Round The
World
New Delhi, 25 October
2019
Taking On Turkey
INDIA CLAIMS ITS GLOBAL STATUS
By Dr. D.K. Giri
(Prof. International Politics, JMI)
Even though Ministry
of External Affairs accepted that Turkey is a friendly country, it did not take
kindly to its criticism over the action on Kashmir. New Delhi retaliated
strongly by condemning Ankara’s aggression in North-East Syria. The MEA
spokesman said: “India was deeply concerned over the unilateral military
offensive by Turkey. This will undermine stability in the region and the fight
against terrorism”.
India called upon
Turkey to exercise restraint and respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity
of Syria. It added: Turkey’s action has the potential for causing humanitarian
and civilian distress. It urged for peaceful settlement of all issues through
dialogue and negotiation. Indeed, a strong reaction.
Predictably, Syria’s
Ambassador Riad Kamal Abbas in Delhi promptly complimented India for its stand,
“New Delhi has a ‘strong voice’ in the international community and Damascus
looks forward to joining hands with it in further cooperation”. This stance is
a new-found strategy in India’s foreign policy. That is to assert its
legitimate power and position and hit back. New Delhi has been doing so with
Islamabad and now Ankara. To recall, Turkey and Malaysia condemned New Delhi’s
latest action in J&K, defanging of Article 70, and declaring Jammu, Kashmir
and Ladakh as the Union Territories.
New Delhi has not
directly hit back at Malaysia, but has indicated its unhappiness. For now, the
trading community has decided to stop importing palm oil from there. India is
the world’s biggest importer of palm oil, taking up to 9 million tonnes per
annum. Only this year, India lifted 3.9 million tonnes of palm oil from
Malaysia which was stockpiled. The business community, the refiners and traders
of palm oil, having sensed the chill towards Kuala Lumpur by New Delhi, have
decided to shift their purchase orders to Indonesia, Argentina and Ukraine. The
government is letting the rebuff from the business community and social media’s
boycott bite in and assess Kuala Lumpur’s reaction before taking any action.
Admittedly, New Delhi
would not have reacted so strongly as it did to Turkey, for the latter’s
criticism of Kashmir at the United Nations General Assembly. It would have
engaged Turkey diplomatically to somewhat undo the damage. It would have
attempted to re-inform and persuade Ankara. But, Modi did not do all that,
instead took Turkey head on. Soon after Erdogan made those remarks, Modi
decided to call on the arch-rivals of Turkey, namely Greece, Cyprus and
Armenia, on the fringe of the same General Assembly session.
Obviously, New
Delhi’s reaction appears to be in line with its aspirations and strategy to
claim the status of a global power. But, when one observes and evaluates New
Delhi’s dealing with China, the foregoing premise stands nullified. China has been
supporting Pakistan since 1960s as a countervailing force to New Delhi’s rise
as a regional power. China and India have fought a war, and consequently, there
is considerable territorial dispute between the two. China has been frustrating
India’s global campaign against terrorism, and even shielding terrorists
operating from Pakistan soil. Yet New Delhi’s reaction to Chinese internal
suppression or external threats is muted, or absent. Surprisingly, New Delhi
has not uttered a word on Hong Kong, Tibet or Xinxiang, where Beijing has been
ruthlessly snuffing out any dissent.
That is when Beijing
has been highly vocal and active on Kashmir. Moments before setting off for
India, a few weeks back, Chinese President Xi Jinping said: “We are watching
Kashmir”. There was absolutely no reaction from New Delhi. Instead, it spread
the red-carpet for him. I have, in last week’s column here, commented how such
non-reaction and grand welcome of Chinese President sent wrong signals to the
world, mainly our neighbours. It gave room to Nepal to sneak into the Chinese
tent with 20-odd agreements.
New Delhi’s approach
to Beijing begs the question whether India has a reactive strategy to global
power-status or has a long-term pro-active perspective on its global
aspirations. Many friendly observers of India’s foreign policy would opine that
India’s global recognition has been a function of the personalities of its
Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh and
Narendra Modi.
From among them, Nehru
and Modi standout in two contrasting ways, Nehru was known in the world for
conceptualising the policy of non-alignment and neutrality, and weighing in
with Third World solidarity. Modi’s extraordinary international activism is
driven by strategic engagement with friendly countries.
Yet, to be sure,
Modi, despite his hard work and building inter-personal relations with world
leaders, is faltering vis-a-vis the big powers and China’s penetration into our
neighbourhood. He has dealt well with the middle powers. Having said this,
there have been some impressive gains at all these three levels.
We may divide India’s
engagement into three levels, South Asia, the middle powers and the
international system and the great powers constituting the core of the power-configurations.
In the sub-continent why has India not been able to vivify its natural
supremacy? There could be two reasons. One India has not been backed by
national strength, or to put it pithily, it has been limited by its inadequate
capabilities. India has not met the development needs of a large section of its
people, and it has not been able to invest any surplus money in the
neighbourhood. Thus, it could not shape the strategic choices of neighbours.
India could neither
coerce her neighbours nor induce their submission. On the contrary, because of
India’s large size and apparent power advantage, the neighbours sought
countervailing assistance from countries like China. And when nationalism and
convulsive politics in the neighbourhood interacted with Chinese ability to use
economic instruments and growing power, the wind blew against India and
weakened its hegemony.
With the middle
powers like Japan, Australia, Israel and Europe, India has done well. In a
shared strategy to contain China, Japan has enhanced its investment in India.
France is actively supporting India; together, they created International Solar
Alliance with India as its convener. Other European powers like Britain &
Germany are doing brisk business with India.
On China, one is
baffled over Modi’s policy. It is guided either by exaggerated assessment of
India’s capabilities, or underestimation of threats by China or preserving
India’s autonomy in decision-making, or take-it-as-it-comes; or all of theses. Whatever
it is, New Delhi is not decisive on its position in regard to China and
America. It is no secret that America has been wooing India since 1960s as a
counter-balance to China. New Delhi has been hesitant in responding to such
overtures. Some of us have repeatedly been urging New Delhi to make-up its
mind.
At the same time, New
Delhi has to build its own internal strength, which would help it exert its
influence and provide it space for manoeuvre. Modi regime fails to realise that
it has to continue with the economic reforms, strengthen the institutions,
maintain the constitutional ethos and ensure internal cohesion. Such actions
determine the degree of efficacy and influence of our foreign policy. Hope,
South Block realises this and urges the PMO to match our global ambition with
our national capabilities.---INFA
(Copyright, India
News & Feature Alliance)
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