Defence Secretary James Mattis is the first Cabinet rank minister in Trump administration to visit India on an important formal visit. This visit has come in the footprints of the first meeting between President Trump and Prime Minister Modi in which the two leaders chalked the road map for meaningful strategic partnership between the strongest and the largest democracies of the world.
Close and significantly re-oriented strategic partnership between the two countries has opened a new chapter in multi-faceted partnership between the two countries which speaks of a major change in regional and global strategic reconstruct. During the cold war period India was not among the countries allied to the western block. A known friend of the Soviet Union, India under Nehru got further estranged from the western block when Nehru stubbornly pursued Non-Aligned doctrine which the west clearly took as a pro-Soviet and socialist move. India has paid heavily for reposing unqualified trust in the Soviet State just as Pakistan theoretically also committed the same blunder by choosing to become more allied to the Americans than their allies. Nehruvian era was the era of stagnation and self-imposed isolation. Today, we have to do good deal of home work to remove the blemish that hindered over rapid progress and improvement of economy.
Big change has taken place in world order after 9/11. Fundamentalism and jihadism have appeared as the greatest threat to world peace and peaceful coexistence among people of diverse faiths, cultures, languages and ethnicities living on this globe. India is faced with externally sponsored terror for more than two and a half decades in the past. The US became a target of jihadi terror now known as 9/11. Many countries in the West including Russian Federation, Central Asia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and some African countries all had their share of terrorist and jihadist atrocities and killing of innocent men, women and children. With the appearance of this phenomenon, India raised voice against terrorism and beseeched world community to forge common strategy to meet this menace and threat. Unfortunately, some countries are trying to politicize jihadism by underplaying the dimensions of the threat to mankind and even walking a mile with the perpetrators of crime against humanity. By making unrelenting efforts to convince the world that Pakistan our neighbor had become the cradle of jihadist terror with a very widespread network all over the globe and by the irrefutable proof which the world community gathered on its own of how behind almost every terrorist attack in any part of the world, the hand of Pakistan-based jihadists could be distinctly seen. It was so because Pakistan launched a massive organization of apparently non-state terror actors under the rubric of Islamic religious organizations. Pakistani religious seminaries managed by rabid Islamic fanatics filled their heads with anti-Hindu and anti-American poison to the pleasure of Pakistani military managers who have been surviving on liberal cash doles from the Pentagon.
Two subjects have been the main area brought under discussion by the Defence Ministers of the US and India who have met in New Delhi. These are (a) joint resolve to formulate common strategy of meeting the challenge of terrorism globally as well as regionally, and (b) define the parameters of strategic cooperation between the two countries with emphasis on strengthening defense structure of India especially in the background of Asia-Pacific scenario. This naturally brought in the Chinese factor into their bilateral discussions.
Astute scholars of international relations and regional strategies have to the alarming conclusion that current political scenario carries in its womb the seeds of decisive clash between democratic ways of modern life and regressive traditions based on a millennia and half old ancient tribal society. We see frontal attack on the realm of reason and logic and negation of scientific and technological researches so assiduously carried forward by dedicated and sustained human effort. Talks between the US and India at various levels and on different facets of society are indicative of aligning of rational forces to deliver the world from the monster of modern cannibalism. The joint interactive process between India and the US has to be seen in its futuristic parameters and have to be welcomed as an impregnable defence mechanism of entire world against the unprecedented jihadist threat. We have not an iota of doubt that the freedom loving world will hail Indo-US anti-terror initiative and will join the caravan of reason keeping aside petty local interests and embarking on world brotherhood.
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