INDIA’S FOREIGN POLICY CONUNDRUM
In the past two decades after the Pokhran nuclear tests, India slowly started engaging seriously with the US and global players squarely on the basis of its economic & national security interests. During this time, India developed meaningful ties with quite a few foreign countries including the US, Japan, Israel, France as well as the new Russia under Putin which in the past was often coloured through an ideological lens and less on practical foreign policy considerations. Notable successes of this new approach include defence and security cooperation with Israel, a robust partnership with Japan in India’s infrastructure development as well as a completely new and vigorous defence relationship with the US.
In the Middle East, India seemed to balance quite nicely both its relationship with Iran on the one end and the Arab world on the other. Similarly, India deepened military engagements with the US (including Japan and Australia) while engaging with China to reduce border tensions and mapping of boundaries. With Russia, India continued its defence partnership even while diversifying its defence procurement from other countries including the US, Israel and France.
However, it seems that in the midst of this process, India’s foreign policy elite developed a queer interest in fostering so called ‘strategic partnerships’ with every other country without going deeply into the reasons why and in what situations countries enter into such relationships.
Recent events involving India’s interactions with foreign powers in the wake of India’s decision to abrogate Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir have highlighted the limitations and lack of leverage India has in dealing with them and enlisting their support to counter Sino-Pak designs in India’s own backyard. In addition to China which openly supports Pakistan over India’s internal affairs in Kashmir, even the UK (wonder of wonders!) came out upholding the Pakistani position which should shake Indian policymakers out of their complacency. Again, though India obtained support from the Saudis as well as the Gulf countries in its stand against Pakistan, Iran issued a statement more supportive of the Pakistani view.
But the most serious setback seems to be India’s failure in dealing with China. After consistently being mindful of China’s sensitivities regarding contentious issues such as it’s illegal occupation of Tibet (and even sacrificing natural Indian sympathies) and the suppression of basic human rights there, India has little to show for itself either with regard to China’s support of Pakistan’s anti-India policies or its own larger plan of encircling India militarily through bases in the Indian ocean. Even the border issue primarily has not been resolved due to China’s intransigence and it has deliberately kept the issue alive through the last seven decades without resolution. India has also sought to appease China by completely ignoring the pro-independence movement in Taiwan as well as the Uighur independence struggle in Sinkiang, all with fruitless results. This is after leaving out the negative economic aspects of the relationship that includes the way in which India’s small-scale industries are being harmed by imports from China (resulting in India’s continuous trade deficit) which again is an extremely worrying sign that the government can ignore at its own peril.
This illustrates the principle that relations between states & the manner of dealing with these are driven by multifarious factors among which one is the nature of the interacting states in question. For example, defence and foreign policy is administered by the elites in authoritarian states such as China (a communist totalitarian state), Iran (an Islamic theocracy), the Gulf monarchies or Russia in a very different manner than in republican polities such as the US, India, France, Germany, etc. Policy making circles enjoy a certain amount of continuity in authoritarian states in terms of both political direction from above as well as basing their policy in the prevailing ideology of the ruling political elite. Due to this reason they can devote considerable time and energy in framing their policies and finding mechanisms for implementing them. Democracies in contrast are hampered by short-term goals of the elected representatives and also sometimes an unhealthy instinct among the policymakers to cater to the prevailing currents of opinion among the media as well as a vocal section of influential people.
How then should democracies handle such issues concerning defence and foreign policy where long term planning and implementation are primary requirements? One solution is by taking direct inputs from research establishments specifically concerned with dealing with such problems instead of relying solely on bureaucracies staffed with civil servants to handle these issues. Evidence of the success of this approach is found in the United States where there is complete integration of specialist think tanks with the government and their members even migrate directly from such organisations to secretarial (ministerial) positions in govt and back again once their term is over. Examples of such institutions include the Council on Foreign Relations, Hoover Institution, Brookings Institute, and a host of others too numerous to name here. The beauty of this approach is that not only is defence and foreign policy guided by experts in the field which in turn brings stability in policy but also that the government of the day is less perturbed by emergencies and does not lose focus due to media cacophony and biased propaganda by interested parties.
Hence it would bode well for the future if India also adopts this practice and gradually integrates academic bodies engaged in research along these lines with the government apparatus in such a manner that the haphazard & ad-hoc style of conducting foreign policy gives way to a more professional and systematic outcome.
(8th Sept, 2019)
