India and the US remained suspicious of each other for most of the sixty odd years since India´s independence from Great Britain in 1947. The only time they came close to each other was during the Sino-India war of 1962 when then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru quickly dumped his non-alignment policy and sought US help. President John F Kennedy instructed an aircraft carrier to sail to the Bay of Bengal and US and British planes started flying in weapons. However, as the Chinese soon declared a ceasefire and withdrew from occupied territory and the US brought up the Kashmir issue with India, the two countries drifted apart as fast as they had come together.
But the US and India are embracing each other today more tightly than ever before as they have so much in common and so much at stake. As the world´s largest democracies, they share core values; they believe in free market economy and have a lot to benefit from each other; consumerism is entrenched in both societies and so is liberalism. The two countries also have deeper people to people contacts, and if English is the first language for most Americans, India is home to the world´s largest English speaking population. But the greatest inspiration for closer ties between the two countries comes from the rise of China, something that both the US and India are wary about.
The newfound Indo-US alliance will naturally set off concern in Beijing and Islamabad. After Obama announced his support for India´s UN bid, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry was quick to warn that the US decision would further complicate the process of reforming the Security Council. The ministry, in a statement, said it hoped the United States “will take a moral view and not base itself on any temporary expediency or exigencies of power politics." How China responds to the burgeoning alliance between the US and India in the coming days will largely determine stability and prosperity in Asia.
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