by P. R. Kumaraswamy*

As the U.S.-Iranian dispute escalates, both Washington and Tehran seek friends and allies. New Delhi is caught in the middle. While the U.S.-Indian partnership has grown closer in recent years, New Delhi’s approach toward Iran’s suspected nuclear program causes concern in Washington. Overshadowing the debate is India’s own nuclear program. With the July 2005 U.S.-Indian civilian nuclear deal yet to win U.S. Senate ratification, is India seeking to strengthen its energy security through Iran? Or is New Delhi pursuing the civilian nuclear deal without being sensitive to Washington’s concerns vis-à-vis Iran?

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A personal, historical vignette

By Cainnech Ó Sullibhain

This story begins of all places in what was then known as the Trucial Coast of Arabia, bordering on the Sultanate of Oman and Muscat in the Persian Gulf on one side and Saudi Arabia on the other.

While I was serving in the merchant navy, I had the opportunity to touch the Trucial Coast, which of course got its name because the British had signed a treaty (truce) with the local sheikhs in the seven sheikhdoms, which were later to become known as the United Arab Emirates.

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A judge in India has summoned two Hindu gods, Ram and Hanuman, to help resolve a property dispute. …

Talk about appealing to a higher power:

… Judge Singh sent out two notices to the deities, but they were returned as the addresses were found to be “incomplete”.

This prompted him to put out adverts in local newspapers summoning the gods.

“You failed to appear in court despite notices sent by a peon and later through registered post. You are herby directed to appear before the court personally”, Judge Singh’s notice said. …

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By Canadian Coalition for Democracies

Ottawa, Canada - August 15, 2007 - India celebrates 60 years of independence. This occasion offers Canada an opportunity to reevaluate its relationship with one of history’s oldest continuing civilizations, a nation that is the world’s largest pluralistic democracy, and a major Asian military and economic power.

Like Canada, India inherited its parliamentary democracy, common law, civic administration and knowledge of English from its period as a British dependency. Despite having much in common with India, Canada has been slow to expand relations with the country, focusing more on its relations with China. This emphasis is reflected in the disproportionate extent of Canadian Government programs, civic engagement, trade, bilateral agreements and ministerial visits aimed at China, and a blinkered approach toward India.

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by David Harris*

For too long Canada has somehow overlooked the biggest democracy in the world, India, mistakenly focusing on China instead. India’s annual GDP growth is now only one percentage point short of China’s. And the subcontinent is pushing a broader spectrum — both manufacturing and services — than China, with its emphasis on manufacturing.

A passage to India, or a slow boat to China? At last, Stephen Harper’s government might be making the right choice.

For years Canadian diplomacy has emphasized China over India. But next week, Trade Minister David Emerson’s high-profile India mission can bring a needed change — provided Canada’s government is prepared to pursue the right initiatives.

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By Animesh Roul*

Four suspected Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) militants, arrested following a heavy exchange of gunfire with the Delhi Police on Feb 4, have been remanded to police custody. Meanwhile, the suspected JeM men were identified as Shahid Gafoor (from Sialkot, Pakistan) Bashir Ahmed, Fayyaz Lone, and Abdul Majeed Baba (all from Jammu and Kashmir). Initial investigations suggested that three Kashmiri militants, who had arrived in Delhi from Jammu by the Malwa Express earlier that day. The encounter took place near the Ranjit Singh flyover, close to bustling Connaught Place area. Police recovered three kg of RDX, four detonators, a timer, six hand grenades, 30 bore firearm, USD 10,000 and INR 50,000 from them.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

The Senate yesterday passed legislation by a super majority (85-12), proposed by President Bush, that would allow the sharing of nuclear technologies between the U.S. and India, for civilian uses. While detractors claim this is a setback for the non-proliferation cause, I have long argued that closer ties between the U.S. and India are natural and necessary.

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By Animesh Roul*

At least two events have been haunting India’s security establishment at present: an email threat to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ahead of his visit to southern most State of Kerala scheduled on October 31, and the arrest of two suspected Pakistani nationals with alleged link to Al Badr terror outfit in the neighboring Mysore (in Karnataka).

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by Harsh V. Pant*

In January 2006, Saudi king Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz al-Saud visited China and India, a trip some commentators labeled “a strategic shift” in Saudi foreign policy and reflective of “a new era” for the kingdom.[1] It was King Abdullah’s first trip outside the Middle East since taking the throne in August 2005, and it was also the first trip by a Saudi ruler to China since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1990.

