India and US talk to rebuild ties, but differences persist

NEW DELHI: The first high-level visit of a US official, assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Biswal, to India last week after the Devyani Khobragade episode restored a degree of diplomatic normalcy in the ‘strategic partnership’. But the distance between the two sides — on the bilateral front as well as regional issues — continue to persist.

Biswal, on her first visit to India after her appointment, is understood to be pleased at the reception she got in South Block, meeting the foreign secretary Sujatha Singh as well as a range of joint-secretaries. But the gaps, according to diplomatic sources, were obvious.

On the regional front, the US-India gulf has been most visible on Bangladesh. India supported the January elections, which were pushed forward by the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League, and boycotted by the Begum Khaleda Zia-led Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Delhi sees it as a battle of secular moderates and Islamists, and feels appeasing the latter would be counter-productive. The US camp says that they share India’s concerns about the Jamaat, but pushing the BNP-Jamaat out of the mainstream political process is no solution.

In Dhaka, the general perception is of the two countries batting for the two opposing ladies, which both sides agree is not very helpful.

On Sri Lanka, there is an overlap in analysis. Both Delhi and Washington agree that Colombo has not done enough to reach out to Tamils. But while US has aggressively argued for holding the Rajpakse regime accountable for war crimes, Delhi is in a bind because of different compulsions.

With an upcoming vote at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, US would like India to vote against Sri Lanka, while Delhi is yet to make up its mind.

At the root of the differences, however, is the trust deficit on the bilateral relationship.