Back to the future?

KANTI BAJPAI

back to issue

HOW was the year in foreign policy? In 2003, India’s concerns seemed all too familiar: Pakistan, the US and China. The prime minister’s travels notwithstanding, New Delhi has no great successes to report, except in some respects with China but even here the gains were modest. I argue that relations with Pakistan and the US are more or less stagnant (notwithstanding the sexy headlines) and will remain so. A more modest course with both, which focuses on long-term gains, is no bad thing.

Relations with China and Russia are easier to handle at this point, partly because there are no great expectations or quarrels here. Given that the NDA government is looking at a general election within a year, it should pursue a quiet and sensible foreign policy with greater attention to the region, Southeast Asia, Japan and Australia.

After all the noise and banging of the drum in 2002, our relations with Pakistan are essentially limping back to a middle of the road policy that marked most of the 1990s. In 2002, after the terrorist attack on Parliament and the Kaluchak camp, the NDA government nearly took us to war against Pakistan. (Or so National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra says.) We broke diplomatic relations with Pakistan, cut travel, threatened to end trade and break the Indus treaty, and prepared for war.

In 2003, we have spent most of our time trying to find a way out of this impossible policy. As the year closes, we seem to have achieved a way out and convinced ourselves that we have made great progress, whereas we are clawing our way back to the status quo ante!

The Pakistanis did not blink in the summer of 2002 or afterwards, and India eventually had to pull back its military formations from forward positions. New Delhi has now restored full diplomatic relations and travel, and the government has gone back to a middle of the road policy of engaging Pakistan while continuing to demand that it end its support of terrorism.

A few months ago, the government was certain that India could not talk to Pakistan until Islamabad ended its support of terrorism. Today, there is plenty of talk going on, as there should be, and no possibility whatsoever that Pakistan is going to end its support of terror. Vajpayee will most likely go to Pakistan for the SAARC summit and meet his Pakistani counterpart, just as Indian prime ministers did three or four years ago.

 

 

As for India-US relations, there is a lot of smoke and mirrors but not much substance. Since 11 September 2001, the relationship between the two largest democracies has been up and down, in cycles, much as it was in the 1990s. Immediately after 9/11, India offered the US virtual carte blanche in terms of military and political cooperation. A deafening silence ensued from Washington, which caused a panic in New Delhi. A repair job was set in motion by Robert Blackwill, the new Ambassador, that saved the day. Since then there have been ups and downs: up until the summer of 2002, down after India’s threat of war; up during the Kashmir elections of late 2002, and down as the Iraq war neared.

Where are we in India-US relations today? There hasn’t been a US Ambassador in New Delhi for six months. The new Ambassador will be a bit of a lame duck given that the Bush Administration is coming to the end of its term. India-US relations have not been helped by the Iraq war. The Americans feel that they had a yes from India on the deployment of troops in Iraq. They are angry that New Delhi did not deliver after saying yes. They would have understood better had New Delhi said no from the beginning, but South Block’s ‘duplicity’ has not gone down well. Paul Wolfowitz, for one, has apparently lost interest in India as have many others in the Department of Defence (DoD). Pakistan and China are increasingly back in favour with DoD. This sounds ominously like the second half of the Cold War, where the US was closer to the Pakistanis and Chinese and did just enough with India to keep India from deepening its relationship to Moscow.

When President Bush came to power in 2001, he promised a brave new era with India. All said and done, nothing much has happened in real terms. There has been no presidential visit, just as in the first Clinton presidency. The US arms pipeline has still not really opened (though there has been some progress here). The resumption of military exercises and contacts between the armed forces of the two countries has brought us back to pre-1998 levels. Where we are doing better is in intelligence sharing, especially in respect of terrorism, but otherwise we are not much ahead of 1998 levels of military cooperation.

 

 

Meanwhile, there are some darkish clouds over the India-US relationship. The US has made fairly clear its view that the Indian presence in Afghanistan should be limited and sensitive to Pakistani concerns. The Americans did not find Indian ‘Third World’ trade unionism in Cancun amusing. And, most recently, Washington has barred Indian companies from participating in Iraq’s reconstruction.

