Jimmy Carter, the thirty-ninth president of the United States, passed away recently at the age of hundred. It is worth reflecting on what his four years at the White House meant for South Asia. From the thorny nuclear issue to the U.S.-Soviet Union confrontation in Afghanistan, Carter’s legacy in South Asia, more particularly on India and Pakistan, remains one of great expectations and strong disappointments.
Aspirational beginnings
The Carter presidency came at a time of great churning in South Asian geopolitics. As he assumed the presidency, India came out of the tumultuous years of the Emergency and a new government came to power led by the Janata Party under Prime Minister Morarji Desai. Pakistan was on the verge of its second military coup by General Zia-ul-Haq. The subcontinent’s geopolitics had undergone a dramatic somersault earlier in the decade with an independent Bangladesh and Delhi was still bitter because of the unprecedented Richard Nixon-Henry Kissinger tilt towards Pakistan and their strategic outreach to China. America was also coming out of the shadows of the Watergate Scandal that led to President Nixon’s resignation. Moreover, the U.S. had withdrawn from the quagmire of Southeast Asia’s war zones.