In doing the capital’s political circuit today, Hillary Clinton enjoys a big advantage that none of her predecessors at the US state department have had. Arriving with the well-established reputation as a friend of India, Clinton will be among admirers in New Delhi.

Few politicians in the United States have invested in the India relationship as Clinton did before assuming her current office. When there were few takers for India in the first presidential term of her husband Bill Clinton, Hillary traveled to the subcontinent.

After her election as the senator from New York, Clinton founded the India caucus in the upper house of the US Congress. When most leading lights of the Democratic Party’s foreign policy establishment were rallying against the controversial Indo-US civil nuclear initiative during 2005-08, Clinton was unwavering in her support.

With those credentials, Clinton has had no problem dispelling New Delhi’s apprehensions that the Obama administration might turn its back on India to focus on ties with China and Pakistan.

There was even greater concern in New Delhi about President Barack Obama’s loud thinking on Jammu and Kashmir, which this newspaper drew attention a few days before he was elected president,

As he settled down in office, Obama made it clear that there was no question of meddling in Jammu and Kashmir and that he would build on the advances in Indo-US relations made during the Clinton and George W. Bush years.

In the last couple of weeks, Hillary Clinton has gone a step further. She has taken ownership of Washington’s ties with New Delhi, and has promised to mobilise the full weight of the US government in boosting the bilateral relationship to a higher orbit.

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