Did US made mistake in choosing Pakistan it alley instead of India?

US chose the right ally considering the then dynamics and its working even today. Pakistan had/have so many natural advantages.

1. A Muslim Nation - US needed ally in the Muslim nation which could seamlessly work with with other Muslim nation like Saudi, Iran etc. The radical section could be used to create a mujaheddin group to fight against the soviet forces in Afghanistan. The religion card played very well
2. A poor nation - It is always easy to manipulate the policies of a nation who is in constant need of fund support and make it’s political and military leadership works in its favour. Socialism was considered a major threat in those days. China a communist/socialist state, India opted for a socialist form of democracy, Afghanistan influenced by socialist Russia. US desperately wanted to break the chain and further expansion of socialism. Pakistan was the right choice. Any criticism of the General Ayub Khan regime was seen as a threat to national security. After Chief of Army Staff General Zia-ul-Haq seized power on 5 July 1977 and became the Chief Martial Law Administrator, the ISI was expanded on collecting intelligence on the Pakistan Communist Party and Pakistan Peoples Party.
3. ISI - Do you you know Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency the Inter-Services Intelligence ( ISI) was formed way back in 1948 while the CIA was formed in 1947, MOSAD formed in 1949, KGB formed in 1954 and Indian counterpart RAW was formed 20 years later in 1968 by Indira Gandhi. ISI was the brainchild of the former British Indian Army Major General Sir Robert Cawthome, then Deputy Deputy. Chief of Staff of the Pakistan Army. You can see the connection. India didn’t receive any such recommendation. Since 1971, the ISI has been headed by a serving three-star general of the Pakistan Army, who is appointed by the Prime Minister on recommendation of the Chief of Army Staff, who recommends three officers for the job.
4. The ISI gained global recognition and fame in the 1980s when it supported the Afghan Mujahideen against the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War in then Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. During the war, the ISI worked in close coordination with the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States to train and fund the Mujahideen with American, Pakistani, and Saudi funds.
5. Sharing border with Afghanistan - Pakistan sharing border with Afghanistan & India made it a natural choice for an alley
6. Not inclined towards socialism - US needed a partner who is not inclined to socialism to stop spread of socialism. Pakistan’s military administration & ISI considered socialist party of Pakistan and PPP ( Pakistan’s People Party ) a threat to internal security. I will not be surprised if US had any major role in Pakistan’s military administration to hold power and suppress democracy.
7. Not having closer ties with Soviet / Russia. - Pakistan not having closer ties with Soviet / Russia is also served a qualifying criteria.
8. Its geographical location - As already pointed out Pakistan’s geographical location sharing border with India, Afghanistan, Iran & China made it a natural choice. Pakistan having access to sea route also make it a ideal choice.

As against these let see if India had anything to offer to US. India was rather placed diagonally opposite to US

1. India has been inclined to socialist from of democracy or to say democratic socialism. Which US looked in to with an eye of suspicion. Under Nehru, the Indian National Congress, India's largest political party, adopted socialism as an ideology for socio-economic policies in 1936 The socialist movement began to develop in India with the Russian Revolution. With the Russian Revolution, Marxism made a major impact in Indian mind and the socialist movement began to develop in India. Though officially the word socialist was added to the Preamble of the Indian Constitution by the 42nd amendment act of 1976, during the Emergency. It implies social and economic equality.In the 1960s, the Communist Party of India formed India's first communist government in Kerala and later West Bengal. Apart from Congress & Left front - CPI(M), RSP, Forward Block, the parties like Samajwadi Party, which emerged from the Janata Dal also open espouse socialism. Noted Indian socialists include the founding leader of the All India Forward Bloc and the Indian National Army - Subhas Chandra Bose. The colonial authorities were clearly disturbed by the growing influence of Bolshevik sympathies in India. A first counter-move was the issuing of a fatwa, urging Muslims to reject communism.
2. A Fiercely nationalist India was another reason - You can blame Nehru & Gandhi family of anything but nationalism. Sovereignty was never compromised. The pride of the country was never compromised. We didn’t get sold out for few dollar.
3. Non alligned movement -Following independence, the Indian government officially adopted a policy of non-alignment, although it had an affinity with the USSR. The party's commitment to socialism has waned in recent years, particularly following the assassination of Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi. CIA hand was suspected in both the case. A sanitised copy of the report 'India in the Mid-1980s: Goals and Challenges' was released by the CIA under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which is similar to India's Right to Information Act.

Running into more than 30 pages, the document discussed the prospects of India in the mid-1980s and looked into various political scenarios, which among others included re- election of Indira Gandhi in the next general election in 1985 with a slim majority and what happens in the case of her sudden death. Nearly two years before the assassination of Indira Gandhi, the CIA had suggested that her son Rajiv Gandhi may not succeed her in the event of her sudden death.

The Justice Jain Commission's final report focuses on a larger international conspiracy, and the CIA-Mossad-LTTE link, in the Rajiv killing. He said that if one was looking for a link, it was the CIA/Mossad/LTTE link. The report says they actively collaborated with the LTTE and key Indian individuals in the period immediately preceding the assassination.

