ROUND THE WORLD

New Delhi, 20 June 2006

Eroding Consensus On Foreign Policy

By Dr. Chintamani Mahapatra

School of International Studies, JNU

As India marches ahead to play a global role, domestic consensus over foreign policy has been fast eroding. Despite having a complex democratic polity with myriad political parties, India has traditionally had the luxury of having a foreign policy based on national consensus.

The Opposition parties did raise their concerns, expressed their distinctive stands on international events and sometimes questioned the Government positions on foreign affairs, but all these were done in a sophisticated manner and in a way that would not adversely affect the national interest. Foreign policy issues were not contested during national elections, despite their importance.

India’s non-aligned strategy had no major critics at home, although some political leaders questioned its relevance at the time of the Chinese invasion in 1962. The Left parties were quite comfortable with it, since the Non-Aligned Movement almost came to make common cause with the Soviet bloc of nations by ritually making resolutions against colonialism, imperialism and giving calls to restructure the West-dominated international economic order and international information order. Cuba’s Castro and former Yugoslavia’s Tito were great leaders of NAM.

The Rightist parties too could not distance themselves from non-alignment and plead for closer ties with the US-led bloc, since Washington itself had no support for them. The Right, the Left and the amorphous Congress all championed the interests of the Third World and the Non-Aligned Movement.

The American alliance with Pakistan, strategic ties between China and Pakistan and the eventual Sino-US cooperation against the Soviet Union gave little opportunity for Indian political groups and parties to quarrel over foreign policy issues. The Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation was welcomed by all Indians. Although during the brief Janata rule in the late 1970s, the Indian Government used the rhetoric of genuine non-alignment, it was short lived.

This rhetoric was used at a wrong time. The US power and influence was on the decline since the US withdrawal of troops from Vietnam and the Soviet influence around the globe was on the ascendant. Genuine non-alignment meant correcting the excessive tilt towards Moscow. But Washington was not too keen to improve its ties with India. President Jimmy Carter did make a Presidential visit to India, but was not prepared to make any concession on the vital nuclear issue. Interestingly, China with tacit support of the US attacked Vietnam when India’s then Foreign Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee was visiting China. This incident probably ended the desire to have a genuine non-alignment.

During the 1980s, as the Soviets became more and aggressive starting with the invasion of Afghanistan and the Americans unleashed a counter-offensive under the leadership of Ronald Reagan, India once again had to stay the course of non-alignment and it was not difficult to manage a domestic consensus over foreign policy.

The end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 made non-alignment strategy an irrelevant instrument of foreign policy. While NAM did not disappear, its activities certainly slowed down. India’s new gesture of friendship and cooperation with the US against the backdrop of far-reaching economic reforms once again did not break domestic consensus. India’s informal entry into the nuclear club and the high rate of economic growth instilled new confidence and the Indian people came to pride themselves in the country’s emergence as a new major power on the international stage.

India sought to improve ties with China, restore cordial relations with Russia and gave a fitting reply to Pakistan’s intrusion into the Kargil sector of Kashmir. There was still internal unity on India’s external policies.

However, steady improvement in Indo-US relations since the March 2000 Clinton visit through the March 2006 Bush visit has threatened to rupture the domestic consensus on India’s foreign policy. When the NDA Government pursued a policy of establishing strategic partnership with the US, the Congress and the Left parties expressed severe reservations. As the Vajpayee Government appeared to be toying with the idea of sending the Indian troops to Iraq under the US request, the Opposition parties were up in arms and ensured that the Government did not do so.

The victory of the UPA Government in the next election initially created an impression that the course of foreign policy would take a turn away from intense cooperation with the US. But soon it was found that the Manmohan Singh Government went several steps ahead of the Vajpayee government in strengthening strategic ties with the US.

Signing of a Defense Framework Agreement between Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee and the US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and a nuclear deal agreed upon between the US President George Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have raised the prospects of further strengthening of Indo-US relations. But these two events simultaneously have created fissures in the ruling coalition.

The Left parties are up in arms against the Government’s foreign policy in general and perceived and alleged tilt towards the United States. Thousands of Left activists demonstrated against the recent Indo-US military exercises. The BJP has also time  and again blamed the Government for compromising on the country’s independent foreign policy under the US pressure.

Significantly, the Left parties and several trade union leaders came out open on the streets to protest against the UPA Government’s policy towards Iran. It was alleged that the Government’s anti-Iranian vote at the International Atomic Energy Agency was cast at the behest of the United States. Several Muslim groups in Uttar Pradesh too openly expressed their anger over the Government’s Iran policy.

All these developments and many others are symptomatic of the growing fissures in domestic consensus over Indian foreign policy. Two issues are particularly likely to develop divisions in the country in the matters of foreign policy in coming years. One is of course the extent of India’s support to the US policies and the other are issues and events in the Islamic world. These two issues are indisputably inter-related.

The continuing US war against terrorism unleashed since the 9/11 incident will pose an intermittent challenge to its emerging strategic partner, that is India, which is the second largest Muslim country in the world with a non-Muslim majority. The political parties with keen eyes focused on the vote bank could play havoc with the Indian positions on events and issues in the Islamic world by conveniently interpreting and misinterpreting issues. The real challenge before India is to disenable democracy from disabling Indian foreign policy.---INFA

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)