Indian party accuses Modi of making India strategic junior to U.S. global designs

The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) on Thursday accused Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi of making India "a strategic junior partner of the U.S. global strategic designs."

Commenting on the India-U.S. Joint Statement issued during Modi's visit to Washington earlier this week, the CPI-M said it amounted to abandoning New Delhi's independent position on foreign policy.

"The 50-paragraph Joint Statement ... is a declaration that cements India's role as a strategic junior partner of U.S. global strategic designs," the party said in a statement.

"The agreement covers almost the entire scope of bilateral relations as well as a global partnership, declaring that India has abandoned its established independent foreign policy and has firmly tied itself to the apron strings of U.S global strategic designs," it said.

It said the agreement commits India to providing logistic facilities such as re-fuelling of the U.S Air Force on its adventures of military intervention in any part of the world.

"Given the U.S./NATO military interventions in West Asia, where there is a large NRI (non-residential Indians or overseas Indians) presence, this will have serious consequences for Indian foreign policy as well as Indians working in these countries," the CPI-M warned.

"This abandons both our independent foreign policy and our bilateral interests with the friendly countries in West Asia and the Gulf," it added.

The CPI-M said the agreement also made it clear that India's interests in the Asia-Pacific and the Indian Ocean region had now been equated with the U.S. interests and the U.S. strategic objective of "containment of China."

"The Modi government has clearly abandoned India's longstanding policy of developing good neighbourly relations and also the 'Look East Policy'," it said. "The government has to answer against whom India is becoming a priority partner of the U.S. in the region." Endit