Book Review

(Some see India as polarised; actually it has two faces. One is in love with the glitter of the West, the other is afraid of its intentions. With America so eager to set up India as counter-weight to China, many in India are unsure if their country should play that role. They are awe struck by American aggressiveness in the face of so much failure. The following comment by a seasoned diplomat articulates their concerns.) Editor

The U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice's whistle stop tour of Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing and Moscow last weekend offered a glimpse of the acute limits to American power in the post-Cold War period.

The ‘Bush Doctrine’ lies in ruins. North Korea's nuclear test and the security paradigm in Northeast Asia irretrievably scatter what remained of the illusions of the U.S.'s containment strategy in global politics. Equally, it has become glaringly apparent that the contemporary world is right in a period of great upheavals and great adjustments, and the relative capacity of the U.S. is declining in unilaterally imposing crisis settlement on any of the nations that President George W. Bush nonchalantly characterised as comprising the "axis of evil" — be it in respect of the turmoil in Iraq, the impasse in North Korea or the Iran nuclear issue.

To be sure, communication and coordination, tolerance and mutual understanding are the prerequisites of solving problems in an interdependent world. Globalisation dictates the need for a collective response of the world community to global challenges and threats, and it curbs the scope for unilateralism. From India's perspective, the milieu demands a multi-vector foreign policy — a non-aligned, independent foreign policy — that is a function of our internal changes.

Historical experience shows that a good foreign policy is an open and predictable one that reinforces the economic and the social fabric of society, which of course is possible only in conditions of stability. In turn, such a foreign policy requires a compromise of all the sections and, social and political groups in the country. And, while keeping pace with the progressive path of national development, it must customarily call for public consensus.

Yet in these vital respects, our foreign policy in the past decade or so has suffered from ‘political apathy’. What is appalling is that the resultant vacuum in the Indian discourses has been filled with ideas that are not at all innocuous and are pernicious to healthy social development — nationalism, populism, xenophobia and intolerance.

Political parties ought to play a key role by acting as catalysts of discussion on foreign policy, just as in any democratic process. They are after all the brokers between citizens and state institutions, capable of moulding public opinion and offering models of solution to the problems facing the state and society. Regrettably, with the solitary exception of the Left parties, this is not happening in India. The Congress has alas abandoned its tradition of co-relating India's tryst with destiny to the fate of humanity. The BJP is marooned in vacuous rhetoric. As for myriad regional parties, though destined to wield levers of national power, they are light years away from developing any worldview. Thus our political system's ability to respond to ‘impulses from below’ has greatly suffered.

Ninan Koshy's book comes in the best traditions of the moribund Great Indian Debate on foreign policy issues. It is refreshing to see Koshy audaciously barging into the cosy little circle of one-dimensional men in Delhi who form the foreign affairs experts' team within our strategic community.

Koshy puts under the scanner the presumptions and alibis that have been advanced as justification for the paradigm shift in our foreign policy since the National Democratic Alliance Government came to power, in the direction of hitching the Indian wagons to a strategic and military alliance with the United States. While the discussion forms a necessary backdrop for India's current diplomatic history, the book's main argument is that the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance Government has taken the country even further along the policy tracks laid down by its predecessor on nuclear policy or West Asia or India's insistent claim to be a ‘natural ally’ of the U.S.

It has become fashionable in our strategic community to run down the raison d'être of an independent foreign policy. This exercise, generally speaking, passes under the rubric of ‘realism’ in foreign policy. But when a country like South Korea practises non-alignment in its foreign policy with such devastating effect in the recent years, and then proceeds to garner its accumulated reserve of leadership claim in the race for the post of the U.N. Secretary General, it is an eye opener about the power of creative thinking.

Or, when People's Daily repeatedly hails Ban Ki-moon's election as "not only a pride of the Republic of Korea (ROK) people but a glory to the entire Asian people" and visualises it as "the outcome of regional balancing... that will be very favourable for the coordination and consultation between Asia and other regions," what comes to the mind's eye is the seamless relevance of an independent foreign policy in the post-Cold War setting.

Not surprisingly, Koshy is unsparing in his criticism of the UPA Government in ploughing a lonely furrow in foreign policy predicated on the hypothesis that Washington is committed to "help India become a major world power in the 21st century." Yet, he is not polemical. Koshy arrives at his judgement after leading us through his painstaking, meticulous research, which he is eminently equipped to undertake, given his distinguished background as an academic and scholar on international politics, human rights, disarmament, education and religion.

After the end of the Second World War, it was believed that no country would be able to get away with invasion and annexation of territories of a UN member state. But India invaded and annexed the colonies of France and Portugal in South Asia without consulting with the colonial power or the people of the colonies. It annexed Sikkim on the excuse that it threatened its security because its ruler had married an American. It invaded and annexed the state of Hyderabad that wanted to become independent in accordance with the Independence of India Act that is the legal basis for transfer of sovereignty to India. It invaded and annexed the State of Junagadh that joined Pakistan in accordance with the same Act. In all those cases, India acted in the name of Non-Muslims who were in a majority in those states. But when the Muslim majority in the state of Jammu and Kashmir anticipated the mal-intent of its non-Muslim ruler and the people rebelled and expelled the ruler, India sent its troops into the state in response to an ‘instrument of accession’ signed by the ruler that has never been seen and has been proved to be forged or non-existent.”

‘Authentic Voices of South Asia’ (p.4) Edited by Usman Khalid; ISBN: 0-9548929-0-9 (Hard Cover). Published by London Institute of South Asia (lisa).