The Hindu : International / India & World : "Media has not set terms for India's foreign policy"

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 20, 2005

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International - India & World

"Media has not set terms for India's foreign policy"

P. S. Suryanarayana

"Studies show that the Indian media follows the trend set by the leaders"

SINGAPORE: India's media has not set the terms at all for the country's foreign policy, despite being influential. Emphasising this, N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu , said here on Tuesday that studies often showed that the Indian media had, by and large, followed the trend set by the leaders of the country in the foreign policy domain.

While this was true of détente or hawkishness in India-Pakistan relations, some among the Indian media refused to toe the line during the Kargil crisis, Mr. Ram said, in response to a question at a meeting he addressed under the auspices of the Singapore-based Institute of South Asian Studies.

Positive approach

Affirming his "high regard for the journalistic capabilities in Pakistan," he said studies had shown that the press there too displayed a tendency to follow the leaders on foreign policy issues.

"Right now, we are well locked into a very positive approach towards détente," he said, and pointed out how the Indian media had covered the latest visit of the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf, to New Delhi by not raising expectations too much.

The India-China engagement had turned into "a large success story post-1988" when Rajiv Gandhi paid a visit to Beijing.

Tracing the evolution of the bilateral relations since then, especially in the context of the boundary question, Mr. Ram said: "The previous Indian position was that you had to solve this problem before you normalised — Get everything out of the way, then we will be friends: not only friends, we will be normal people across the border."

India-China relations

Recounting how Deng Xiaoping, China's helmsman and paramount leader of yesteryear, had taken the initiative of suggesting that the border question should not hold up normalisation and that unilateralist claims be eschewed, Mr. Ram said, "it took a long time for that to become official policy" in India too. Thereafter, "a period of aberration" that lasted about six months after India's nuclear tests of 1998 was "quickly repaired."

The India-China understanding and formal agreements were now based on the principles of non-use of force to alter the status quo andno threat of use of force to solve the border issue. Mr. Ram said the basic line in India-China ties now was not to get obsessed with the border question to the extent of spoiling bilateral relations.

Pointing out that "Pakistan finds it difficult to accept" a similar proposition with regard to Kashmir, he said that "the knowledge we have gained" through the media was that "soft borders is the way to go" on Kashmir.

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