NEW DEHLI, India – Washington’s feel-good mission to India this week was long on browbeating and short on substance, signaling that America has yet to understand its supposed strategic partner.
Landing first in Kolkata, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came to India with a substantive agenda. She acknowledged the importance of regional leaders to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s coalition government by meeting with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee — the biggest impediment to opening India’s multibrand retail sector to investments from foreign companies like Walmart — in Kolkata Monday.
Then, she moved on to meet Singh and Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi, as well as Foreign Minister SM Krishna, in New Delhi later in the week.
But whatever groundwork for cooperation Clinton might have laid in her private meetings with these leaders in advance of next month’s strategic dialogue in Washington was undermined by her public speeches browbeating India on Iran and mouthing the same old platitudes on Pakistan, Indian policy experts say.
“She’s overplaying her hand on Iran,” said Kanwal Sibal, former Indian foreign secretary. “Knowing the complexities in India and the political sensitivities involved, for her to publicly pressure India to reduce its oil purchases from Iran, I don’t think it sits well with the larger political establishment in New Delhi. I don’t think she’s winning any arguments in favor of her case. On the contrary, she’s causing a degree of resentment.”
From the outset, Clinton’s visit was awkwardly timed. Apparently designed to encourage India to further reduce its oil imports from Iran, in compliance with US sanctions, it coincided with the visit of a trade delegation from Tehran.
“It is too difficult to tell at the moment” if she was able to establish any common ground, according to Sumit Ganguly, political science professor and Indian cultures expert at Indiana University. “Also, India may have trouble trying to reduce its dependence [on Iranian oil] too drastically.”
Other observers are pessimistic.
Despite its public rejection of US sanctions on Iranian oil, India has been quietly reducing its imports, and has negotiated a deal to make half of its purchases in Indian rupees — which Tehran can only spend on goods made in India.
Already, India’s oil imports from Iran plunged 34 percent in April, as Indian refiners are expected to cut volumes from Iran by more than 20 percent this year. However, India is reluctant to rely too fully on oil from Saudi Arabia, which is a staunch supporter of Pakistan.
By using the bully pulpit to make her case (and speak over Indian heads to poll-bound Americans), Clinton may therefore have alienated a government that was already convinced and taking action, some argue.
In Kolkata, for instance, Clinton “played up” Tehran’s alleged involvement in the attempted assassination of an Israeli diplomat in New Delhi this February, asserting that Iran is a terrorist state. Meanwhile, she went no further than to repeat Washington’s usual formulations on Pakistan — that Islamabad “should do more” to ensure that terrorists don’t use the country as a launchpad, Sibal said.
“From our point of view, Pakistan has been involved in terrorism for years and years and years, and there’s this terrible thing that happened in Mumbai. But Pakistan is not declared a terrorist state … The United States doesn’t even talk politically of Pakistan as a terrorist state,” Sibal said. “In this background, based on this one-off incident, to tell us that Iran is a terrorist state, I don’t think is going to win her points.”
Indian and American interests converge more today than ever before. Washington would like New Delhi to become a stronger player in the region to offset some of Beijing’s growing power. America’s ongoing pivot toward the Pacific coincides with India’s “Look East” policy aimed at broadening its trade and influence in Southeast Asia. And America’s historical alliance with Pakistan is now barely limping onward as a marriage of convenience.
But that doesn’t mean that the Indian and American agendas converge on every point.
In proceeding directly to India from her visit to China, for instance, Clinton underscored Washington’s position that it views both countries as of equal importance. Yet amid support for India’s move into Southeast Asia, the US also continues to entertain China’s ambitions in India’s backyard.
And whatever avowals Washington is willing to make privately about the desire to balance China with another rising power, when it comes to issues like the dispute over the borders of Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh, America wisely retains a studied silence.
“If things turn hot with China, we can’t really rely on the US to back us,” said Rajiv Sikri, a former Indian ambassador to the US. “So how can India be burning its boats with China, or Iran, or any other country? The US attitude in moments of crisis will be determined by US national interests which may or may not coincide with India’s.”
In a nutshell, that’s why Indian policymakers are reluctant to give up the country’s historical stance of “non-alignment” and stake the country’s future on a full-fledged alliance with the US.
But perhaps more importantly for Clinton’s visit, for any Indian leader to publicly kowtow to American dictates in India’s neighborhood — however desirable the intended outcomes may be — would be tantamount to political suicide. So while Clinton spoke as though her administration is the only one with an upcoming election to worry about, her interlocutors in India’s Congress Party forged full speed ahead to push new trade agreements with Tehran across town.
It was as clear a sign as any that Washington is still somewhat in denial about the nature of this strategic partnership.
“India will never be in the kind of position that Japan or some of the other allies are,” said Sikri. “The US is not offering the kind of security umbrella to India that it does to these countries, and it never will. Nor will the Indians accept it, I think. Nor is it a feasible proposition. So for the US to expect India to accept blindly whatever the Americans say is extremely naive.”
