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The current century will be characterised by polarisation of economic and military power among six principal actors, with Asian developments forming the central focus of their policies — China, India, Japan, Russia, the US and the European Union (EU). Unforeseen advances in science and technology will influence human affairs and become an important factor in international relations. India’s world role will be greatly enhanced involving its close engagement in issues from which it has remained aloof — balance and stability in Asia, negotiations to resolve the Palestine problem, participation in international groups dealing with North Korea and Iranian nuclear issues, and non-proliferation issues in general. Power and influence of the US will remain predominant in the foreseeable future because of its unsurpassed lead in science and technology. The India-US nuclear energy deal is a far-sighted act on the part of both countries. It will pave the way to India’s recognition as an NPT nuclear weapon power and provide a firm base for a much enhanced India-US relationship. China’s US policy is a good model for India to emulate in strengthening relations with Washington. India-Japan relations; especially in their political and economic aspects, demand high priority for the simple reason that the two nations’ past links were so bleak in content. India’s growing links with the US and Japan should in no way detract from our close relationship with Russia or come in the way of India’s rapidly expanding trade and economic ties with China. The EU’s role in the next decade or two will be one of support of the US, in conflict situations as in Iraq and Afghanistan, or as a sparring partner wherever the US sees a challenge to is supremacy. Its engagement with Asia will mainly be in economic, commercial and humanitarian fields. India can draw much benefit from a deeper relationship with Europe as a whole in trade, in science and technology and in acquisition and manufacture of modern arms. Africa should receive greater Indian attention, though we needn’t compete with China. The challenge to China’s drive to grab Africa’s oil and mineral resources will come rather sooner than later from the US and the EU. India’s role in Africa should be of a more humanitarian kind — generous assistance to needy countries in education, health, agriculture and modern communications. To the difficult border problem, China keeps adding complexity by refusing to define the LOAC and by periodic assertions of its feigned claims to Arunachal Pradesh, Tawang in particular — areas it voluntarily retreated from in 1962! From the Indian area it really needs for transport links — Aksai Chin — it has not budged an inch. China’s thrust in the Indian ocean and its rampant arms supplies to our South-Asian neighbours clearly seem designed to exert pressure on India. To build a relationship of mutual trust, these issues should be candidly discussed in the on-going dialogue, and resolved to mutual satisfaction. To enhance its leverage with great powers, India should make a determined effort to strengthen its cultural, economic and political ties with important players in different regions : Mongolia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia in Asia, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa in Africa; Argentina, Brazil and Mexico in Latin America; Australia, South Korea and Taiwan in Asia-Pacific; and Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. Except for some rewarding interaction with Singapore, India’s "Look East Policy", so-called, has remained a long gaze in that direction. ASEAN looks to New Delhi for a more active political, economic and security role in the region. In the West Asia region, troubled by present conflicts and much future uncertainty due to likely aftermath of the Iraq war. India has vital security and economic interests. The prospect of a Shia-dominated or a split-up Iraq has enhanced Iran’s role in the region. Iran’s nuclearisation cannot be supported because it will inevitably lead to acquisition of nuclear weapons by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and others in the region. But a closer India-Iran relationship is necessary to help stabilise Afghanistan, and to develop mutually beneficial economic and commercial links with Central Asia. India’s cordial relations with Israel should not be allowed to ensnare us into loosing sight of our much more vital and extensive political, economic, cultural and human interests in Arab countries. Jointly with Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, India should engage in the search for a fair solution of the Palestine problem. Among our immediate neighbours, Pakistan, because of its strategic location, is a country of special interest to China, the US and, of course, Afghanistan and India. With a friendly India backing it and a cooperative Afghanistan providing it overland access to Central Asia, Pakistan could play a role way beyond its innate potential; but it has been at loggerheads with both. In denial of its sub-continental origins and civilisational ethos, it has chosen rivalry with India as the measure of its identity. Military’s dominance of its polity has undermined the country’s economy and inured it to being used as a proxy by foreign powers. While the ongoing peace negotiations must be pursued with requisite urgency, we should hope and pray for the establishment of enduring democracy in Pakistan : for only then will India-Pakistan relations begin to achieve their potential. The essence of neighbourhood policy enunciated by Jawaharlal Nehru was to leave the neighbours alone, help them if they ask for help and we have the means to give it; and be firm and deterring if they try to harm our interests. Self-guilt on grounds of India’s disproportionately large size in comparison with its neighbours, and a misplaced generosity — urge that occasionally seize New Delhi only generate unwholesome results : neighbours often view these as condescension or weakness and feel encouraged to launch irrational demands. India must stay with Nehru’s policy, which is a contemporary interpretation of Kautilya’s all-time foreign policy maxim : relations with neighbours are seldom free from difficulties, learn to live with them, or conquer them. Nehru had rightly rejected the bit about conquering as irrelevant to modern times. In fact Nehru, and later Indira Gandhi, had gone out of their way to enhance the international standing of our smaller neighbours and to help them secure UN membership. In the formulation of its policies towards great powers, India should take careful note of what they seek to do and with what purpose in our immediate neighbourhood. There cannot be a relationship of trust and closeness with China or Russia or Japan, or the US, if their policies in our region cause detriment to India’s vital interests. Indian public responses to complex issues of foreign policy are often laden with an excess of emotion and moral fervour or indignation where we miss expected apprpeciation. We cling to old ideas and arrangements long after time has robbed them of their relevance. NAM is one such shibboleth. The movement’s political agenda was exhausted long ago and attempts by Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi in the 1980s failed to persuade it to adopt a new agenda of economic cooperation. In the event it has become a platform for empty exhortations. NAM summits accomplish little but they do no harm either, and the practice may well continue. The Third World’s economic cooperation tasks have been taken over by groupings such as G77. BRIC, OAU, ASEAN and SAARC etc. The movement apart, non-alignment today means independence of decision-making and that prerogative India must and does, in fact, retain. Issues of UN reform will loom large in the early years of the century, and India will be able to contribute to their resolution more effectively if it abandons the silly campaign, started by the Congress government headed by P.V. Narasimha Rao, for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council: things of that kind will come to India unasked as its economic and other strengths grow. The spurt in India’s economic growth and its recognition as a responsible nuclear-weapon state will continue to add to its international responsibilities. Our diplomatic personnel compare well with the best in the world and have given a good account of themselves in difficult situations : they command respect abroad. But the entire foreign policy establishment is too small for its new tasks. Indian embassies in important regions, such as Central Asia, are mere skeletons; and foreign missions in Delhi complain that their diplomats experience difficulty and delays in getting appointments with their overworked MEA counterparts. A sparse and spartan Foreign Office is not the most convincing introduction to a burgeoning great power : the IFS must find ways to double the strength of its senior cadre in the next eight to 10 years. The External Affairs Ministry’s policy planning division is a bureaucrats’ phalanx. It should be an outfit headed by a politically savvy thinker and it should have, along with a few officials, a strong complement of outside talent. And the ministry’s engagement with other core wings of government, e.g. the armed forces headquarters, ministries of Defence, Commerce, Finance, Science & Technology, Health, Environment etc. should be much more structured, regular and intense than it is at present. It is time for a comprehensive review and assessment by a competent group, committee or commission of MEA’s likely future needs and how these are to be met in a time-frame of the next five to 10 years. The writer is a former Foreign Secretary and eminent analyst |
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