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By Canadian Coalition for Democracies

Toronto, Canada, Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - The Canadian Coalition for Democracies (CCD) has been granted intervenor status at the Commission of Inquiry into the Investigation of the Bombing of Air India Flight 182. David Harris, CCD Senior Fellow for National Security, will serve as legal counsel and intervene on behalf of CCD at the Commission of Inquiry.

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By Canadian Coalition for Democracies

Toronto, Canada, Tuesday, July 12, 2006 - Terrorists today launched grenade attacks in Srinagar, Kashmir and bombed eight commuter trains in Mumbai, India. The terrorists targeted innocent civilians, killing over 180 and injuring or maiming over 450.

Intelligence reports indicate that these atrocities are the work of radical Islamic organizations, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) and the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). LeT is designated as terrorist entity in Canada.

“This massacre has all the hallmarks of radical Islam,” said Alastair Gordon, President of the Canadian Coalition for Democracies (CCD). “Our government must clearly identify the enemy, and condemn the propaganda that claims poverty, marginalization, Israel or foreign policy played any role in these barbaric attacks.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Today, Islamist terrorists murdered 22 Hindus and wounded 5 in Kashmir. This attack isn’t just about the Indian “occupied” portion of Kashmir. It is not just about Muslims killing kafir (non-Muslims), but was meant as an attempt to derail warming relations between India and Pakistan, and especially to throw a wrench into the strengthening ties between India and the United States.

Here is the delicate manner in which the Islamists acted:

Police said militants lined the men up outside their homes in the mountainous Doda district before shooting them.

There are other reasons for attacking Hindus, of course. Mostly Hindu India is the world’s biggest democracy, a political system that is blasphemy to the Islamists. 58 years of independent, democratic rule? Indians are embracing capitalism. Pretty girls and dashing young men on TV and in the movies (Bollywood)? Punjabi rappers sparring with their New York counter-parts? Strong ties with the U.S. and Israel? Naturally, India has been the target of the Islamo-fascists.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

The Bush administration has seen its share of problems recently, but it deserves kudos for an agreement reached Thursday building closer ties between the U.S. and India. What more natural alliance than one between two democracies? Yes, India is a nuclear power, but its arsenal is under the control of its people through democratically-elected representatives. India has given up on its failed socialist experiment, and is now a free-market powerhouse, with a middle class of 250 million. Also making the subcontinent a natural ally, India has suffered from the scourge of Islamo-fascism. India is an outpost of democracy in a sea of corruption and dictatorship. Pragmatically, what better strategic counter-balance would there be in Asia to the insane tyrants ruling countries like Iran, who insist that “Islam must ‘conquer the world’ by defeating the West?”

It should not be forgotten that India has broken from the Third World herd mentality, by voting against Iran at the UN, and forging diplomatic and military ties with the “pariah” State of Israel.

Despite its geographic location, India is practically part of the West, partially by virtue of its Anglosphere (British) legacy, but also because its major religious traditions, both Hindu and Buddhist, advocate quite tolerant philosophies.

There is more to Indo-U.S. relations than strategic and tactical concerns. Indian culture started making inroads into U.S. society during the 60’s, as flower-children looked to expand their horizons by exploring alternative spiritual traditions. But Indian cultural influence has never been as strong as it is now. Many Indians have immigrated to the U.S., and their contributions to our society are no less than amazing. Their ties to the homeland help bind our two nations together.

Young Americans are dancing to Punjabi Bhangra music. More and more U.S. citizens are tasting Indian cuisine. Americans are discovering the beautiful teachings of the Bhagavad-Gita and Upanishads. Poets and writers are voraciously consuming the verses of Rabindranath Tagore. Indian-American engineers have helped fuel America’s great tech/Internet revolution (e.g., through companies like Juniper Networks or Exodus — worth about $235 billion in stock market value).

India is a free market, pluralistic society — the biggest on Earth. It is destined to become one of the world’s most influential countries — economically, culturally, technologically, and strategically. It is only natural for the U.S., the most powerful democracy, to ally itself with the most important up-and-coming democracy.

To my amazement, the Washington Post agrees, and describes other positives which could result from Bush’s visit to the subcontinent:

The clearest win out of yesterday’s bargain is a closer relationship with India, the world’s most populous democracy, an emerging powerhouse in engineering and medicine, and a potential counterweight both to militant Islam and China. But there are other wins, too. Allowing India to import foreign technology for its civilian nuclear program will boost global efforts to develop new sources of energy, particularly sources that won’t increase the level of climate-warming gases. In exchange for the opportunity to import nuclear know-how, India will disentangle its civilian nuclear program from its weapons-building facilities, subjecting the civilian side to multilateral inspections designed to ensure that technology or fissile material isn’t diverted for military purposes. Again, this represents a gain: Currently only four of India’s nuclear facilities are subject to foreign safeguards, and these are less muscular than the inspections to which India will be submitting. Finally, India will promise not to export nuclear equipment or material deemed sensitive by other nuclear powers. At present, India respects these international rules; in the future it would be formally committed to them.

