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INFA Column
TOWARDS REAPPRAISAL OF INDIAN FOREIGN POLICY – I
THE GLOBAL SETTING
By
M.L. Sondhi
July 29, 1971
(Former M.P., Mr. M.L. Sondhi discusses in two articles
the position of India in world politics. In the first
article he deals with this problem in the global setting and
in his next article with the role of Indian diplomacy in the
Bangladesh crisis.)
A deep-rooted habit of Indian political life is that while
on the domestic scene, a real and significant power struggle
is understood as a criterion for future developments in the
various fields of domestic policy, the attitude to the
international political situation is quite dissimilar.
There is a marked tendency to limit the role of power in
aspirations and goals of nation-states. More than once,
Indian policy makers have been caught by surprise on
discovering the effects of some subtle power struggle which
deprived India of the solid political support which it
expected.
Psychologically, Indian policy makers have
found it difficult to bring new situations into perspective,
and on many focal questions, India has missed historic
opportunities for positive formulations in world politics,
and for developing partnership on common interests. This is
because she has been clinging to some conception of fidelity
and honour, which afterwards proved to be of ephemeral
importance, and placed India in a position which was
passive, negative and peripheral.
In conflict situations like those of Korea,
Berlin, Congo, Cuba and Indo-China, there was a process of
interaction between the Super powers which released them
from the rigid strategic perceptions, which in the beginning
were the hallmark of their cold war confrontation. What was
needed on India’s part was a readiness to scrutinise the
complex decisions and actions of the USA and the USSR to
detect shifts in their interaction patterns. The Indian
attitude of exaggerating the mediatory role between the
Super powers was hardly a promising basis for a role of
political realism outside the cold war.
The anxiety to maintain a historic foreign
policy for fear of the reproach of having deviated from the
Nehru heritage goes to the very core of India’s inability to
enhance its diplomatic effectiveness in the new situations
in which significant political developments are visible.
Nuclear Disarmament.
Mr. Brezhnev’s proposal for a conference of the five nuclear
powers, the Soviet Union, United States, Britain, France and
China, is an instance of a specific attempt to measure the
new world nuclear situation in the context of Communist
China’s development of strategic nuclear missiles. This
approach seriously limits the effectiveness of India’s
working ideas on the basis of which it subscribed to the
Nuclear Test Ban treaty. India will obviously have to
reappraise attitude on nuclear disarmament.
European developments. West Germany’s Ostpolitik, the renewed British dialogue with the
European Economic Community, and the comprehensive efforts
for the proposed European Security conference, have
registered meaningful gains, and as a result European
nations harbour greater ambitions in the world setting.
Indian policy makers depending on the historic relationship
with Britain and the Commonwealth are yet to get down
seriously to the task of developing relations with “Europe”
and get disentangled from the airy-fairy abstractions of the
Commonwealth.
Sino-American Détente.
The efforts of the United States to normalise its relations
with Peking, symbolised by the Nixon invitation to visit
Peking are not a sudden volte face but are based on a
rationality of political accommodation in the new
international environment. India’s attention has been
focussed on the single issue of the border dispute with
Peking, but if India is not to be overtaken by events,
Indian diplomacy must show greater tactical flexibility.
Japan’s Breakthrough. The Soviet Union, United States and Communist China are in the process
of determining new political equilibria with Japan, whose
growing economic, political and military influence is a key
dynamic element in the Asian and world environment. In
contrast, India has yet to gain a better perspective of her
future relations with Japan.
Soviet Globalism.
The Soviet build-up in the Indian Ocean and in the
Mediterranean are compatible with the latest Soviet
interpretation of its vital interests as a Super Power. The
enlargement of Soviet commitments has important consequences
for world politics in the future. Indian policy makers
still express a nostalgia for the intimate and exclusive
dialogue in the Krushchev period, and there is a lack of
realistic acceptance of the new circumstances of Soviet
diplomacy and its wider global strategy.
The starting point for a reconstruction of India’s
international relations must be a purposeful effort to
identify each of these five elements in the shifting balance
of the power which will then provide guidelines for
stabilising India’s relations with the world powers. The
special priority in Indian foreign policy can no longer be
in the direction of our playing the “honest broker” between
the Soviet Union and the United States. Nor does it help
India to strengthen its diplomatic resources, if Indian
foreign policy seeks to gain a “hawkish” appearance in the
context of problems of neo-colonialism and other aspects of
the north-south conflict. At the Lusaka Conference, India’s
political efforts were directed towards creating a new unity
of the non-aligned on the basis of a common resentment
against burdensome big power dominance.
Mrs. Gandhi told the meeting of the difficulties faced by
India and the other countries attending the conference:
“The big powers have never accepted the validity of
nonalignment. Neither colonialism nor racialism has
vanished. The old comes back in new guise. There are subtle
intrigues to undermine our self- confidence and to sow
dissensions and mutual distrust amongst us. Powerful vested
interests, domestic and foreign, are combining to erect new
barriers of neo-colonialism. These dangers can be combated
by our being united in our adherence to the basic tenets of
non-alignment.” In fact, the development of the crisis in
Bangla Desh underlines the catastrophic results which flow
from “the subtle intrigues” which Mrs. Gandhi condemned at
Lusaka. The evidence available, however, suggests that it
is the non-aligned countries themselves, who have been
dictated by their narrow political needs and have been in no
hurry to “unite” in “adherence to the basic tenets of
nonalignment” and contribute to a new order or peace and
freedom in Bangla Desh. The non-aligned companions of India
are simply in no hurry for a settlement of Bangla Desh.
A significantly different prospect can, however, be fostered
if the future possibilities following the emergence of
Bangla Desh are closely related to a set of norms for
restructuring regional relations in the direction of greater
stability. India has a great stake in the creation of a
peace order in Asia, and the Prime Minister of India has on
previous occasions, expressed the hope for a restoration of
peace in the conflict-ridden areas through neutralisation.
At the operational level, India’s External Affairs Ministry
seems to be talking at cross purposes with the chief policy
maker of the Government. The Prime Minister wants a
withdrawal of the great powers from Asia and emphasises the
dangers of relying on foreign guarantees, when she refers to
problems of Indo-China or to the question of a vacuum in the
Indian Ocean. The External Affairs Minister would rather
guide our diplomacy towards a greater involvement of the
great powers in our region, when the main initiative should
come from our own government for keeping them out.
The days of India’s activism among the non-aligned are
evidently over. The challenge of the future in global
politics can only be met if India fully accepts the
pluralistic context of the multi-polar world, and formulates
sophisticated views on global détente. This would require
that Indian foreign policy should provide a new dimension of
stabilisation and generate an influence peculiar to its own
geographic and political position in Asia. |
