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Someone once defined a split-second as the time that elapses between the red light changing to amber and the first horn being blown. Consistent with the law of ongoing refinement, I have an improved definition to offer: a split second is the time that it takes a TV expert to reject weeks and months of hard preparatory work that precedes a summit between world leaders.

This rule was proved once again on Tuesday night, after the Singh-Obama bonsai press conference (in which only two questions were permitted). Earlier, the TV experts had set up a straw man: would there be negative references to China and Pakistan by the US? When these failed to materialise, they shot the straw man down. It is easy to be an expert on TV.

But it is not entirely their fault. Pre-departure briefings by the PMO and the MEA also play a role. That is where expectations are raised. These gain in size in the days preceding the visit. Prime Ministers should perhaps keep an eye on these briefings as they can do more harm than good if they raise very high expectations.

So, was Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to the US a dismal failure, as the TV experts said? Or was it merely just another summit meeting in which some things get done and some don't? The TV experts would appear more mature if they understood this essential feature while judging the outcomes of such meetings, rather than going off half-cock.

Leaders' judgment

There is another dimension, as well. Most people tend to judge the success of a summit by what a country gets from it. Fair enough, but often, especially when dealing with the US, which can be very overbearing, success also depends on what has been denied to it. This denial is usually disguised as a postponement of US ‘requests'. Indeed, withstanding the kind of pressure the US mounts can itself be seen as a success by leaders.

In the final analysis, in bilateral meetings such as the latest Indo-US one, it is the two leaders' judgment of success or failure that matters. It is that perception which sets the tone for the future agenda. Each goes into the meeting with certain expectations. If half of them are met, each regards the meeting as a success.

Personal style also matters more than most experts give credit for. Having had the opportunity to observe Dr Manmohan Singh for the last 40 years, I can say this with complete confidence: he makes a clear distinction between what he wants and what he needs, and he never allows the former to interfere with the latter. It is rare, as in the case of the nuclear deal, when what he wants and needs coincide.

Ultimate pragmatist

Thus, he wants faster economic reform but needs the Congress party. So he goes slow on reform. He wants to be his own man but needs Sonia Gandhi's support. So he doesn't assert his prime ministerial prerogatives beyond a point. For example, he wanted Dr C. Rangarajan as finance minister but needed party support for that. When it wasn't forthcoming, he made do with Pranab Mukherjee.

In the context of his US visit, he may have wanted negative references to China and Pakistan but needed to push things along on the economic front first. That has happened, so he is probably quite pleased with the outcome. Negative references to China and Pakistan would have pleased the TV experts but higher US investment and trade is more useful. One can go on, but the point ought to be clear: he is the ultimate pragmatist who recognises the reality, takes what he can get now and, having got it, goes back later to see if he can get some more. His record shows that he doesn't often fail.

Then there is the nuclear deal itself. Many observers have concluded that the failure to get on with it at a pace that suits India is suggestive of a major bump in Indo-US relations. This conclusion would be correct only if the nuclear deal was all there is to Indo-US relations and slow progress on it meant a major setback to India's nuclear energy programme.

But it is hard to argue either of these two points. For one thing, there are several dimensions to Indo-US relations and the nuclear deal is not a fulcrum; and for another, India's nuclear energy progamme can go ahead quite nicely without the US. It is the US that loses more when it delays things, not India. It is the American firms that don't get the orders.

The truth is that Dr Singh has finessed the Americans and they know it. They are, as their saying goes, between a rock and hard place. They will fall in line by the time Obama visits India next year.

But Dr Singh also knows how to sweeten deals so that the other party doesn't go away feeling it has got less out of the bargain. So, since the US has been pressing hard for financial sector reform since about mid-2006, this will now see some acceleration. Dr Singh has promised as much. This suits India fine because the US, being broke, is in no position to take advantage of it right now!

In sum, the fruits of the Manmohan-Obama summit will begin to drop over the next year, by the time Mr Obama comes here.

More Stories on : Foreign Trade | Foreign Relations | T.C.A. Srinivasa-Raghavan | Politics

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