Asian Window

The president should reach out quickly to the government in New Delhi. Tunku Varadarajan in Forbes:

But the one part of America’s foreign policy that Obama can be argued to have flubbed so far is its relations with India. Since taking office in January, he has paid India scant attention. India–which for the first time in its history is in a position to regard the U.S. as its closest big-power ally, thanks to the evangelical efforts of George W. Bush–has noted Obama’s froideur. It noted, too, that the one time the American president made an India-related public pronouncement, it was a critical (and fatuous) reference to India’s role in the outsourcing of employment. (On May 4, he criticized the U.S. tax code for–in his view–saying that “you should pay lower taxes if you create a job in Bangalore, India, than if you create one in Buffalo, N.Y.”)

There are two ways to read Barack Obama’s neglect of India. The first reading–one that gives him the benefit of the doubt that he’s not keen, by disposition, on India–is that he was maintaining a prudent distance from New Delhi as India went to the polls. The country has been in election mode ever since Obama took office, and it may have been the case that Obama was waiting until mid-May to see which Indian government he’d have to deal with. After all, what would be the point in investing diplomatic energy in ties with Manmohan Singh (the prime minister at the time of Obama’s inauguration) if the elections were to bring a different Indian prime minister to power–L.K. Advani, say. More:

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