Why is the United States allied with Pakistan over India?

by Ol_Pappers

What exactly caused the rift between India and the United States that would pair them up with an on-again, off-again dictatorship as opposed to a quasi-functioning democratic republic?

I'm aware India has had socialistic tendencies in the past, but they don't seem to be on the same level as the former Soviet Union. Hell, India had a war with China, which was done I believe sometime before Nixon visit (I could be wrong, though).

Does Pakistan just hold some sort of strategic or economic advantage that I'm not aware of? Does this somehow tie to Anglo-American relations and India's status as a former colony? Am I asking too many questions?

I'm just going to comment on the Eisenhower period.

While it might seem shocking, a very real reason for the relationship was that Eisenhower, John Foster Dulles, and Richard Nixon really disliked Jawaharlal Nehru. In 1953, when Nixon was just about to meet with Nehru, Dulles sent Nixon a telegram explaining to him that he and State Department officials considered one of the benefits of expanding military aid to Pakistan to be that such an expansion would demonstrate to Nehru that the U.S. did not "dance to his tune."

Now, the variety of reasons for the dislike (which was mutual) can be argued over (was the moralistic element more important than the patronising element? competing visions of regional security? possibly gendered aspects etc.) but one very clear and consistent bone of contention was Nehru and India's espousal of neutralism. There are a whole bag of reasons why the idea that a nation could "stay out" of the Cold War conflict irritated Eisenhower-Dulles-Nixon, but that the Eisenhower administration believed Nehru was trying to play both sides against each other and be the leader of both neutralism and any non-Soviet sphere states in the region caused added animosity.

Finally (for my answer, as this only scratches the surface), there is the perceived attitudes of the Pakistanis vs Indians. The Eisenhower administration felt that Pakistan was incredibly grateful for all types of aid, especially military aid, and was appropriately deferential as well. Pakistani officials did a good job of following the American line in general, and even when they did not, expressed consistent allegiance with the U.S. Indian officials often denied receiving "aid" and sometimes used semantics (This particular shipment is simply surplus American goods, which could not be sold in the U.S., hence it has no value, thus it is not really aid), to effectively (in American minds) denigrate what they were receiving.

This caused a great deal of suspicion and frustration among the upper echelons of Eisenhower's cabinet and Dulles's State Department. Where Pakistan treated American aid as effectively a godsend, India eyed it with suspicion, and basically spot on recognized that American aid came with expectations - at one point several State Department officials even requested permission from Dulles to tell Indian officials as much.

So, the Americans in this period felt it was both easier, saner, and far more profitable to align with Pakistan, and were consistently suspicious and irritated with India.

Sorry to do this re: sources, but I'm not actually sure of where to find the telegram from Dulles to Nixon beyond archives (so if anyone knows an actual secondary source please feel free to provide it).

Telegram, John Foster Dulles to Richard Nixon, November 27, 1953, RN [Trip File 1953, Far East] Correspondence, November 20-December 3, Box 1, Series 325 Executive Branch File, Richard Nixon Vice Presidential Collection, RNL.