The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World

by S. Jaishankar

The assassination of Sheikh Mujib in Dhaka in August 1975 significantly neutralized the gains of 1971. The politics of the Cold War also combined with Pakistan’s mobilization of the Islamic world to block India at the Security Council elections of 1975. The Chinese attack on Vietnam in 1979 temporarily halted the correction in India’s policy and perhaps undermined a serious overture in the making. The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was even more complicating because it unleashed a new round of American military support for Pakistan. Indeed, this round was particularly devastating because it tapped into a larger Islamic fundamentalist resurgence. Sino-Pakistani collaboration that had receded when China was preoccupied with the Cultural Revolution also came back into play. Its three key elements were the physical link-up between the two countries through the Karakoram Highway in 1979, the intense nuclear and missile collaboration, and the coordination in respect to operations in Afghanistan. All of them have consequences to the present day for India.