The book says that the post-colonial chip having fallen off its shoulder, India can now afford to look at the world from a position of authority.
The book has the stamp of Shashi Tharoors logical mind, lucidity of expression, disdain for jargon and, above all, ability to look at the big picture. When it comes to foreign policy, Tharoor has the singular advantage of being an insider as well as an outsider. As Under-Secretary-General at the United Nations, he must have had ample opportunities to observe closely Indias manner and style of playing the diplomatic game at the U.N. and elsewhere. He would have taken note of Indias score and compared it with that of comparable players. As Minister of State in the Ministry of External Affairs, Tharoor not only witnessed policy formulation at close quarters but also contributed significantly thereto. He would also have played an important role in the implementation of policy. His own doctoral thesis in 1977 was on Indias foreign policy; but for his opposition to the Emergency he might have joined the Indian Foreign Service.
The title is rather intriguing for more than one reason. A friend of mine and an admirer of Tharoor asked me, the day after the release of the book in Delhi where both of us were present, the meaning of Pax Indica. She has a Masters in literature. The second reason is that as Tharoor himself has explained right at the beginning, Pax Indica is unlike Pax Romana or Pax Britannica. India can and must play a major role in helping shape the 21st century world order, a peace system which will help promote and maintain a period of cooperative coexistence in its region and across the world. It is Indias participation in such rule-making for a peace system that is meant by Pax Indica.
The reader might ask whether the 21st century has so far given much ground for hoping that a peace system will emerge any time soon. She would recall 9/11, the yet-to-be-concluded war on Afghanistan, and the 2003 war on Iraq, just to mention a few. She would also remind herself of the paralysis of the U.N. Security Council when it comes to dealing with the civil war raging in Syria.
In the first chapter, Revisiting the Tryst with Destiny, the author draws attention to Jawaharlal Nehrus reference to the world even as the fires of Partition were raging. Nehru asserted that the dreams of his country were also for the world. Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so is disaster in this One World. Yet, for 45 years India chanted the mantra of self-reliance and protectionist barriers went up. The change came only in 1991 as a result of a huge balance of payments crisis. But many Indians have yet to realise the import of the change. One of the reasons that foreign policy matters today is that foreign policy is no longer merely foreign: it affects people right where they live. The basic task of foreign policy is to enable and facilitate the domestic transformation of India.
The author examines the merits of Nehrus policy of non-alignment and concludes with some reservations that it was the right policy under the circumstances. With the post-colonial chip having fallen off its shoulder, India can now afford to look at the world from a position of authority. It is appropriate that India should now, after 60-odd years, strive to redeem in full measure Nehrus pledge on Tryst with destiny.
India and PakistanChapter 2 is on Pakistan, smartly titled Brother Enemy. Nearly six and a half of decades after Independence and Partition, Pakistan remains Indias biggest foreign policy challenge. There is no threat to Pakistan from India as evidenced by Indias returning territory captured by it in 1965 and 1971. So, why is Pakistan following a hostile policy towards India? The decision-making elite in Pakistan, chiefly the Army, has manufactured and projected a threat from India. Why? The Army needs to justify its dominance of politics and its claim to a disproportionate share of Pakistans national assets. Kashmir is not the central problem bedevilling the relationship between the two subcontinental neighbours. That central problem is the nature of the Pakistani state itself specifically, the stranglehold over Pakistan of the worlds most lavishly funded military (in terms of percentage of national resources consumed by any army on the planet). To paraphrase Voltaire on Prussia, in India, the state has an army; in Pakistan the army has a state.
President Asif Ali Zardari in 2008 tried hard to pursue peace with India even as the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) planned and carried out 26/11. He agreed to the request of the Indian Prime Minister to send the head of the ISI to India. But the Army vetoed the visit. Pakistan has never been more isolated in the international community. Everyone knows that 26/11 was planned on and carried out from Pakistans soil.
Can India expect real help from the United States by way of putting pressure on Pakistan to mend its ways? The author believes that given its dependence on Pakistan for providing a supply route to Afghanistan, the U.S. is unlikely to put much pressure on that country to act against terrorists targeting India. However, under U.S. pressure, Pakistan has started acting against some terrorist groups that are not under the control of the ISI. Attempts by Pakistan to describe itself as a fellow victim of terror along with India are ridiculous.
Should India keep talking even if Pakistan refuses to bring to book the perpetrators of 26/11? After a careful analysis, the author concludes that India should talk, but adds significantly: It is what we say when we talk that will make all the difference. Is the author subtly suggesting that India has not been talking right? Maybe.
The author has come up with a rather original thought in dealing with Pakistan. India needs peace more than Pakistan does. India cannot grow without peace and that peace Pakistan can give us. How about pursuing Pakistan at the U.N.? Security Council Resolution 1373 obliges member-states to freeze financial transfers, to intercept arms flows, and to report on movements of suspected terrorists. The Security Council has banned the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, but Pakistan has not carried out its obligations. The idea is worth considering, but the reader might wonder who will support India at the Security Council.
Chapter 4 is titled China and India: Competition, Cooperation or Conflict? China and India together account for nearly a tenth of world gross domestic product, a fifth of world exports, and a sixth of international capital flows. Some pundits have seen so much in common between the two countries that they have coined the word Chindia.
The author does not get carried away by such ideas. The two countries are at different stages of economic development, with China much ahead of India. Their political systems are different. China can build the huge Three Gorges Dam with a 660-km long reservoir causing the displacement of two million people without any serious protest movement to worry about, in stark contrast to India. At the Beijing Olympics, China won 51 gold medals and 49 others. China topped the list of winners, whereas India was the 50th with three medals, one gold and two bronze. Whats happened at the Olympics speaks to a basic difference in the two countries systems. Its the creative chaos of all-singing, all-dancing versus the perfectly choreographed precision of the Beijing Opening Ceremony.
