Not by raw power alone

Published : Nov 17, 2006 00:00 IST

India must radically reorient its foreign policy to promote universal principles and egalitarian values, not narrow self-interest.

ONE thing that nobody can accuse newly appointed External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee of lacking is ambition. Right since he began his governmental career as a Deputy Minister for Industries in 1973, Mukherjee has set his sights on a place in the Congress party's top echelons. Mukherjee did not win a single popular election until 2004. He could never claim to have a political base of his own in or outside West Bengal. But that did not prevent his steady elevation in the party's hierarchy and its national government.

The only exception was 1984, when Indira Gandhi was assassinated. But this, as we see below, only proves the rule. On October 31, total confusion prevailed in both party and government for several hours until Rajiv Gandhi, who was away, returned to the capital. Who would succeed Indira Gandhi? Would it be the Number Two person in the Cabinet, as happened after Jawaharlal Nehru died and, again, when Lal Bahadur Shastri died in harness? Or would the party nominate someone else?

As politicians hotly debated the issue, and while journalists waited for word from the Prime Minister's media advisor H.Y. Sharada Prasad in Delhi, a long biographical note on Mukherjee was discreetly circulated by his acolytes. If I recall right, it was 24 pages long and listed every single post Mukherjee had held and every overseas trip he had made. It was evidently meant to press his claim to the top job.

However, Rajiv Gandhi was soon persuaded by his close supporters that logically he should take over. After all, Gulzari Lal Nanda had only been a temporary stand-in before Lal Bahadur Shastri was sworn in, in 1963, and before Indira Gandhi become Prime Minister following Shastri's death. He might as well dispense with the transitional formality.

Mukherjee was bitterly disappointed and sulked. He probably confused seniority with leadership and competence. But he quietly returned to the party and rose to be External Affairs Minister under P.V. Narasimha Rao in 1995.

In the Manmohan Singh Cabinet, his importance has steadily risen. He has long been accepted as the de facto Number Two. But that did not prevent him from making a bid for a formal position as Deputy Prime Minister - only to earn a snub from Sonia Gandhi in August.

However, ambition, tactical shrewdness and even the best considerations of India's interests are unlikely to guarantee Mukherjee true success in his new assignment. He is called upon to impart serious purpose, direction and dynamism to India's foreign policy at a critical juncture.

Mukherjee takes over the Foreign Office just as India is poised to further influence events and trends both in its neighbourhood and globally. Yet, ironically, the ship of Indian diplomacy seems rudderless.

To define the issue in broad-brush terms, the present global constellation of forces offers India unprecedented, and probably unique, opportunities. Consider the great powers. Notwithstanding what one thinks of the durability of the "unipolar moment" created by the Soviet Union's collapse, the United States now finds itself unable to reshape the world in its own image.

The "Global War on Terror" has gone haywire. The Iraq quagmire, Washington's continuing difficulties in meeting its objectives in Afghanistan, its total failure to prevent North Korea from crossing the nuclear threshold, are all pointers to America's declining ability to control events despite its stupendous military might. The acceptance ratings both of the U.S. and President George W. Bush have plummeted to their lowest-ever levels across the world, according to a Pew Research Centre survey.

At the same time, the European Union has lost some of its elan and certainly its drive to create an alternative pole of attraction to American power. It is too mired in the neoliberal economic paradigm, and too entangled in internal difficulties amidst a drift to the Centre-Right, to be able to play that role.

Russia has not fully recovered from its loss of past power and glory. It is unsure about whether and how it can influence the world. While China's economic strength is rising dramatically, it is reluctant to convert it into political-diplomatic clout. China remains largely introverted. Japan is set to militarise itself further but will still not pull its full political weight globally.

The multilateral order, too, is in flux. If Bosnia and Kosovo highlighted its crisis, Iraq could well become a swivel- or turning-point. The edifice of multilateral treaties, including arms control agreements, stands weakened.

At the same time, "old" issues like global North-South inequalities, and skewed terms of trade and intellectual property regimes have got aggravated or become intractable, even while new challenges have arisen (global warming, migration, viral epidemics, and so on). The Doha Round of World Trade Organisation negotiations remains deadlocked.

All this offers tremendous scope for new ideas, initiatives and proposals for the reform of the global system and for the conduct of international relations, as well as for expanding India's room for diplomatic manoeuvre.

It goes without saying that India should use this opportunity not to advance its narrow self-interest and parochial agendas, such as having its nuclear weapons "normalised" and rationalised by the world's worst nuclear addict or by organising greater pressure on Pakistan to act against extremist militants, but to promote universal values and principles and to make the world a better, more democratic, more pluralist and less unequal, violent and unjust place.

Only thus can India command the world's respect and encourage tendencies that favour reform of the international order, as well as promote Manmohan Singh's favourite "enlightened self-interest". But doing that means that India has to radically reorient its foreign policy priorities - across the horizon. India must reverse the reduction of its foreign policy to the management of its relations with the major powers, most obsessively with the U.S., coupled with an effort to get a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

India must play the vital role it deserves to play as a representative and leader of the Global South through different fora such as the Non-aligned Movement, G-77, South-South Cooperation, and so on. It also means that India must give its immediate neighbourhood high priority. Manmohan Singh has not visited any neighbouring country barring Afghanistan in his entire tenure as Prime Minister. This must change.

Recently, the Ministry of External Affairs drew up a "Relevance for India Index", which ranks the 114 countries where India has diplomatic representation by their "importance for India". This is said to be "strictly an internal exercise", on which no public "debate is encouraged".

The most important country is, of course, the U.S., followed by Britain and France. Next come Japan, Russia and China. Pakistan is Number 9. This speaks of confused priorities, a crude way of looking at the world, on a country-to-country basis, rather than through geo-political and geo-economic categories.

If India really wants to enhance its global prestige, it must boldly support progressive causes, including reduction of North-South disparities, strong commitments by rich and fast-growing economies to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and public funding of international health initiatives, including efforts to develop remedies for "diseases of the poor".

India must stop tailing the U.S. and other powers on terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, "regime change" arguments and other issues. Instead, India should make innovative proposals for resolving issues through peaceful negotiations and respect for international law. It can play a worthy role on Iraq, Iran and North Korea in a world increasingly without leadership in ideas.

A precondition for doing this is a paradigm shift: from a preoccupation with raw power to respect for principles, values and standards. Doctrines derived from the latter should become the beacons of our foreign policy, not some crude, arbitrarily constructed and highly mutable notion of the "national interest". All this involves swimming against the current, especially dominant opinion in the strategic-diplomatic community, which has turned totally cynical and pro-Western, especially pro-U.S.

Mukherjee, frankly, seems an unlikely candidate for this - given his record as a hawk on nuclear issues and on Pakistan, his strongly pro-U.S. views on many matters and, generally, his devotion to conservative policies. It was Mukherjee who engineered a change in India's stand on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1995. India had long held it up as the model of a universal, non-discriminatory treaty, but as soon as negotiations seemed imminent, India started hedging its bets with new, extraneous conditions. Mukherjee also allowed the Indian armed forces to veto a settlement of the Nepal crisis along democratic, non-royalist terms.

It is unlikely that Mukherjee will easily change. But hopefully, if we citizens can energise a healthy public debate on foreign policy, it will have a sobering effect on him.

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