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Thursday, May 20, 2004

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Diplomatic tasks for the Congress

By C. Raja Mohan

Leading the subcontinent towards peace and prosperity without seeming to be domineering will be a major challenge.

"INDIAN FOREIGN policy has never been wedded to any dogma or doctrine." That is Natwar Singh, for long the voice of the Congress party on foreign policy issues, trying to calm nerves around the world about potentially dramatic shifts in Indian diplomacy after the elections. While the panic reaction of the stock markets to the economic orientation of the new government has hit the headlines, there has been no less animation in the capital's diplomatic community that has been working overtime to figure out the foreign policy orientation of the Congress-led coalition.

Mr. Singh, who is widely viewed to be the front-runner for the post of the External Affairs Minister in the new government, insisted in a wide-ranging interview with the Press Trust of India earlier this week that the Congress policy towards the world will be infused with "political realism." It will be tempting to interpret that Mr. Singh's remarks were meant to temporise. But a close reading of his exhaustive comments to PTI suggests that there will be no radical changes in the substance of India's external relations under Congress rule. The diplomatic style of the new foreign policy managers, of course, is entirely another matter.

Despite the occasional sense of partisanship in the public debate on foreign policy in recent years, Indian diplomacy has evolved steadily in recent years. The change of direction was motivated by such structural factors as the end of the Cold War and the new imperatives of globalisation in the economic and security realms. Almost all the major political formations in the nation have had a chance to shape India's foreign policy since 1991. As on the economic front, so in foreign policy, it was the Congress Government that initiated many of the changes in Indian diplomacy in the early 1990s. These were largely continued under the United Front Governments backed by the Left during 1996-98, and by the National Democratic Alliance since 1998. A measure of bipartisanship, therefore, does exist.

As the Congress prepares to take charge, the media emphasis would be on such issues as relations with the United States and the attitude towards developments in West Asia. Given the substantive evolution of India's approach to the world since the end of the Cold War, the Congress will have little difficulty in finessing the so-called big ideological issues. The real challenge for the Congress, however, lies in the many difficulties that the nation confronts in the neighbourhood. It is easy to issue statements on the situation in Iraq and the Middle East, for their impact on the ground would at best be marginal. More difficult questions however relate to the subcontinent where India will be expected to make a difference.

How best can the current sensitive negotiations with Pakistan and China be pursued? What kind of an attitude should India take towards the deepening crisis in Nepal? How much and what kind of pressure should it apply on King Gyanendra to accommodate the forces of democratic opposition he has so deeply alienated? Should India take a more active interest in the stalled peace process in Sri Lanka? How can India find a way out of the cul-de-sac that Indo-Bangladesh relations have settled into? Must India accept the growing international involvement in the security problems of the neighbourhood? How can India overcome the major domestic hurdles to its proclaimed economic diplomacy? These are the issues on which the new government will be tested, not the big ideological ones that tend to dominate the public discourse on foreign policy.

On the question of India's relations with major powers, both Mr. Singh and the Congress manifesto indicate essential continuity. The Congress has a simple formula: improve relations with all of them. This banal proposition, of course, reflects the post Cold War reality that India's relations with all the major powers were underdeveloped in the early 1990s and had to be improved.

In its document on foreign and national security policies issued last month, the party said, "The Congress will infuse Indian foreign policy with political realism and calibration, making it responsive to the changes in the international situation and global power equations. The Congress will attach the highest importance to fashioning equations between India and the major powers of the world, for mutual benefit, for tempering trends of unilateralism, and for creating a world order for maintaining equilibrium in interstate relations."

The Congress' reference to American unilateralism is, of course, infinitely mild compared to the kind of criticism the Bush administration is facing at home and from its allies abroad. The party's demand for a better global balance of power, too, is not new. It has been part of India's recent foreign policy rhetoric. Throughout the last decade, India has at once emphasised the importance of building a special relationship with the U.S. and proclaimed its commitment to creating a multi-polar world.

In front of American audiences, the outgoing Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, said India and the U.S. were "natural allies." Standing with Russian, French and Chinese interlocutors, he would say India is for a "multipolar world." A contradiction? Sure it is. But that is inherent in India's position as a rising power in the international system that must at once improve its ties with the sole superpower while generating enough space and political autonomy for itself. The Congress will continue to ride this contradiction.

The essence of this approach has been reiterated by Mr. Singh, who said India will seek "closest relations" with the U.S., but will not subordinate its interests to please Washington. For the benefit of his Left allies, Mr. Singh underlined that China as a Communist country has "very, very close relations with the U.S. in all areas." While reassuring the U.S. about continuity, the new Foreign Minister will have enough opportunities to proclaim the avowed goal of a "multipolar" world. A ministerial meeting of the triangular initiative involving China, Russia and India is due for next month and could turn out to be one of the first major engagements for the new Foreign Minister.

India today finds itself in the comfortable position of expanding ties with all the major powers for the first time in decades. Deepening trade relations with all of them have given a measure of stability to India's great power diplomacy. Given the absence of a major confrontation among the major powers, India has the opportunity to intensify its ties with all of them without having to look over its shoulder. It is merely a problem of effective foreign policy management. The central diplomatic challenge for India lies elsewhere — in realising the potential for transformation of its relations with China and Pakistan.

The two sets of sensitive negotiations started by the Vajpayee Government involve two central themes of India's national security — the boundary dispute with China and the Kashmir question with Pakistan. Successful conclusion of either of these talks would involve changing the very territorial map of the nation that generations of Indians have grown up with. The Congress leadership will have to avoid posturing and come up with creative ideas on resolving the boundary dispute with China and sustaining the fragile peace process with Pakistan. While the political mettle of the Congress Government will be tested in these talks, the rewards could be enduring.

A settled boundary with China would ease India's decades old two-front military problem. Normalisation of relations with Pakistan will help ease a host of internal security challenges — including the deteriorating communal relations and terrorism. More important, an India that takes the lead in resolving its long-standing disputes with Pakistan will find greater space for improving ties with the great powers and the region as a whole. For example, when all is said and done on the bilateral front with the U.S., it is the Pakistan factor that remains the single most important obstacle to improved Indo-U.S. relations.

Besides the tough negotiations ahead with China and Pakistan, Indian foreign policy also faces other extraordinary challenges within the subcontinent. In recent decades, India's smaller neighbours have found it easier to deal with non-Congress Governments in New Delhi. The Congress is seen in the neighbourhood as being more vulnerable to hegemonic impulses. The new government must move quickly to dispel those traditional fears in the region and demonstrate its commitment to stay the course with the gentler neighbourhood policies initiated by the Governments of the United Front and the NDA. Leading the subcontinent towards peace and prosperity without seeming to be domineering will be a major challenge for the foreign policy of the Congress-led coalition.

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