Hillary Clinton to deliver important speech on India-US ties today

It will be a major policy speech that will unveil President Barack Obama's ambitious agenda for an ongoing strategic partnership with India.

Administration officials told rediff.com that the emphasis will be on US-India trade and the need to ramp it up even further and a call to India -- now that the Manmohan Singh government is much stronger and stable -- to take a pro-active stance in terms of the successful completion of the Doha Round and for New Delhi to also play a catalytic role in tackling the global economic crisis.

Clinton's remarks will also be a broad overview of where Washington and Delhi could converge on issues like Afghanistan, counter-terrorism, nonproliferation and climate change.

The only other major speech on the Obama administration's agenda for the furtherance of US-India relations was delivered more than two months ago before the Indian election by Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg at a Brookings Institution conference on the US-India civilian nuclear deal.

Officials said while Steinberg's speech, delivered before the Congress party-led coalition was returned to power with an significantly increased mandate and hence contained "broad brush strokes," Clinton's address "would be more specific," in terms of where the US and India "could zero in cooperatively on issues" both regional and global, while reinforcing the bilateral ties on a variety of issues where the groundwork has already been done and are on track.

Since the implementation of the nuclear deal and expeditious movement on it is important for US business and industry waiting to get a chunk of the massive Indian energy market, the officials acknowledged that Clinton would touch upon this accord and note that the US stands ready to "get going on the deal and commercialise it," as soon as India completes things like ratification of the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage and carves out the sites in the nuclear reactor part for American firms

The officials said Clinton would also emphasise the important role India plays in terms of Washington's AfPak regional approach, as had been reinforced recently by US Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, while lauding the recent meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari in Russia, which held out hope for a return to the composite dialogue between India and Pakistan.

They said Clinton would say it was imperative that Islamabad move expeditiously to complete its investigation on the Mumbai terror attacks and bring the perpetrators to justice so that the composite dialogue that has remained comatose since 26/11 can resume.

According to the officials, Clinton was also likely to call on India to take on leadership roles in nonproliferation and climate change issues and say that in this regard New Delhi move to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty while leading the global charge for a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

Under Secretary of State William Burns, who visited India last week, has conferred with Clinton, the officials said, briefing her on the meetings he had with Prime Minister Singh and other senior Indian officials and their concerns over Pakistan.

Robert Blake, the new Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs, and Donald Camp, director for South Asia at the National Security Council, have also provided inputs for Clinton's speech.

One official said this speech would also refer to the roles played by the influential Indian-American community and the business community led by the USIBC in fostering better US-India ties. It would "put to rest" the continuing criticism of the Obama administration by some leading analysts, both in the US and India, that it had been largely ignoring India.

"There was absolutely no ignoring of India," one US official said. "President Obama himself and Secretary Clinton on several occasions have made clear how important this relationship is, but we scrupulously stayed clear during the run-up to and the election process as we did not want to insert ourselves during this process."

"Now that India's election process is over, the secretary's remarks will make clear the importance we attach to our ties with India to further not just our bilateral agenda, but our mutual regional and global objectives and that her visit to India shortly (other officials have said it will be sometime later next month) will be to reinforce those ties."

Professor Sumit Ganguly of the Indiana University at Bloomington and Paul Kapur, associate professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the US Naval Postgraduate School, writing in Foreign Affairs recently slammed the Obama administration, accusing it of essentially ignoring India.

They said 'in its dealings with Asia, the administration has focused instead on China, Afghanistan and Pakistan -- going so far in its attempt to woo the latter as to float the idea of mediating the Kashmir dispute (something long sought by Islamabad but anathema to New Delhi).'

Ganguly and Kapur declared that 'this behaviour has not gone unnoticed,' and said, 'India's strategic elites recognise that no other US president is likely to match (George W) Bush's personal commitment to strengthening Indo-US ties, but they worry that Barack Obama's lack of interest could do real harm to the relationship and squander recent hard-won gains.'

Asked what he would like to hear in Clinton's speech, former Bill Clinton administration official Bruce Riedel, who co-chaired Obama's Afghanistan-Pakistan strategic review, told rediff.com: "I think she should underscore the importance of India to American interests, not just in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but on a global stage."

"I would hope that she would be indicating that she will be traveling soon to India and I also hope that she would be indicating that President Obama will be making a trip to India in the first two years of his administration," Riedel, an erstwhile CIA analyst, said.

Currently a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think-tank, Riedel had earlier said 'now that we finally have a new government in India -- actually it's not a new government, it's the old government but with a much stronger mandate than it ever had before -- it is time to significantly increase the US engagement with India.'

'The administration," he said, "was right to let the Indians get their own house in order over the last several months. But the house is in order now. It's time to come a-calling, not only in Afghanistan, but on the entire range of bilateral issues that we have with India.'

"No country is more important to America in the 21st century on issues like global warming, nonproliferation, the battle against terrorism, the future of democracy than India," Riedel added. "Now is the time to engage at a very senior level. I hope and trust that Secretary Clinton will make this an urgent stop on her travel agenda for this summer."

Besides Clinton, other top Obama officials addressing the USIBC summit will be US Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, both of whom are also slated to visit India shortly.

India will be represented by a high-powered delegation led by the new Commerce Minister Anand Sharma, and business heavyweights Azim Premji, Anil Ambani, the new Confederation of Indian Industry president Venu Srinivasan, and CII's indefatigable Chief Mentor Tarun Das.