bank president. Now name me one China-born chief executive of
a US-based multinational. In fact, there are two — Zoom’s Eric Yuan and DoorDash’s Tony Xu. But
they are far fewer in number than their Indian-born counterparts. The ease with which Indian-
Americans have thrived in US society makes it easier to suppose that the country of their birth is
doing the same on the geopolitical plane. That supposition is an error, and is very likely to remain
wrong.

To that end, Swampians should read this important Ashley Tellis essay in Foreign Affairs entitled
“America’s bad bet on India”. Tellis, who is also Indian-born and raised, is co-architect with Robert
Blackwill of America’s decision to assist India’s civil nuclear development in spite of the fact that
India had recently become a nuclear weapons power without being a signatory to the non-
proliferation treaty. I got to know Tellis and Blackwill in New Delhi in 2001 when I was based there
for the FT. Blackwill was US ambassador to India and Tellis was his strategic adviser. Tellis, in
other words, has been a leading strategic brain pushing closer US-India ties over the past 20 years.
So it is worth attaching weight to what he says:

“Washington’s current expectations of India are misplaced,” Tellis writes. “Washington has sought
to strengthen India’s standing within the liberal international order and, when necessary, solicit its
contributions toward coalition defence. Yet New Delhi sees things differently. It does not harbour
any innate allegiance toward preserving the liberal international order and retains an enduring
aversion toward participating in mutual defence.”

Two reasons lie behind India’s unwillingness to join western alliances. The first is that China would
quickly overwhelm India’s military in a direct clash between the two. For understandable reasons,
India wishes to avoid that fate. I believe Tellis is right in saying that if the US and China went to
war over Taiwan, India would stand apart, though it would root from the sidelines for America to
prevail. The second reason is that India has no wish to see a bipolar world or to be part of either
camp. Though India remains a democracy of sorts — I would argue it is an electoral autocracy —
New Delhi’s foreign policy is strictly realist. India has no preference either way for democracy in
other countries and refrains from preaching about rights. This is a consensus view among Hindu
majoritarians and their greatly weakened secular opponents.

Because India is still seen as a democracy, and shares America’s fear of China, we in the west
habitually misread the character of its world view. When Indian diplomats — such as S Jaishankar,
its powerful foreign minister — say India wants to see a multipolar world, that is exactly what they
mean. Perhaps we are so accustomed to French presidents, from Charles de Gaulle to Emmanuel
Macron, paying lip service to multipolarity without really meaning it that we assume India is a
subcontinental version of France. That would be a false analogy. India has recently overtaken
China to become the world’s most populous country. It wants neither a China nor an America-
dominated world, though in the short term it will tolerate the latter as the lesser evil. The sooner
we acknowledge the reality of India as it is, not how we want it to be, the less likely we are to be
blindsided by its stances (see Russia-Ukraine).
Rana, do you believe the US would come to India’s defence in another Himalayan border war with
China? If so, do you think we are capable of thinking of ourselves as India’s ally while accepting
that India is not ours?

Recommended reading

Talking of India, my colleagues John Reed, Benjamin Parkin and Jyotsna Singh have a timely piece
on whether it can unlock the potential of its burgeoning (and semi-occupied) youth. Will India’s
youthful demography be a dividend or a penalty? It is too soon to say.

My column this week looks at America’s anything-goes Supreme Court: “Since the court refuses to
bend, it is unwittingly abetting forces that would break it,” I write. “The more the US Supreme
Court resembles a theocratic body, the more it imperils itself.” I also have a review in this Weekend
FT of Matthew Dallek’s book on the John Birch society, which he believes paved the way for
Donald Trump.

Do read the always interesting Tyler Cowen in Bloomberg in which he warns that the upcoming
Biden administration executive measures (bypassing Congress) to restrict US capital flows and
direct investments in China could erode the dollar’s standing.

Meanwhile, Paul Krugman has a brutal but convincing takedown in the New York Times of those
who argue that the dollar’s global reserve status confers big advantages on the US. He argues these
advantages are minimal and widely misunderstood.

Rana Foroohar responds

Ed, I agree with your general take on India. From a business standpoint, it’s such a hot market that
large domestic firms such as Tata, which once spent most of their money trying to grow outside the
country, have made a turn inwards recently (see this very good Economist piece on the topic).
India for Indians seems to be not only the political but the economic slogan. While the Indian
diaspora is certainly huge, with many heading global companies as you point out, the fact that
everyone — including the US — wants more access to Indian markets and also wants to be in
security partnerships as a counter to China gives the Indians themselves a lot of leverage.

It’s interesting that the US continues to see India as a key ally even as the country imports large
amounts of Russian energy, and goes after US tech firms for digital imperialism (I can’t say I think
they are wrong on that front). Still, geography is destiny and the US needs working relationships,
strong or not, in and around Asia to counter China. I wouldn’t expect India or any number of other
allies to come to the US’s aid in a hot conflict over Taiwan. But I would expect the US to send
weapons if another India/China border conflict broke out. Troops, probably not. Welcome to the
multipolar world.

Your feedback

And now a word from our Swampians . . .

In response to “America needs a new strategy to court the global south”:
“Jake Sullivan’s speech was a laudable attempt to look truth in the eye. However, the optics from
the Global South could be different. Firstly, the mere fact that such a comprehensive, and
somewhat watershed, speech was left to a senior White House staffer and not to a top member of
the US Cabinet might trigger some scepticism. Secondly, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the
message Washington is trying to convey is ‘everything we have been saying (and doing) for the last
four decades is now wrong.’ Thirdly, far more important, is that in the current context where the
issue of the rules-based world order is dominating the narratives’ battle, Sullivan’s speech will
sound as ‘the rules of the game were good when they allowed us to win and dominate, but now that
our victory is uncertain the rules must change.’ In other words, too little too late, and, too
suspicious.” — Marco Carnelos, Rome, Italy

Your feedback

We'd love to hear from you. You can email the team on swampnotes@ft.com, contact Ed on
edward.luce@ft.com and Rana on rana.foroohar@ft.com, and follow them on Twitter at
@RanaForoohar and @EdwardGLuce. We may feature an excerpt of your response in the next
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