US embassy cable - 05NEWDELHI3275

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 NEW DELHI 003275 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/27/2015 
TAGS: PREL, MASS, PARM, KNNP, PK, CH, IN, NSSP, Indo-US 
SUBJECT: INDIAN LAWMAKERS MISSING MESSAGE ON US-INDIA 
 
Classified By: Charge Robert O. Blake, Jr., for Reasons 1.4 (B, D) 
 
1.  (C) Summary: During an Indo-US Parliamentary Forum (IUPF) 
gathering on April 27, Indian lawmakers were upbeat about 
US-India relations, but were surprisingly uninformed about 
key details of the initiatives underway to make the strategic 
partnership a reality.  Suggesting that the positive impact 
of Dr. Rice's March 16 visit had been overshadowed by the 
"watershed" visits of President Musharraf and Chinese PM Wen, 
several went so far as to suggest that the India-China 
agreement on border issues was of greater long-range 
strategic import than the US initiatives.  They also insisted 
-- despite recent Administration statements -- that a 
perception of "hyphenation" continues to surround the popular 
Indian view of U.S. policy towards New Delhi and Islamabad. 
The MPs also did not understand the extent, scope and 
long-range impact of the proposed F-16/F-18 offer.  The group 
urged that more be done to demonstrate the US-India 
transformation to the broad Indian public.  The Mission will 
ramp up its outreach to MPs beyond the IUPF members to 
counter these misperceptions and explain the March 25 
initiatives.  End Summary. 
 
2.  (C) Opening the meeting with IUPF member MPs, the Charge 
highlighted the new peak in US-India relations following Dr. 
Rice's March 16 visit to New Delhi.  Emphasizing the 
significance of the March 25 South Asia Initiative in terms 
of strategic, civil nuclear, civil space, and military 
cooperation, the Charge sought feedback from the MPs 
regarding how well this message had been received and 
understood in the Parliament and more broadly in India. 
 
3.  (C) During the 2 hour freewheeling discussion that 
followed, the MPs from across the political spectrum were 
unanimous in the view that while they and other IUPF members 
were much more informed about the current state of US-India 
relations and recognized and appreciated the significant 
transformation that has taken place in the last several 
years, this was not the case for other MPs and the Indian 
public at large. 
 
4.  (C) The MPs observed a tendency among their 
Parliamentarian colleagues and the broader Indian public to 
see progress on India-China, primarily as evidenced by the 
recent progress achieved on Sikkim and the border principles 
agreement during the Wen visit, as the most significant 
foreign policy achievement in recent months.  As one MP 
noted, Wen "captured the popular imagination" while the US 
message remains "flat".  Maintaining that the importance of 
the USG proposal to co-produce F-16/F-18s with India had also 
been lost on the Parliament and the Indian public because the 
"reciprocal" US offer of F-16s to Pakistan, the MPs observed 
that the extensive benefits contained in the US offer were 
widely unrecognized and the offer was widely seen as just a 
"30 year old airframe."  The MPs complained about a lingering 
sense of "hyphenation" in the US approach to India and 
Pakistan, and underlined that the March 25 initiatives would 
have gotten a much more favorable response if they had not 
coincided with the Pakistan F-16 announcement.  "The 
government and strategic analysts are on your side", one MP 
remarked, "but most Indians remain highly skeptical". 
 
5.  (C) The Charge, PolCouns and DATT responded by explaining 
in considerable detail the ambitious nature of the F-16/F-18 
proposal and the other elements of the US South Asia 
Initiative.  The MPs argued that the Mission needed to do 
more to demonstrate to other MPs and to the broader Indian 
public the full extent of the transformation that has taken 
place with bilateral relations.  "You (the US) need to drive 
home the message that Washington aims for an exclusive 
relationship with India," one Congress MP advised. 
 
6.  (C)  The Ambassador and other Mission elements already 
have conducted extensive outreach to the media and think 
tanks, many of whom have published favorable op-eds. 
Nonetheless, we need to do much more.  In addition to 
increasing efforts to reach out to other lawmakers, mission 
intends to engage major US corporations, including defense 
contractors, to enlist their assistance in getting the 
message out regarding the new US-India agenda and the 
opportunity reflected in the March 25 initiatives. 
 
7.  (C) IUPF Participants: 
Rajiv Shukla, Convenor, Rajya Sabha (Congress) 
Sachin Pilot, Lok Sabha (Congress) 
Robert Kharshiing, Rajya Sabha (Nationalist Congress Party) 
Manvendra Singh, Lok Sabha (BJP) 
Ajay Maken, Lok Sabha (Congress) 
Madhu Goud Yaskhi, Lok Sabha (Congress) 
BJ Panda, Rajya Sabha (Ciju Janata Dal) 
Milind Deora, Lok Sabha (Congress) 
Ramesh Chandran, Executive Director, IUPF 
BLAKE