India’s relations with China, ironically, have shown some daylight. The prime minister’s visit was relatively successful, at least in terms of the optics. There is a sense of greater pragmatism on both sides. Both agree that trade and other relations should improve. India-China trade could easily reach $10 billion in a couple of years. If this still seems rather puny for two such large economies, it’s worth remembering that they were at a two-way trade of a mere $200 million only eight years ago!

On the border issue with China there have been the usual rounds of the JWG this year. There seems to be a sense in both capitals that the border negotiations have to be given some momentum. Over the past two years, India and China have exchanged some border maps, which is a step forward. We should aim to speed up these map exchanges.

 

 

The three year-old security dialogue, which brings India and China together to discuss security issues other than the border, is presumably still being held – I say presumably because there is little publicity given to the dialogue. We should ensure that this other level of security talks continue. Why not open it up to a track-two process? India and China are both part of the ASEAN Regional Forum and quite familiar with a track-two process that parallels the first track. Why not do bilaterally what we do multilaterally?

For India, the biggest gain this year with China has been Beijing’s statement on Sikkim that suggests it is willing to concede India’s sovereignty. This should put the Indian government in a better mood. It is unclear what the quid pro quo here is. Nevertheless, this is an important step forward. Let us see how the two countries build on it next year.

India-Russia relations are stable but not exactly soaring. The prime minister’s visit to Russia was unexciting but helped consolidate an old friendship. The military aspect of the relationship is the core, and little has changed here. We still buy lots of arms from the Russians. Moscow does have something going with Pakistan, but it knows which side to come out on in a crisis. Delhi can still count on Putin for arms and diplomatic support.

What can we conclude from this brief, rather sketchy review of Indian foreign policy? First, we are not doing too well with Pakistan and the US, our two most important relationships. Second, we are doing better with China and Russia. Third, there is little prospect of any dramatic changes with either Pakistan or the US. Let me say something more about the last conclusion.

With Pakistan, we must recognize that the middle path is about the only course we have and that by definition it is a slow path. It would be eccentric to try to accelerate the tempo, as we saw in Agra. And it is equally foolish to change the tempo in the opposite direction, as we tried to do in the summer of 2002 when we nearly went to war. We need a lot more preparation before we go into a summit; and war is no option.

 

 

A middle road with Pakistan is the only road left to us. The NDA government is now coming to the end of its life, and its focus is inevitably going to be domestic politics. Foreign policy can help somewhat in an election campaign, but not too much. So relations with Pakistan have probably gone as far as they can, and a slow middle path is about the best we can expect. This means CBMs, low-level diplomatic talks, track two diplomacy, for the most part.

In order to deal with Pakistan, we must do better in Kashmir. Over the past several years, India has followed a policy of alternation. In 1999, when nothing was working with Kashmiris, New Delhi decided to deal with Pakistan. Hence the trip to Lahore. After the Kargil war that summer, the Pakistan option was dead, and so India opened up to Kashmiris. From April to November 2000, the government tried to cultivate the Hizb: this was the season of ceasefires. When that collapsed in early 2001, we went back to Pakistan.

In April 2002, Prime Minister Vajpayee suddenly invited General Musharraf for a summit in Agra. After the failure at Agra and the events of 9/11, we went back to dealing with Kashmiris. The Ram Jethmalani effort, the elections in Kashmir in October 2002, and the appointment of N.N. Vohra were part of a plan to do an internal deal. The announcement that Advani would lead the peace process is the latest effort to move forward in Kashmir.

 

 

Things are moving slowly in Kashmir, but it is a better bet to deal with Kashmiris than dealing with Pakistan. In the final analysis, the two parts of the problem will have to be brought together. We will have to deal with both Pakistan and Kashmiris. As things stand, it is better to work the Kashmiri side of the game. There are worrying signs – reports of a new wave of young men going across to Pakistan, and the discovery of nerve agents in bullets that the militants apparently have access to. All the more reason to try and make a difference in the Valley. If we begin to move ahead with Kashmiris, we will find Pakistan more eager to talk.

With the US, too, we must recognize that there are limits to what we can achieve. The Bush Administration is now winding down. Frankly, there are no champions of India left in the US government. The State Department was always fairly cautious. The Department of Defence is cheesed off.

