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A top US official has said the economic reforms initiated by the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, in 1991, when he was Finance Minister, has changed India’s entire outlook, as a result of which the United States wants to partner India on a range of global issues.
“I think the reforms have had a profound effect on India. Not just economically, but in terms of India’s entire outlook,” the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Mr Robert Blake, told Knowledge @ Wharton in an interview.
“When I first arrived in India, India was still slightly inward-looking but was just beginning to change. I think as a result of the economic reforms, growth began to generate resources and those resources gave the Indian government and Indian society the wherewithal to expand their strategic horizons and to expand their strategic ambitions,” he said.
India in the last seven or eight years has really stepped into that space in a very significant way, in partnership with the United States in part.
“You really see now that India wants to play a global role and wants to exert its very positive influence around the world. That’s one of the most important new dynamics that’s taking place I think in the early part of this century,” he said.
“That’s why President Obama wants to partner with India, precisely that India wants to work with us, it wants to be a responsible member of the international community, has the resources to do so and it has the will to attack some of the really tough issues like global governance issues and climate change and non—proliferation and to work in tandem with the United States to do that,” he said.
“That is a very, very important development for the United States and that’s why President Obama says that India’s going to be a defining partnership of ours in the 21st Century,” he said.
The US and India are increasingly working together to address some of the world’s biggest challenges, from things like non-proliferation to climate change to trade.
“But then increasingly now, we’re also working at the bilateral level on specific issues in specific countries,” Mr Blake said.
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