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I weary when talking with my lefty friends. Of course, they blame everything on the U.S., expunging all Third World peoples of any responsibility. Behold the New York Times reporting today how Indians are embracing capitalism:

Fifteen years after India began its transition from a state-run to a free-market economy, a new culture of money - making it, and even more, spending it - is afoot.

This domestic hunger for goods has become an important engine for an economy that still lags in exports. So intense is the advertising onslaught, so giddy the media coverage of the new affluence, that it is almost easy to forget that India remains home to the world’s largest number of poor people, according to the World Bank.

Still, India’s middle class has grown to an estimated 250 million in the past decade, and the number of super-rich has grown sharply as well.

And, after more decades of socialist deprivation, when consumer goods were so limited that refrigerators were given pride of place in living rooms, they have ever more wares to spend it on: cellphones, air-conditioners and washing machines; Botox, sushi and Louis Vuitton bags; and, perhaps the biggest status symbol of all, cars.

India has become one of the world’s fastest-growing car markets, with about a million being sold each year. It once had only two kinds, Fiats and Ambassadors. Now dozens of models ride the roads, from the humble, Indian-made Maruti to the Rolls-Royce, which has re-entered India’s market some 50 years after leaving in the British wake.

Indians are discovering in cars everything Americans did: control and freedom, privacy and privilege, speed and status. Car showrooms, the bigger the better, are the new temples here, and cars the icons of a new individualism taking root. Foreign car companies, meanwhile, have discovered the Indian consumer - not to mention the country’s engineering brain power - and are setting up plants across India.

One of my leftist friends was shocked when I told her about India’s military alliance with Israel. But when India and China’s cars start creating more carbon emissions than the U.S., I’m sure she’ll blame it all on those evil American auto marketers.

India, once the champion of the Non-Aligned Movement, angered Iran once by voting to refer the Islamist dictatorship to the United Nations Security Council because of its pursuit of nuclear weapons. It looks like India is set to vote against Iran again. The Times of India is almost apologetic about the Indian ruling party’s (UPA’s) stance:

India looks set to go against Iran once again on November 24 at the IAEA as the prospect of a vote is looking increasingly difficult to avert. The decision, taken at the highest levels of the Indian government, comes even as the Left parties upped the ante, even leveraging its support to UPA [United Progressive Alliance] on the issue. …

… the Manmohan Singh government is bracing itself for a decision that, on the face of it, may have an effect on UPA’s relations with Left parties. While government recognises the need to humour the Left, it is clear that it cannot possibly reverse its vote at IAEA or can acquiesce in what it calls the attempt to “communalise” foreign policy.

Humoring the Left is non-sequitur, as India seems to have chosen a course that it cannot realistically stray from: re-alignment pointing towards the West. For example, India established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1992, and in 2004, bought a $1 billion early warning radar system from the Jewish state — one of the biggest military contracts in Israel’s history.

According to the BBC:

India and Israel’s bilateral relationship has blossomed since the two countries opened diplomatic ties in 1992.

From India’s Tribune :

“The fact that India and Israel are going to cooperate in a big way in such sensitive areas shows the depth of the strategic ties which have developed between the two countries over the past few years,” a senior official of the Ministry of Defence told The Tribune.

Strategic ties with the Little Satan is not exactly what one could consider non-aligned.

In October, the Islamists set off three bombs, killing 62 and wounding 200 innocent civilians in New Delhi, India’s capital. The terrorist cowards targeted a bus and two open-air markets, seeking the maximum carnage. This is not the first time India has tasted the wrath of Islamist terror.

As Iran is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism, India must have mixed feelings about its relationship with the Islamic Republic. When India first voted against Iran at the UN, Iran reacted with non-aligned dismay:

We are not as angry as we are hurt. We are shocked and completely surprised.

First, Iran threatened to terminate its $22-billion oil deal with India, but seems to have backed off. Even the mullahs have their priorities. Money is a good thing when you are an Islamist dictator who will do anything to stay in power.

But India’s votes, its alliance with Israel, its warming relations with the U.S., and its suffering at the hand of the Islamists, will continue to align this largest democracy on Earth closer to the West – and the Anglosphere – where India rightfully belongs.