In any case, all the old reasons for cultivating Pakistan and being sensitive to Islamabad’s concerns came back with 9/11, and it is going to be a long time before that changes. Pakistan’s location, its ‘moderation’ in Islamic terms, the fear that it could become less moderate, and the fact that it has nuclear weapons that could get into the wrong hands, all these have a tempering effect on how the US, Europe, Russia and even China handle Pakistan.

Notice that none of these factors has anything to do with India-Pakistan relations. Pakistan’s geographic position in the world near various arcs of instability and its capacity to be a nuisance to international society are supreme strengths, ones that Pakistanis are perfectly well aware of and very astute at utilizing in their diplomacy.

New Delhi basically has three cards with Washington. The first is democracy. As the world’s largest democracy in population terms, we have a political affinity with the US that is no mean resource. It is not really a strategic resource, but it always gives us something of an entrée into the US – into the public imagination, into intellectual circles, into Congress. Thirty years from now 1.5 billion Indians could be living in a mass suffrage democracy. This is a historic thing – never have so many people lived in freedom in any single society anywhere. There is a brute reality to this fact that no one can ignore.

 

 

The second card we have is the Indian-American community. This community impacts on US politics and will continue to do so. Its economic, intellectual, and professional clout keeps India ‘in the game’. Finally, the Indian economy is an attraction. By the Indian economy, I don’t just mean our markets and GNP. I also mean our technical and technological potential. One and a half billion people constitute a huge amount of brain power.

These ‘cards’ can’t really be played the way Pakistan plays its cards. These are ‘calling cards’ more than playing cards – to be filed away, as it were. We have to continue to play for the long term with the Americans. Slowly but surely is the way to do it. A strategic relationship can’t be built in a day, and it cannot probably be built in the way that some think it can, namely, by being a close military ally of the US. Not sending troops to Iraq was probably wise (given the complexity of the situation there and the strains on our own manpower), and it’s not the way of the foreseeable future.

 

 

One of the most important things to do is to build links with people in the US outside the government. This has been said many times, but it is worth repeating: India must have better relations with US think tanks, universities, the media, and non governmental organizations. How to do this is a challenging task given that every country in the world is vying for the attention of these institutions and actors. But surely being more lenient with visas and encouraging Indian groups to develop links with US counterparts is crucial. One of our biggest advantages is the openness of our society; but we often behave with Americans as if we are afraid of our openness. Sixty years after independence, I think we can handle a few dozen American intellectuals coming to India!

What should be an agenda for next year? I think there is not much happening in India-Pakistan or India-US relations. The relationship with China is quietly blooming. We must continue to work at the border issue and encourage trade. We must also build on China’s own fears of Pakistani extremism. Before 1998, India had quite successfully brought Beijing round to a more even-handed approach towards South Asia. It should be our goal to do so again. The Chinese, for their part, have signalled their interest in doing exactly this. I think that New Delhi has to begin to prepare the Indian public for a border settlement with China. This requires, at least as a start, that the government in power keep the major opposition parties informed of its thinking on China and a possible settlement.

Our own region is a troubling zone, and we need to pay it greater attention. For five years now, the NDA government has basically kept its attention focused on Pakistan, the US and China, and everything else has receded. This is dangerous because domestic turmoil in these countries could impinge on us quite seriously.

 

 

Another important region is Southeast Asia. The early to mid 1990s saw us open up to this region. A decade later, the Look East policy looks rather sad. Our interests here are more economic than anything else. Yet we have done little to give an economic engagement much life. Farther afield, relations with Japan have never developed the zing they should have. The Japanese are to blame for some of this, but so are we.

Australia, too, is an important country for us. The Australians manage to rub us the wrong way more often than even the Americans (I don’t think we understand Aussie ways), but there are common interests. The Indian view that the Australians are American stooges is not very helpful. What we can do with Australia is really the question. In the Indian Ocean and elsewhere, we can begin to do things. The fact that we are both parliamentary democracies makes Australia a natural ally in Asia.

This is not a particularly glamorous agenda. In an election year, you shouldn’t be too glamorous. Keep lines of communication open with everyone including the Pakistanis and Americans, but don’t expect too much. Do some quiet, sensible things elsewhere. Make sure your domestic politics are stable and democratic. And, as they say, keep your head down and your powder dry.

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