P.V. Narasimha Rao Government seemed all set to clip the wings of the Jain Commission of inquiry. The Government filed a special leave petition (SLP) before the Supreme Court on December 22, its last working day of the year, seeking to restrain the Jain Commission from going into any aspect dealing with the role of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The petition sought to restrict the scope of the inquiry to the period from July 29, 1987, to May 21, 1991—signifying the post-Sri Lanka accord period and leaving out six years of the LTTE's intensified activities (1981-July '87) when it had free access to and patronage from India. Incidentally, Rao was foreign minister in between this period and was involved in Indo-Sri Lankan affairs. In fact, this was the third move by the Rao Government to either wind up or min-imise the Jain Commission's role. Sonia Gandhi publicly complained of the probe's slow pace. Following are some missing file cases.

Crucial evidence linking Chandraswami to the Rajiv case went missing from Rao's PMO, OUTLOOK investigates.

· File No:8-1-WR/JSS/90/Vol III – containing notings of bureaucrats regarding security arrangements for Rajiv Gandhi from November 1989 was lost from the Prime Ministers Office in 1991. Later, it was doctored and re-constructed by the Narasimha Rao Government before it was submitted to Jain Commission.

File No: 1/12014/5/91-IAS/DIII reported missing since Graffiti Web S.r.l. pertained to the terms of reference of the Verma and Jain Commissions of Inquiry.

· File containing intercepted messages from foreign intelligence agencies, said to be addressed to Chandraswami and Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy, destroyed by senior officials in the PMO.

· File on IB's assessment of the role played by Zail Singh and Chandraswami in 1987 to topple Rajiv Gandhi missing.

Interestingly the fact that the Rao government had actually doctored a file came to light when Vinod Pande , who was the Cabinet Secretary in V.P.Singh's government, deposed before the Jain Commission that file No.8-1-WR/JSS/90/Vol III in which he had made notings on Rajiv Gandhi's security – had been tampered with. " The file which has been placed in my hands does not contain an official copy of my note dated January 30,1990.The first few paras of the draft are not mine." Pande told the commission. Possibly this explains Sonia disliking for Rao as one of the reason.

Have I digressed from the question ? No. I just wanted to prove the Indira & Rajiv’s assassination is part of a larger international conspiracy with support of Indian hands. But why ? Western power was greatly displeased with Indira for her fiercely anti US stand. The 1971 Bangladesh war and 1974 Pokharn blast made her the most hated person for US. The subsequent unrest in the country post 1974, looks to be conspiracy to throw her out of power. Which eventually worked out. But Indira came back strongly again in 1980. So possibly it was decided to get rid off her. She was removed from scene, hoping Congress would weaken. But Rajiv came up very strongly. His extremely good equation with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, Saddam Hussain, Afghan President Njibullah, , Fidel Castro Palestine leader Yasser Arafat, made his case strong for elimination. On top it Rajiv Gandhi was working extensively inspiring life of NAM ( Non Aligned Movement ) as the chairman of NAM, Chairman of the SAARC countries, Chairman of the AFRICA Fund, Crusader against apartheid. The First Summit conference of the SAARC was held in Dhaka on 7 and 8, December 1985.

Rajiv Gandhi was close to people mentioned above who are considered as enemy No -1 for US. No surprise, he was eliminated. The story narrated above also explains why India couldn’t be considered as alley by US.

India may well be moving closer to the United States now, but its ties with Fidel Castro’s Cuba, a regime that several administrations in Washington had tried to topple since the January 1959 revolution, has had a long history of warmth and friendship. Cuba, which successfully thwarted several attempts by the Americans to topple the revolutionary regime, had been facing one of its worst crises in 1992 after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. India managed to mobilize the nation and its people to donate 10,000 tonnes of wheat and 10,000 tonnes of rice to Cuba. The vessels carrying the grain were personally welcomed by Fidel. At the political level too, India had voted for resolutions in support of Cuba at the United Nations and other fora and consistently asked for the lifting of US-led sanctions on Havana.

Its only recently India under Modi government trying to move closer to US in an overt & hawkish attempt to display friendship. Modi may have his political reason and justification for doing so even though Trump doesn’t seems to be highly impressed as evident the recent threat from US president on the hydroxychloroquine shipment issue.

Meanwhile India has moved closer to Israel. Relations further expanded during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration, with India abstaining from voting against Israel in the United Nations in several resolutions. from 2015 onward, the two nations are negotiating an extensive bilateral free trade agreement, focusing on areas such as information technology, biotechnology, and agriculture. India is the largest buyer of Israeli military equipment and Israel is the second-largest defence supplier to India after Russia.

Image source - Google.

Edit: One of my dear friend has asked in the comment section, why Sonia chose to remain silent in the matters of Rajiv’s assassination when Congress was in power from 2004 to 2014 and also congress closeness with USA. Very pertinent question, but one thing leads to other. I avoided drawing attention to this point, since it was not exactly in the scope of the question. Though my answer gives lot of hint in the matter. However the matter deserve attention. There could be multiple explanation or postulate to that, which could never be proved. Readers have to make their own inference, I will give enough clues to find the answer.