If India cannot compete, can the two cooperate? In 1947, when China was in the throes of a civil war, Nehru organised a visionary Asian Relations Conference. The author believes that the time has come to translate that vision into reality. His argument is that both India and China need peace to develop, and the world is large enough to accommodate a growing India and a growing China. Is the argument right and convincing? Does it not assume that human beings always choose rationally? Does it not ignore the historical reality of Chinas Middle Kingdom self-image? Above all, does China agree with the author who adduces cooperation in the hydrocarbon sector between Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Chinese state companies since 2002 to support his conclusion? The reviewer has spoken to ONGC; the implementation of agreements signed with much publicity has been slow. Not all those who have dealt with China from the Ministry of External Affairs would agree that India can expect honest cooperation from China in this sector.
The author mentions the huge growth in trade, a growth of 200 times between 1990 and 2011, as a positive factor. He does take note of the fact that the trade is heavily in Chinas favour, with India exporting raw materials and buying manufactured goods. Yet he concludes that there are some strategic advantages to offering a potential adversary a large market: it is more likely that the Chinese establishment will learn to see Indians as consumers rather than as enemies. Is he right? Maybe. An attentive reader will recall Norman Angell, who wrote The Great Illusion in 1909, arguing that there would not be another big war in Europe as the countries with their growing commercial and financial linkages could not go to war without hurting themselves immensely.
The chapter on the Foreign Office titled Eternal Affairs: The Domestic Underpinnings of Foreign Policy takes a critical look at the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). In 1977, the author, 21, did go to the MEA to get material for his doctoral thesis The Reasons of State. He found in the MEA a flawed institution staffed by superbly qualified and able diplomats but lacking in professional expertise and authority owing to unresolved problems of structure, coordination, personnel and planning. That was an unduly critical judgment, yet three decades later many of the weaknesses then spotted remain to be attended to. He has suggested a number of ideas, including lateral entry of experts in different fields. A good part of his criticism is reasonable. The author finds the annual reports of the MEA an inscrutable collection of banalities and itineraries.
While discussing the question of Indias prospects of joining an expanded Security Council as a permanent member, the author is clinical. He draws attention to the lack of real support from the Permanent Five and the African Union. If the Security Council is not reformed within a reasonable time frame, it might risk losing its relevance.
The last chapter is Multi-Alignment: Towards a Grand Strategy for India in the Twenty-first Century. Indias foreign-policy-making is long on rhetoric and short of hard-headed substance. There is a low correlation between policy as conceived and articulated and the national interests. Enunciation of principles does not amount to policy. Often the Indian diplomat wins the argument without convincing his interlocutor.
National interestNational interest should promote or at least not undermine three domestic verities: Indias liberal democracy; its religious, ethnic, and cultural pluralism; and the overriding imperative to reduce poverty. Nehru had said presciently half a century ago: I do not pretend to say that India, as she is, can make a vital difference to world affairs. So long as we have not solved most of our own problems, our voice cannot carry the weight that it normally will and should.
The author was rather taken aback to read in the National Annual Security Review of 2010 that India was the worlds fifth most powerful country, outranking the United Kingdom, France and Germany. For a country still excessively focussed on problems in its own neighbourhood, distracted (if not obsessed) with Pakistan and kept off balance by China, this seemed a somewhat far-fetched claim.
As K. Subrahmanyam, put it, India has lacked the ability to formulate future-oriented defence policies, managing only because of short-term measures, blunders by its adversaries, and force superiority in its favour. The Ministry of Defence should not be manned by generalist Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers. In most other countries, that Ministry has security professionals. The absence of a chief of defence staff is a serious shortcoming. India, unlike Pakistan, has announced a doctrine of no-first use. This gives the advantage to Pakistan and has inhibited Indias possible responses to terrorist acts emanating from Pakistan. India needs to develop an assured second-strike capability. It is widely believed that Pakistan is ahead of India in the race for nuclear credibility.
The author quotes Subrahmanyam, who argues that India has three options in a world where the U.S. remains the predominant power, China is second, and India is the swing power: partnering with the U.S. and other democracies; joining with China at the risk of betraying its values; and remaining politically and ideologically non-aligned, even if against its own ideals. The choice is clear.
The author finds that the strategic community in New Delhi does not agree with the first option. India is reluctant to promote democracy abroad. The author argues that the world needs India. The world is moving slowly but surely into a post-superpower age. India should move beyond non-alignment to multi-alignment. India can play a prominent role in the U.N., G20, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the Community of Democracies, G77, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), the Commonwealth, IBSA (India, Brazil, and South Africa), BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, China), and so on. India has to have strategic autonomy, but that autonomy is not an end in itself; it should be made use of to promote the national interest. A new global order is emerging and India should have a major say in writing the rules of that order. That is the meaning of Pax Indica.
The author has analysed well the unfolding changes in the international order. He has suggested a good recipe. India is already using that recipe though the fact remains that there is much room for improvement. To argue that Indias policy is defined by non-alignedness is to mistake rhetoric for action. As regards the new international order the author is talking about, a sceptical reader might add that there is much disorder juxtaposed with order. In any case, the global political and economic situation has deteriorated much after Tharoor wrote the book. Indias economic growth too has come down. But that is not his fault.
In sum, this book will be of interest to the general public and students of international relations, and it should be read by those who make and implement policy. One might not agree with the author in toto, but he does prompt the reader to think. That is the only raison dtre of a book. And it is reader-friendly too.
K.P. Fabian, a former Ambassador, is the author of Diplomacy: Indian Style (2012).
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