Late riser: India charts its own course

Books like Superpower? The amazing race between China’s hare and India’s tortoise by businessman Raghav Bahl predict a democratic, English-speaking India overhauling China. But most analysts expect Bahl’s "confident tortoise, humming a popular English tune rather loudly" to lag behind for decades to come. Clearly, India has a lot of catching up to do.

And as the Obama administration seeks to reengage with Asia, a closer strategic relationship with an India growing its economy and building up its military has clear attractions. "The US relationship with India should be rooted in shared interests and values and should not be simply transactional", argues a recent Center for a New American Security report co-chaired by former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage.

According to the CNAS report, India is already the United States’ most frequent partner in military exercises. Counter-terrorism cooperation was formalized in a July memorandum.

Barack Obama’s November trip to India was successful on both the trade (almost $15 billion in Indian orders) and the diplomatic fronts. The president’s support for "a reformed UN Security Council that includes India as a permanent member" was well received.

For all that, US policymakers are likely to find crafting a closer strategic partnership with India a delicate and drawn-out business. It is twelve years since then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee described India and the US as "natural allies". "Strategic autonomy" remains an important thread in Indian doctrine (the Non-Aligned Movement was, in part, the creation of India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru).

What’s more, the foreign policies and interests of India and the US diverge on significant points.

The Atlantic’s Robert D. Kaplan has drawn attention to the Iranian port of Chah Bahar, which India has helped to develop and which hosts an Iranian naval base.

International climate change negotiations have often found Jairam Ramesh, India’s outspoken environment minister, at loggerheads with the United States. (The latest UN meeting in Cancun represented something of a rapprochement after confrontational Copenhagen.)

And Foreign Policy last week reported a senior Indian diplomat at the United Nations questioning the right of the Security Council to deal with Burma. "What, those bamboo rice people, cut off from the world?" The diplomat reportedly exclaimed. "Is that a threat to international peace and security? Not in my view". India takes a non-permanent seat on the council in January.

India - a continent-sized power with a unique political culture - is charting its own course. C. Raja Mohan, strategic affairs editor at the Indian Express, offers this advice to US policymakers: "If Washington can be patient, endure an extended courtship, and above all take a longer-term view of the relationship with Delhi, it will find much to like about India's foreign policy".

And as they pursue breakneck growth and military modernization, patience is surely wise counsel for the two Asian giants in their dealings with each other.