Indian foreign policy: Left foot
forward By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - With a broad center-left coalition
led by the Congress Party poised to form the new
government in India, questions are being raised over the
pace of the economic reform process and the direction
the country's foreign policy is likely to take under the
new dispensation. It is likely that while there will be
some continuity in the broad contours of India's foreign
policy, some "correction" can be expected in key areas.
India's 14th general election has produced a
surprise result. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance, which was
expected to return to power, has been defeated.
Congress, which has ruled India for 45 of the 57 years
since independence but had fallen out of power in recent
years, has emerged from the general election as the
single largest party in parliament. While the alliance
it heads is short of a simple majority, it is likely
that the left will extend its support to form the new
government.
The influential left Given
its critical role for the survival of the Congress-led
government, the left can be expected to influence the
new government's policies to a significant extent. The
Congress party has repeatedly sought to assuage
corporate India's fears regarding a slowing-down of the
economic reform process by pointing out that it was
under a Congress government that India initiated
economic liberalization in 1991. However, the new
government can be expected to be more pro-poor and
pro-farmer than the outgoing BJP government. The pace at
which public-sector units have been privatized over the
past five years can also be expected to slow down.
The left's influence is likely to extend to
foreign policy as well. A senior official in the
Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) told Asia Times
Online that the "excessive tilt" toward the United
States that was evident in India's foreign policy under
the BJP can be expected to be "corrected" now.
Although it was under Congress rule that New
Delhi moved away from its traditional policy of
non-alignment and began warming up to Washington in the
early 1990s, it was under the BJP in the late-1990s that
India-US relations touched an all-time high. After a
downturn in India-US relations when India tested nuclear
weapons in 1998, prompting a furious Washington to slap
sanctions on the country, the bilateral relationship has
blossomed over the past five years.
While
several security analysts have endorsed India's
burgeoning ties with the United States, it cannot be
denied that under the BJP government, India bent over
backward to please the Americans. It was among the few
countries enthusiastically to endorse US President
George W Bush's national missile defense plan. India
fully endorsed the US "war on terrorism" and the way it
was being conducted. Its objections to the US invasion
of Iraq were low-key and it was only because of pressure
from the opposition that it refrained from sending
troops to Iraq. India and the US have been conducting
joint military exercises.
The new government can
be expected to tone down the effusive rhetoric and
correct the excessive tilt that has characterized
India-US ties under the BJP. In recent months, even the
BJP was having second thoughts about cozying up to the
US, especially after Washington conferred on rival
Pakistan the status of a non-NATO (North Atlantic Treaty
Organization) military ally.
However, the new
government is unlikely to disturb the US-India
relationship. It can be expected to speak up more
against US militarism in forums such as the Non-Aligned
Movement.
It must be noted that a change in
policy toward the US is likely not because Congress
believes this should be done but because of the pressure
that the left can be expected to mount. In opposition,
Congress might have raised its voice from time to time
against the BJP's policies. But a closer examination of
Congress's position in recent years would indicate that
it went along with the BJP on some key issues.
This is evident, for instance, in its position
on India's growing proximity to Israel. While it is true
that India under prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru,
Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi was seen to be a friend
of the Palestinians, it was under Congress prime
minister Narasimha Rao that the first step of
establishing full diplomatic relations with Israel was
taken.
However, under the BJP government, not
only has India's defense and intelligence cooperation
increased but it has not been strongly critical of
Israeli military action against the Palestinians. And
Congress has not articulated its opposition to this.
Congress was silent during the visit of Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to Delhi last September. It
was the left that mounted massive protests condemning
the BJP's bonding with Sharon. "By inviting Sharon to
India, the government is sending the message that India
is against the Palestinian cause," Sitaram Yechuri, a
politburo member of the Communist Party of India
(Marxist) said at that time. Even Congress's election
manifesto, unlike that of the left, was silent on the
growing India-Israel axis. The Congress manifesto stated
that while the party is in favor of good relations with
Israel, it is opposed to the persecution of
Palestinians.
Ties with Pakistan It is
the India-Pakistan peace process and how it moves under
the new government that will be the most closely watched
by the international community. Atal Bihari Vajpayee,
who resigned as India's prime minister after the
electoral verdict on Thursday, initiated the peace
process with Pakistan. His personality and stature are
said to be an important driving force behind the peace
process.
Dismissing fears that the BJP's defeat
might leave the peace process in jeopardy, senior
leaders in Congress have pointed out that their party
had been calling for negotiations with Pakistan even
before Vajpayee initiated the peace process. Therefore,
they say, the peace process is sure to make good
progress under Congress.
Former Indian foreign
secretary J N Dixit, currently vice chairman of the All
India Congress Committee Foreign Affairs Department,
told the British Broadcasting Corp (BBC) that under
Congress, India's policy toward Pakistan would show
"continuity and consistency", unlike the BJP
government's blow-hot-blow-cold relationship with
Pakistan. It may be recalled that within months of
Vajpayee's historic handshake with Pakistani Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif at Lahore in the spring of 1998,
the two countries were engaged in military confrontation
at Kargil. Again, within months of the Agra Summit in
July 2001, relations between the two countries froze,
with India putting its troops on high alert along its
frontier with Pakistan.
Indeed, Congress can be
expected to be more sincere than the BJP in its effort
to negotiate peace with Pakistan. The BJP has not been
averse to beating the war drum with Pakistan to stir
emotions or to win votes.
However, there is
cause for concern regarding Congress's ability to reach
settlement with Pakistan on contentious issues. It has
been argued that a military government in Pakistan and a
Hindu nationalist BJP government in India were best
positioned to settle India-Pakistan disputes.
Although the current peace process was the
initiative of the BJP, hawks in the party and its
fraternal organizations such as the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Shiv Sena are sure to
protest should the new Congress-led government make any
compromise. It is likely that the influence of the
hardliners in the Sangh Parivar, the "family" of Hindu
right-wing organizations of which the BJP is a part,
will increase in the coming months. RSS leaders are
already saying it was the dilution of its Hindutva
agenda that resulted in the BJP's electoral defeat. If
the Hindutva hawks gain ascendance in the coming months,
Congress will find it difficult to make concessions to
Pakistan. The BJP is likely to continue targeting
Congress leader Sonia Gandhi's Italian origins. Any
concession that her government makes to Pakistan, indeed
to any of India's neighbors or to the West, will be
criticized as undermining the national interest.
Relations with China The new
government's dealings with China too can be expected to
come under similar pressure. Sino-Indian relations are
said to be improving quietly. It is believed that the
two countries might be working on a swap to settle their
border dispute, with India giving up its claims on
territory on the western sector of the border in return
for China recognizing India's control over territory in
the eastern sector.
Although the BJP while in
power seemed amenable to conceding to China some
territory that India has claimed hitherto, whether it
will endorse this position if articulated by a
Congress-led government remains to be seen. The Sangh
Parivar has the capacity to mobilize its cadres to mount
mass protests against any compromise that the new
government might make on the foreign-policy front, and
it is unlikely to give up attacking the government for
not doing enough to further India's interests.
The Sangh Parivar has been raising questions
over whether India's national-security interests will be
safe in the hands of Sonia, a Catholic of Italian
origin. This could put Congress under pressure to adopt
a tough and aggressive foreign policy. A pity, really,
especially since the mood in favor of peace in the
subcontinent has never been better.
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