A glimmer of hope

In his first foreign tour as Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh tries to revive some of India's traditional foreign policy stances but the record of his government in practice is not so reassuring.

THE first visit of Dr. Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister to New York was to address the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting in late September. It provided him an opportunity to interact with other world leaders. However, it was his meetings with the United States and Pakistan Presidents that grabbed the media spotlight.

One of the important diplomatic goals of the visit was to further the Indian case for the restructuring of the U.N. Security Council. India, Germany, Japan and Brazil have formed an informal group (the Group of Four) to lobby jointly for the expansion of the Council.

During the Prime Minister's stopover in London en route to New York, his British counterpart Tony Blair came out in support of a seat for India in a reconstituted Security Council. After his talks with Manmohan Singh, Blair also said that India should also be more involved in the activities of G-8, the influential grouping of industrialised states. China seems to be on the verge of being recognised as an economic heavyweight by the G-8 and is being given the status of a permanent invitee to its annual summits.

A joint statement was issued in London after the meeting between the British and Indian Prime Ministers. The two countries pledged to fight jointly the scourge of terrorism. Manmohan Singh took the opportunity to reiterate India's refusal to deploy troops in Iraq. The two leaders pledged to continue with their practice of annual summit meetings.

In New York, Manmohan Singh was among the few leaders who met with United States President George W. Bush. However, it was the Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's meeting with Bush that garnered the Western media's attention. Bush lavished praise on the Pakistan government's efforts in the war against terrorism.

THE talks between Bush and Manmohan Singh focussed on a gamut of issues encompassing bilateral as well as international issues. The meeting came after the U.S. government had announced new steps to reduce barriers to hi-tech and commercial space cooperation, along with cooperation in the area of nuclear non-proliferation. Experts are of the view that most of the sanctions imposed by Washington after India officially went nuclear are still very much intact. Top officials of the Indian Defence Ministry have said that owing to the decision of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government to end the ambiguity regarding India's nuclear status in 1998, the procurement of sophisticated arms and defence technology had become a difficult task and has adversely affected defence preparedness.

Relations with Pakistan and the situation in Iraq also figured in the discussions. The U.S. expressed its continuing interest in the ongoing dialogue process and the confidence-building measures (CBMs) between the two countries. Washington once again offered its assistance but reassured Delhi that it was ultimately up to the two countries to find a lasting solution to their bilateral problems.

Manmohan Singh was effusive about the state of Indo-American ties. He told the media in New York that the "best is yet to come" in the relationship. A joint statement, "United States-India Partnership: Cooperation and Trust", was issued after the conclusion of the talks between the two leaders. It said that the relationship between the two countries "had never been as close as now". Praising the recent implementation of Phase I of the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership, the statement termed it "as the beginning of a new era of cooperation and trust" between the two countries although most observers are of the view that the lifting of sanctions on Indian civilian power and space programmes are only symbolic in nature (story on page 47).

INDIAN and Pakistani leaders made statesmanlike speeches at the U.N. General Assembly. It was evident that the atmosphere had changed dramatically for the better in comparison to the histrionics that were witnessed in the U.N. a year ago. The Pakistan President this time was moderation personified. He made it a point to emphasise that Pakistan was pursuing the composite dialogue "with complete sincerity, giving bilateralism a final chance". At the same time Musharraf emphasised that the resolution of the Kashmir dispute could not be "inordinately delayed". He said a solution acceptable to Pakistan, India and the Kashmiri people should be reached.

Musharraf emphasised that Pakistan and India could resolve their differences over Jammu and Kashmir through a "sincere dialogue". He said armed conflicts of the past between the two countries had shown the futility "of a military solution" and that only a lasting peace would bring prosperity to the people of South Asia.

Manmohan Singh's speech to the U.N. General Assembly was marked by his emphasis on multilateralism and challenges faced by the developing world. After a gap of more than five years, an Indian Prime Minister was quoting Jawaharlal Nehru while concluding his speech. Manmohan Singh said that India was "inspired by the vision of internationalism bequeathed to us by India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru - of a world order whose pillars are peace, harmony, cooperation and development". The Indian Prime Minister also took a veiled swipe at the unilateralism of the present American government. "We speak about cooperation, but seem hesitant to commit ourselves to a global offensive to root out terrorism. This must change. We do have a global coalition against terrorism. We must now give it substance and credibility, avoiding selective approaches and political expediency." Manmohan Singh also spoke about the negative impact of globalisation on the developing world and the need for the U.N. to get more actively involved in the social arena.

MANY diplomats from the developing countries feel that India's deeds always do not match its words. They say that India's stance on the Palestinian issue has been rather ambivalent in recent years. The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) had voted in August this year for a partial boycott of Israel because of the Zionist state's refusal to comply with the ruling of the International Court of Justice. The World Court had declared as illegal the separation barrier being built by Israel along the West Bank. (It was a World Court ruling against the apartheid government of South Africa in 1971 for its illegal occupation of Namibia that led to international sanctions being imposed on that country. It signalled the beginning of the end of the apartheid regime.)

According to reports appearing in the Arab media, the Indian government had disapproved of the NAM resolution, which is to be presented to the U.N. General Assembly. With Israel emerging as the second biggest supplier of defence equipment to India besides providing advice on some counter-insurgency operations, New Delhi is reluctant to endorse the growing international demand for sanctions against Tel Aviv. Senior officials in the Indian government say that they will act against Israel only if a sanctions regime is endorsed by the U.N. They have also made it clear that Israel would continue to remain a major strategic partner of India. The rationale being put forward by New Delhi is that all the major defence deals with Israel were contracted during the term of the previous National Democratic Alliance government.

South African law professor John Dugard, the special rapporteur for the U.N. on the human rights situation in South Africa, has said in his report to the U.N. General Assembly that there is an "apartheid regime" in the Occupied Territories and that the situation is "worse than the one that existed in South Africa". Dugard, who served on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, has called for an arms embargo against Israel similar to the one imposed on South Africa in 1977.

On yet another unresolved issue - of the decolonisation of Western Sahara - there has been no change in the attitude of the Indian government. The NDA government had unceremoniously withdrawn recognition to the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), which represents the people of Western Sahara. There seems to be little inclination on the part of the present Congress-led government to restore the status quo in this regard. The SADR was recognised as a state in the mid-1980s when Rajiv Gandhi was Prime Minister. The SADR is a full-fledged member of the African Union, the successor to the Organisation of African Unity. The SADR was recently given recognition by South Africa.

Diplomats are of the opinion that if New Delhi remains lukewarm to the feelings of the Arab and African countries, finding a seat in a reconstituted U.N. Security Council will be difficult. They point out that lobbying for a seat in the company of Germany, Japan and Brazil will not be sufficient. India, they emphasise, needs to play a pro-active role in Africa and the Arab world if it wants to assume its rightful place in a reconstituted U.N. Security Council. Diplomats from developing countries are united in their view that a Security Council that represents only 29 per cent of the world's population has to be remoulded to reflect today's political realities. However, for many developing countries, the U.N. Security Council has lost its credibility after the events in Somalia, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq.