In Fierce Enigmas, prize-winning historian Srinath Raghavan argues
that we cannot understand the US's entanglement in South Asia
without first understanding the long sweep of American interaction
with the nations and peoples who comprise it. Starting with the
first attempts by Americans in the late eighteenth century to gain
a foothold in the India trade, Raghavan narrates the forgotten role
of American merchants, missionaries, and travelers in the history
of region. For these early adventurers and exploiters, South Asia
came to be seen not just as an arena of trade and commerce, but
also as a site for American efforts-religious and secular-to remake
the world in its own image. By the 1930s, American economic
interests and ideals had converged in support for decolonization;
not only should the peoples of the region be free to determine
their own governments and futures, but they should be fully
integrated into a liberal capitalist global order. These dreams
were partially realized after the Second World War, with Indian
Independence and Partition in 1947-and with Britain no longer in
the picture, US involvement in the region steadily increased, in
the form of short-sighted and ultimately counterproductive
policies. In the 1950s, the Truman administration centered its
approach to South Asia on the containment of communism, thereby
helping split the region in two: while Pakistan was eager for
American weapons and military support, India's Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru refused to align with either the US or the Soviet
Union. In the 1970s, the US chose to support Islamists in
Afghanistan, seeing them as a bulwark against communist advance.
Yet Pakistan would become a formidable adversary for the US, while
the militants in Afghanistan would eventually be using their arms
against American troops. Time and time again, India, Pakistan, and
to a lesser extent Afghanistan have each managed to extract
commitments and concessions from the US that have served mostly to
fuel the fires of nationalism and sectarianism, even as signs of
liberalization have continued to entice American policymakers.
Drawing on a vast and diverse array of official documents and
private correspondence, Raghavan has written a sweeping, definitive
history of the US in South Asia that at the same time suggests the
many challenges ahead.
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