1. The article narrate how head of nations lost their life, power or both for being in disfavour of US. the list is quite long, I am only taking names of famous few- Indira, Najibullah, Rajiv, Saddam, Gaddafi etc. It is said that from 1959 to 2001 as many as 638 assassination attempts were made on Fidel Castro inclusive those of character assassination. The former head of Cuban intelligence, Fabian Escalante, told a British documentary team the CIA had tried to kill Fidel Castro more than 600 times, over a period of about 40 years. In recent years another country drawing maximum attention from US is North Korea. Though without any success, but number of stories have been planted on him.

2. The father of India’s nuclear bomb died in a mysterious plane crash in 1966 after announcing that India can make nuclear bomb in just 18 months. CIA hand was suspected in the crash. Between 2010 and 2012, four Iranian nuclear scientists were assassinated. 11 Indian nuclear scientists had unnatural deaths during 2009-13 in mysterious condition as per data provided by Department of Atomic Energy. Eight scientists and engineers working in laboratories and research center of the department died in a blast or by hanging or drowning in the sea. Then, there was the mysterious death of Vikram Sarabhai, the father of India’s space programme. He was found dead in his hotel room on the 30th of December, 1971. In November 2013, Vice reported that two high-ranking engineers, KK Josh and Abhish Shivam, working on India’s first nuclear-powered submarine were found dead on railway tracks by workers. It’s not just our nuclear scientists who appear to be dying under mysterious circumstances. In a 15-year period, the ISRO lost 684 personnel. 71 suicides were reported between 1995 and 2015 and 2 murders.

Dhanu (circled), moments before Rajiv Gandhi's assassination in Sriperumbudur. (India Today File)

3. As already narrated Rajiv Gandhi assassination is a larger conspiracy which could include 2–3 ex PM’s involvement directly or indirectly apart from other Indian national like Godman Chandra Swami. The name of a very famous economist from south has also been referred in Jain Commission report. The list is very long. Political circles are well aware of the reason why Chandraswami was being protected. The godman had close links with Rao—the two have been friends for 25 years. It's common knowledge that the tantrik was treated as a VIP when Rao was PM and had special access to Rao's official residence, 7 Race Course Road.

Rahul Gandhi said that he and his sister Priyanka Gandhi had "completely forgiven" their father Rajiv Gandhi's killers, this could possibly because the actual killers were simply the instrument, but there were multiple hands behind who went unpunished.

4. Vajpayee ji lost election in 2004, and people were totally baffled, while all the exit poll result showed that BJP would be back in power. Ironically Vajpayee lost election inspite of being extremely popular among friend and foes. Is it because of Pokharan II, like Indira lost after Pokhran I ?

5. Three of India’s very prominent leaders, who could have been Prime Ministerial candidate Rajesh Pilot, Madhavrao Scindia and Pramod Mahajan died / assassinated. And we never know why and there is absence of sufficient explanation.

6. Politics is a game of making choice or at times making bargain or exchange offer or even compromise on some term. Allow me to be illusive here, let your imagination be free to roam around to think whatever you want to think. Possibly Sonia settled for not pursuing the case further for reasons best known to her.

7. Its still a mystery how could a weak coalition government survived for two term inspite of having a silent PM ? And the government survived without any major obstacle. Does it mean that a weak government at Delhi make sense for some powers.

8. But then question come how come Modi manage to come for second term inspite of massive economic failure. He is no weak PM, neither his government is weak. Interestingly under his rule India is drifting closer to US and Israel. Possibly his overt attempt to show friendship with Trump might hold some clue.

Ref:

1. Inter-Services Intelligence - Wikipedia
2. Socialism in India - Wikipedia
3. CIA discussed political scenarios in event of Indira Gandhi's death.
4. Finally All Fingers Point To A Foreign Hand | Outlook India Magazine
5. End Of Jain Commission? | Outlook India Magazine
6. Google Groups
7. https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/95278/9/09_chapter%203.pdf
8. When 'Bread Of India' Helped Tide Cuban Crisis
9. India–Israel relations - Wikipedia
10. Is Israel's intelligence agency Mossad behind Congress' defeat in the Lok Sabha Elections? One Congressman thinks so.
11. Assassination attempts on Fidel Castro - Wikipedia
12. How Castro survived 638 very cunning assassination attempts.
13. 11 nuclear scientists died in mysterious circumstances in 4 years | India News - Times of India.
14. The tragic death of Homi Bhabha and the trend of top Indian scientists dying under mysterious circumstances.
15. Confused with exit poll results? Here are five times when they were way off the mark.
16. Subramanian Swamy - The Mossad Stooge & The Assassination Of Rajiv Gandhi & It's Global Strategic Im
17. The Deadly Duo | Outlook India Magazine
18. How can Sonia Gandhi and her children forgive Rajiv's assassins, asks Subramanian Swamy