Further erosion of India's strategic autonomy is the net outcome of PM's US visit: CPI(M)

The CPI(M) has alleged that the net outcome of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the USA was a "further erosion of India's strategic autonomy".

The visit has resulted in a "self-inflicted fettering" of India's independent foreign policy, said the latest editorial of party mouthpiece People's Democracy.

"The pro-US stance adopted by the Modi government has curbed and stunted the great opportunity India is presented with of playing a creative and independent role in an increasingly multipolar world," it said.

"The net outcome of the Modi visit is a further erosion of India's strategic autonomy and a self-inflicted fettering of its independent foreign policy. Already the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, scheduled to be held physically in July in New Delhi, has been converted into a virtual meeting." The editorial further said the prime minister's visit has made India more cemented to the United States in a strategic and military relationship.

"Whatever the rhetoric 'of the partnership between two democracies' and shared values, the compulsions for a deeper and comprehensive relationship is motivated by the need of the United States to enlist India as a firm partner in its ongoing endeavours to economically and militarily contain China," it said.

This US approach to India was spelt out in 2002 in a study commissioned by the Pentagon, which viewed India as a countervailing force to China, the editorial said.

It said the feting of Modi on a state visit in Washington, a state banquet and the opportunity to address the joint session of the Congress for a second time, comes at a juncture when the Joe Biden administration was realising that all the efforts of the past few years to check and isolate China have not yielded desired results.

The CPI(M) alleged that the first major initiative by the United States to draw India into a strategic alliance was the offer of a civilian nuclear agreement in 2005.

It claimed that the opposition to the nuclear deal mounted by the Left hampered the implementation of the various logistics and interoperability agreements contained in the Defence Framework Agreement.

"Hence, it was only during the past few years of the Modi government that the so-called four foundational agreements were signed to ensure logistics support and interoperability between the two armed forces.

"All these have reached a level where a US strategic expert has called it a 'sort of alliance', i.e. the Indo-US military relationship has all the features of an alliance, except for a clause like the Article 5 in NATO treaty where an attack on one country is treated as an attack on the other," the editorial said.

It also claimed that while there was a lot of talk around the cooperation in technology between the two countries, no "transfer of technology" was actually involved.

"For Narendra Modi, the US visit and its outcome is something of value to enhance his domestic image. The RSS has always been pro-imperialist and the Indian ruling classes led by the big bourgeoisie are rooting for a strategic alliance with the United States. It is this outlook which dominates the corporate media for whom even a subaltern status as a US ally is a glorious achievement," the editorial said.