According to Indiana University’s Ganguly, India’s move to boost trade ties with Iran in the midst of Clinton’s visit sent a “very bad” signal in that context, suggesting that New Delhi’s response to American policies will continue to be a kneejerk no to preserve a “hackneyed” idea of India’s strategic autonomy.
But insiders from India’s foreign policy establishment like former ambassador Sikri argue that India’s “feisty” response to US pressure on Iran marked a maturation of the strategic partnership, rather than its decay.
“There is a genuine friendship with the United States, a desire for closer ties, through trade, commerce, people-to-people relationships, which makes for a very deep, across the board Indo-US partnership,” Sikri said. “Even when government-to-government relations are not the best, these sustain it. We can have a dialogue with the US that enables us to have a candid exchange of views without derailing the relationship.”
Wednesday, Sep 7, 2011 6:01 PM UTC
Bollywood reflects on what these racy and ubiquitous films from the pre-Internet era say about the nation's culture
By Jason Overdorf, GlobalPost
NEW DELHI, India — On a hand-painted poster for a 1990s’ grade-B Indian film “Qatil Jawani” (“Murderous Nymphette”), a plump and naked actress sits astride a shirtless man, her head thrown back in apparent ecstasy as the man’s hands paw at her chest.
Once ubiquitous in so-called “morning shows” at theaters across the country, softcore films like “Biwi Anadi Sali Khiladi” (“Innocent Wife, Cheating Sister-in-Law”) and “Kaam Tantra” (“Principles of Sex”) have slowly disappeared from the big screen in India with the increasing availability of hardcore pornography on the internet.
But now, as mainstream cinema sheds its former reticence about sex and female sexuality, Indians are beginning to take a second look at softcore porn, this time for what it says about Indian culture.
This December, television soap magnate Ekta Kapoor will release “The Dirty Picture,” a mainstream Bollywood biopic about Silk Smitha — a skin-show specialist from the ’80s who crossed over to perform sensuous so-called “cabaret” numbers in mainstream films.
More subtly, in this year’s “Tees Maar Khan,” a Hindi action comedy film, imported British-Indian bombshell Katrina Kaif made waves with the song, “Sheila Ki Jawani,” or “Young Sheila.” The song was an homage to the Hindi title of one of Silk Smitha’s softcore flicks, “Reshma Ki Jawani,” or “Nubile Reshma.”
And in New Delhi this week, Wieden+ Kennedy (W+K) ad agency is presenting an exhibition of softcore porn posters as, well, art.
“School kids, college students and even grown up men used to go to these movie halls just to see a glimpse of a woman bathing or a random love-making scene,” said W+K executive creative director V. Sunil, whose personal poster collection is on display in the exhibition called “Morning Show.”
Before the globalization of sexuality that came with the internet, India’s porn stars were big — literally.
Silk Smitha herself was no waif. Looking especially buxom packed into skimpy clothes, she knocked down evil thugs like bowling pins – highlighting a peculiar facet of India’s softcore porn.
The Indian films that were once labeled pornography were less about nudity and graphic sex than they were about female sexuality, according to Meena T. Pillai, a cultural critic at the University of Kerala — the state where the softcore porn industry was centered, due to its relatively liberal censor.
Apart from voluptuous stars and voluminous cleavage shots, the only real distinguishing factor of pornographic films was that they centered on a sexually aggressive woman, in contrast to the demure domestic ideal.
“You’d be shocked if you actually saw a Malayalam [language] softcore porn movie. [The camera] basically stops at the thigh. It doesn’t ride further up than that,” said Pillai. “But the moment you show women’s desire, that movie would automatically be labeled porn.”
I.V. Sasi’s 1978 “Avalude Ravukal” (“Her Nights”), for example, was labeled softcore porn simply because it dramatized the story of a prostitute and depicted the heroine — played by Sasi’s wife, Seema — exercising her power over men by offering and denying them sexual favors.
Similarly, the titillating 1989 film “Layanam” — starring Silk Smitha — depicted three adult women seducing a young man.
Other softcore hits, like “Air Hostess Girls,” apparently stuck to more tried-and-true scenarios.
To make up for any lack of skin, theater owners and distributors illegally spliced in random sequences from foreign films — splashes of nudity or even hardcore porn.
The practice was so common that in Kerala it earned its own classification as “bit cinema,” and occasionally found its way onto theater promos like the one for a film called “Honey, I Love You,” where a white woman in a bikini is embossed with the tag line: “THE GOOD PARTS. THE SEXY PARTS. THE BODY PARTS.”
Following Silk Smitha, the hottest heroine in the Malayalam porn business was a buxom young actress named Shakeela who just kept getting bigger as she got bigger — appearing in more than 50 movies.
“In Kerala, in the south, we like slightly bulky women,” explains Sunil. “Anyone with big boobs is a big thing.”
Monday, Aug 8, 2011 3:01 PM UTC
Why America's waning influence on the Muslim nation could be good news for both the U.S. and India
By Jason Overdorf, GlobalPost
Pakistan's Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani (L) shakes hands with China's President Hu Jintao during a meeting in Beijing May 20, 2011
NEW DELHI, India — With a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan on the horizon, India has been caught between cheering Washington’s moves to rein in Pakistan’s military and bewailing the possible fallout if America “loses” Pakistan to China.
