The U.S. and India recently signed an agreement called the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA). This agreement will allow India to buy new military hardware from the U.S., set up real-time high-level encrypted communication on military matters, and begin large-scale sharing of intelligence information between the two countries. COMCASA represents a step forward in the development of a strategic alliance between the U.S. and India, and further cooperation aimed at containing and combating the rise of Chinese imperialism. The agreement will likely also lead to greater coordination between the two countries in suppressing the growing revolutionary and national liberation movements in India.

COMCASA is one part of a set of three agreements that the U.S. typically signs with allies to facilitate real-time military coordination, high-level intelligence cooperation, and the sale of the most advanced U.S. military hardware and weapons systems. The agreement was signed after a “2+2” dialogue between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, and Indian Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. India has already signed the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA), and the two countries are now working on the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-spatial Cooperation (BECA). These agreements have solidified cooperation between the countries and helped to consolidate the U.S.’s position as the dominant imperialist power operating in neocolonial India. Between 2008 and 2017, India’s arms imports from the U.S. rose over 500%, a trend that is likely to continue and even accelerate in the wake of the signing of COMCASA.

This shift to align India with the interests of the U.S. ruling class began in the late 1980s when the Soviet Union—which had previously been India’s primary imperialist master—was on the decline. Since that point, the Indian ruling class has increasingly aligned itself with the U.S., and vainly hopes that doing so will allow India to become an imperialist power or even a “superpower.” Of course, the U.S. will not make India a superpower, but rather is developing closer ties with the country to serve its own strategic interests. The U.S.’s willingness to develop closer ties with India comes in the midst of the U.S.’s historic breakup with the Pakistani ruling class, as the later rapidly develops closer ties with China and seeks to avoid another IMF bailout. More broadly, the rise of Chinese imperialism has been a major factor in the interests of the U.S. and India becoming more closely aligned. This has not been limited to China’s growing ties with Pakistan, but also relates to China challenging the U.S. on a number of fronts, and their growing influence in South Asia which has threatened Indian political and business interests in the region.

While China is India’s largest trade partner, accounting for over 12% of India’s imports, the two countries have increasingly contradictory economic, political, and military interests in the region and internationally. This manifested in the 2017 Doklam border dispute, where Indian and Chinese troops engaged in standoff for a number of months. Likewise, the two countries have been increasingly drawn into conflict over their competing efforts to establish Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in Myanmar. China has also been developing closer ties with India’s long-term rival, Pakistan. As part of the Belt and Road Initiative, China is working to massively expand its economic, military, and political presence in South Asia, and the Indian ruling class is increasingly concerned that this will come at the expense of their own influence in the region.

The signing of COMCASA will allow India to share intelligence and cooperate militarily in real time with the U.S. state in the event of future border conflicts with China and Pakistan. The agreement also opens the door for the Indian government to purchase armed drones and other military equipment from the U.S. Much of the media coverage has been focused on the Indian state purchasing these drones to patrol the Indian Ocean and monitor Chinese naval maneuvers in the region. However, given that the Indian government already uses Israeli surveillance drones in its civil war against the Naxals and in its 700,000 troop-strong military occupation of Kashmir, there is a real possibility that armed Predator drones will be used not for defending Indian territorial claims but for attacking the Indian people.

The United States is already the second largest supplier of arms to India. Many of these arms are used against the people in Kashmir, the jungles of central India, and in the Seven Sisters in the Northeast. Given this reality, in the U.S. we have an obligation to oppose the COMCASA and U.S. arms deals with India more broadly. We cannot sit by idly while money from the taxes we pay is used to provide arms for the Indian government’s wars on its own people. As such, the Free Saibaba Coalition-US calls on progressive forces around the country to join in the effort to oppose COMCASA and future arms deals with the Indian government. This is our internationalist duty and an essential part of our efforts to support the people of India as they struggle against the suppression of dissent and their government’s broad crackdown on democratic rights.