Refurbishing India’s Foreign Policy.

Over the last 14 months, much has been written, discussed about the India’s foreign policy. Not only that, it has been touted as the best performing subject on the government’s report card. It has been praised almost unanimously by all. So, to write or discuss about it is like repeating facts, figures, praise, allegations, etc. which has already been in circulation for last 14 months. Although, not being an ardent follower, forget to be an expert on the policy of external affairs; nevertheless I will try to present not only substantive but some distinct points.

I remember the nights in the college few years back. In utter frustration I used to make a cry to my friends for the neglect of our international neighbours. This is the most basic understanding. The two previous External Affairs Minister’s, Mr. Krishna & Mr. Khurshid, both experts in law, I believe lacked the understanding in international affairs.

The best part of our Prime Minister, Mr. Modi is his affinity to basics. In the last few months apart from the overall global diaspora, he has focused much on our neighbours. Though, member of the BJP, to my understanding he is greatly influenced by our 1st Prime Minister, Mr. Nehru, who happened to be our first External Affairs Minister too. He may never conceal, but to my belief his relation with Nehru is both of a learner and a competitor.

Obviously, we could see many positive points and many such points have not only been elaborated, but discussed at length in newspaper columns and various blog portals. So, here I will try to discuss on how to continue with our international policies after such a positive start and what lessons we should remember from our past experiences.

We are very obsessed with Pakistan. Everyone has their own views on how to tackle with Pakistan. I think of Pakistan policy in 3 directions — offensive, defensive, offensive — defensive. The GoI in last 25 years has been changing stands a little too often. We need to change from our pendulum strategy to a clear minded strategy. China is a very critical neighbor to India. Here, the most impressive diplomatic skills need to be injected and utilized. In case of China, none of the regular or frontline approach will work. Also, we should not start celebrating or be not very smugly with Chinese on one or two instances of positive outcomes.

Now comes the most crucial part. Here, we have defaulted because of our own perverse policies and approach. Nepal, a Hindu dominated state; Sri Lanka and Bhutan, the Buddhist states (our’s is the Buddhist heartland); Bangladesh, whose independence came by our own support. Yet, none of these 4 countries are our single minded supporters. What is the reason? It’s that we do not treat them with respect. We do not respect their sovereignty. We try to act as ‘Big Brother’. We should understand that China can outdo us and is trying to outdo us in terms of economic, developmental, logistic support to these nations. It’s just our good-will which can keep them to our side. On the one hand we provide relief, we share land and water, we help in peacekeeping, but still these countries are not happy. We need to take a note of this. Our neighbourhood policy has been largely influenced by our local politics which is dangerous and must be avoided. All countries are sovereign, if we continue to try to dictate to them, we are going to be in an awkward predicament. We have to align our interests with their interests. For eg. recently Maldives passed a constitutional resolution to allow people buy land in Maldives if the investment is some 1 million $ (or 1 billion $, I don’t remember exactly). Instead of looking at it as the policy to allow Chinese make a base there, we should be forward looking and instead of asking them to change their stand, we should align with them. The neighbourhood policy is very basic, very simple, yet very complex. The Indian Ocean region is going to be the next Kohinoor. We must tread with care.

The Iran — P5+1 is a historic deal which India should also take to it’s advantage. The symbolic reference of this deal is even enormous. Relations with Iran will also help in India’s stand in Afghanistan. Korea, Israel are the countries which can help immensely in terms of technological collaboration and development. European nations are already not in the best of their health. But, countries like Germany, France, Britain and some others can be of immense help. Not only that, relations with Scandinavian countries is very crucial to codify and understand the Human Development formula which certainly is not one of the strengths of our country.

African nations, I believe, can play a major role in the story of growth and development of our country. Not only, we have immense scope to increase our industrial and agricultural base, we can use our expertise in ICT to take them to the path of growth and in return increase not only our relations with them but also our foreign exchange. The African countries offer the plethora of opportunities in almost all the sectors — telecom, information technology, medicine, education, research, consultancy, petroleum, industry, agriculture, construction, mining, etc. We just need to reach out to them and tap this immense opportunity.

The main purpose of the article was not to highlight what are the opportunities in this world, but how to improve the current standards. To have a basic understanding, we have discussed some of the most vividly visible opportunities. Now, let’s analyse the fault lines.

1.) Neglect of institutions. Our Prime Minister has a very keen interest in foreign policy. He has put very professional people in the foreign affairs policy. But, it must be understood by the PMO that foreign affairs cannot be handled efficiently, without taking the concerned Ministry into full confidence. One person, or a set of persons cannot handle the external affairs policy efficiently. The earlier it’s learnt, the better it is.

2.)Interest of other nations cannot be forgotten. There may be very irrelevant nations in respect of economy and influence but if we undermine them, we will lose very close allies. This policy of undermining the interest of others and thinking them to be in proximity is befooling ourselves.

3.)Understaffed diplomats. We have highly understaffed foreign service professionals. It’s their superfluous proficiency that they are performing extremely well. We have around ¼th of offcials compared to China and around 1/10 as compared to US. We need to urgently look at this alarming problem.

4.)Our foreign policy must also include efficient recording and reutilization of emigrants. People go out for work in different other countries. A recent article in The Hindu pointed out that we keep exact note of how many shoes and cars are imported or exported, but we do not keep note of people going out of the country for work and coming back. It’s a very relevant and serious matter. The government must keep a check on this and must utilize these efficient people on coming back. For eg. people engaged in construction industry in, say Dubai, on their return must be utilized in the construction related projects in our country so as to utilize their expertise.

5.)The most important aspect and point is to be considered.
We have a habit of starting many projects, but we never follow them. Just like a high school enthusiast, who on one day studies for 10 hours and forget to study for the next 10 weeks. Our foreign policy has been following the similar path. We sign up many MoUs, sign up many deals, contracts and start many negotiations, but they either never start or never reach their implementation stage. So, this attitude not only has a negative but extreme adversarial effect too. We need to follow each and every project. And when we could do that, we should also be very futuristic in our approach. This is a competitive world. Even, being futuristic is not enough, we still be outclassed. We need to futuristic in the approach of implementation also.

Indian Foreign Policy is a very interesting subject to write, talk or even think about. Let’s limit the scope of this article to this point only. More focused approach can later be discussed. Some of these approaches, if inculcated, will be fruitful and at a rapid rate.

Thank You.