All the media reports about the Singapore meeting have uniformly hailed it as a major advance in Indo-US relations. The reports one-sidedly emphasise America's support to India's position on the Kargil conflict without spelling out fully what the US side stated. While appreciating India's stance of not crossing the line of control and escalating the conflict, Albright told the Indian government about the importance of "moving forward on both non-proliferation issues as well as on some positive movement in thinking on Kashmir." Now that the Kargil conflict has ended, the United States has set out what it considers should be the next steps to be taken by India. It should go forward to sign the CTBT and resume talks with Pakistan based on the Lahore process with Kashmir as the central issue.

COMMITMENT TO CTBT EXPOSED

The Vajpayee government is projecting the Singapore meeting of the Asean Regional Forum (ARF) as a big success for India by contrasting the changed mood in the ARF, as compared to the previous year's meeting in Manila. If the United States and its allies, including Australia and Japan, have taken a more benevolent view this time, it is due to the fact that the Vajpayee government has made a commitment to sign the CTBT. Indian newspapers did not report what the US spokesman said after the meeting: "In the meantime, US and Indian negotiators agreed to continue working on a package of nuclear curbs that Washington and other major powers have insisted India and Pakistan adopt."

This is the outcome of the eight-month long secret diplomacy conducted by Jaswant Singh and Strobe Talbott -- a process interrupted by the abrupt fall of the Vajpayee government in April this year. It is this commitment to sign the CTBT and accept the United States as the arbiter on the nuclear issue in South Asia, which has resulted in the current new approach of the US to offer India the role of a junior partner in the South Asian region.

Jaswant Singh cannot deny this commitment to sign the CTBT; but he takes evasive action by excuse stating that such a decision will be taken only after the elections by the newly elected government. He has not denied the substance of the claim made by the US side that India has agreed to sign the CTBT.

The way the Vajpayee government relied on the US for a resolution of the Kargil conflict has sharply focussed on this new compact with the United States. Though the Vajpayee government studiously avoids terms like "mediator," "facilitator" or "third party role," it is an accepted fact that Kashmir has become internationalised and the United States has been accorded the role of facilitating negotiations on Kashmir between India and Pakistan. The Simla Agreement which treated it as a bilateral issue and the international support gathered for this approach has now been eroded.

The price that India will have to pay for the Vajpayee government's willingness to accept the new role assigned to it by the United States will cost the country heavily. For what has happened in the short interregnum of the BJP-led government is a virtual rewriting of the premises of the India's foreign policy.

JUNIOR PARTNER OF US

The BJP as a party has always been inimical to the principle of non-alignment as the basis of India's foreign policy. The BJP and its earlier incarnation, the Jan Sangh, has hankered for recognition of India by United States and expressed repeatedly their willingness to be the junior partner of the superpower provided it abandoned its strategic relationship with Pakistan.

In the post-Cold War situation, the United States' strategic perception has changed. India, as a major regional power, is sought to be drawn into the global strategy of US imperialism. The nuclear adventure launched by the Vajpayee government with the Pokhran tests provided the leverage for the United States to intervene in the security matters of South Asia.

The talk of "paradigm shift" and a "turning point" in Indo-US relations is being peddled by influential circles in India, including the media. They argue that internationalisation of Kashmir has taken place due to the US intervention in the Kargil conflict. But this, they say, will work in India's favour as the United States and its western allies are now favourably inclined to India. They refuse, of course, to acknowledge that this favour has been bought at the price of sacrificing India's sovereign and independent positions on the nuclear non-proliferation issue and by gradually conforming to the US world view in foreign policy.

The orchestrating of public opinion by the big business media requires projecting the Kargil conflict as a big victory for India and link this victory to our new found friendship with United States. The Indian Express, which is typical of this new pro-American nationalism, has in a recent editorial stated: "A great deal of credit should go to this government (the Vajpayee government), the government with a heavy nationalist adjective, which has quietly defied that fashionable actually pre-historic, baggage of the Indian establishment: anti-Americanism." The BJP and its intellectual mentors in the media hope that strident nationalism on Kargil will help cover up its servile attitude to America. They also hope that the din and bustle of India's election campaign will camouflage this major shift in foreign policy towards accepting the American dispensation for India.

"COMMUNITY OF DEMOCRACIES"

That this is no fleeting or spontaneous friendship between the BJP and the United States ruling circles is illustrated by a cryptic reference in the briefing after the Albright-Jaswant Singh talks. The US side invited India to join a "community of democracies" that the US administration is proposing to create. According to the briefing, India would be one of the eleven core members of this community. Such a community would be an American-sponsored ideological body to promote its so-called version of global democracy. That Madeleine Albright could propose this officially to India itself indicates the ideological affinity that the American establishment feels towards the BJP.

TWIN US AIMS

President Clinton has promised to visit India early next year, provided New Delhi signs up on the CTBT by that time. This, of course, is a decision to be taken after the elections. But the Americans are single-mindedly pursuing their aim of nuclear non-proliferation. An American official of the US department of energy, Joan Rohlfing, who specialises on the questions of nuclear technology, is being sent on an assignment to the US embassy in New Delhi for six months to ensure that India adheres to the commitment to sign the CTBT by the end of the year. The posting of this special officer signals how far the Vajpayee government has gone on in accepting the terms and conditions of the United States on the nuclear issue.

The pressure will mount on India to talk about Kashmir with Pakistan, of course, discreetly under US auspices. Already two American senators are collecting signatures of other Congressmen on a letter to be presented to President Clinton. The letter asks the president to consider the appointment of a special envoy "who could recommend to you ways of ascertaining the wishes of the Kashmiri people." Such a letter will only add to the pressure on the Clinton administration to fulfil the assurance it has given to Nawaz Sharif that the president will take "a personal interest" in encouraging a dialogue on Kashmir.