Unlike the United States, which can take its guns and go home, India will have to deal with the fallout of the war in Afghanistan and Pakistani radicalism for the next decade.
A resurgent Taliban and the return of a radical Islamic regime in Kabul could create a new safe haven for anti-Indian terrorist groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba — the Pakistan-based terrorist organization responsible for the November 2008 attacks on Mumbai.
Some analysts fear that even as Islamabad works to bring the Taliban on board for a peace deal in Afghanistan, the Taliban leadership may help broker a settlement between Pakistan and various domestic terrorist groups like the Tehrik-i-Taliban, uniting the various jihadi organizations to focus on India, according to Indiana University professor Sumit Ganguly.
Realistically, the United States won’t cut and run in 2014, but it will reduce its presence and convert its counterinsurgency operations into “counterterrorism plus,” says Christine Fair, a professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Peace and Security Studies.
The recent move to freeze $800 billion in military aid to Pakistan is probably as much a signal to Congress that the State Department knows what it’s doing than an indicator of any real plans to change horses midstream.
But let’s play what if.
Despite concerns about China’s rising influence in the region, losing Pakistan — an unlikely, if not impossibly bold maneuver — could be the most profitable move Washington has made in the War on Terror since Sept. 11. And India could benefit even more than the United States.
The conventional wisdom in New Delhi is that China uses Pakistan as a tool to thwart India’s rise as a regional power, while Beijing sees the growing strategic partnership between India and the United States as part of a broader effort to prevent China from developing interests any further afield.
But even though there is more than a little truth in those perceptions, the United States may have an opportunity to create a paradigm shift in the politics of the region with a change in the way it views Pakistan — paradoxically gaining influence by ceding power.
For 50 years, America has endeavored to create a strong, democratic ally in Pakistan by doling out billions of dollars in economic and military aid, only to watch with horror as it emerged as one of the most virulently anti-American countries in the world and a covert sponsor of terror, Lawrence Wright argued convincingly in a recent issue of the New Yorker.
Because aid flows through the military establishment and the Inter-services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), it seems, American cash has empowered a shadowy regime of spooks and soldiers at the expense of the legitimate civilian government. But that’s not the only compelling case for turning off the tap now, as Islamabad attempts to extort a dominant role for Pakistan in post-war Afghanistan.
Washington could save billions of dollars a year and stick Beijing with the bill at a single stroke, even as it alleviates Chinese fears of containment or encirclement by granting it equal responsibility for guaranteeing security in its own backyard.
More importantly, granting China that responsibility would likely compel Beijing to take a leadership role in managing and reforming Pakistan, rather than stirring up trouble with the confidence that the U.S. is riding herd. It would also address a simple reality: China already exerts more influence over Pakistan than the United States.
“I don’t think the Americans have done enough to reach out to China,” said Fair. “I don’t think they’ve done enough to reach out to Saudi Arabia. They have a lot more influence than we do.”
Moreover, paranoid fears aside, Beijing has repeatedly shown it has no interest in pushing Pakistan over the brink. In 1999, the Chinese thwarted Gen. Pervez Musharraf by refusing to support him in the Kargil War against India, for instance. Likewise, it was Beijing (not Washington) that induced the Pakistani government to send troops in to root out Islamic militants barricaded in the Lal Masjid in 2007.
And, most recently, when Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani sought a Chinese pledge of support following Washington’s decision to freeze $800 billion in military aid, Beijing maintained a studied silence.
“It is Pakistan that wants China more than China wants Pakistan,” said Suba Chandran, director of the New Delhi-based Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies.
Neither the United States nor India can match China when it comes to playing hardball with Pakistan’s military establishment. But both strategic partners could do a great deal more to promote Pakistan’s civilian institutions if they focused on trade, according to Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center of the Atlantic Council.
For instance, by expanding so-called “reconstruction opportunity zones” — where manufacturers enjoy preferential tariffs for exports to the United States — America could reduce the need for humanitarian aid at the same time it strengthens its economic ties with civilian Pakistanis. Similarly, removing various roadblocks could boost trade between India and Pakistan from today’s $2 billion to $42 billion a year — creating a strong, new economic impetus for peace that might well spill over into Afghanistan.
“The pressure will grow on the military establishments to tone down their rhetoric and stop talking to each other as adversaries as the two countries economies are increasingly going to be linked,” Nawaz said.
Meanwhile, said Chandran, a comparable increase in Sino-Indian trade promises to make China and India economic partners in the upcoming “Asian Century.”
If, that is, China and India can resolve a niggling border dispute and Washington can convince Beijing that the Indo-U.S. strategic partnership is not part of a secret plan to keep China down.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, waves during a visit to the Victoria Memorial Hall in Kolkata, India, Sunday, May 6, 2012. (Credit: AP Photo) 