INDIA AND THE UNITED STATES: GRAND STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP FOR A BETTER WORLD

A grand strategic partnership between India and the United States (US) can be constructed at fi ve levels—the planetary, the global, the international, the continental and the regional. The focus, conventionally, is on the last three levels. Planetary and global changes, however, confront both countries with huge challenges. India and the US must fi nd ways to cooperate in dealing with climate change and resource depletion, as also with a revolution in human affairs that promises emancipation but could end in reaction and violence. As two continental-sized, pluralistic democracies, they have unique strengths in building a better world. The India–US nuclear deal has dramatised the question: If there is an India-US grand strategic partnership in the making, what is it for? Why should India and the US be friends and allies? There has been a fair degree of public criticism of the Indian communist parties that have opposed the nuclear deal. Critics of the Indian Left have questioned the strategic vision of the communists. Yet, at least the Left has clearly laid down the grand strategic gauntlet by suggesting that it is not in India’s overall interest to partner the US. The Left’s stance is based not so much on the nature of the deal itself, although even here it has raised a number of objections, but rathe