By Kapil Sibal
The challenges facing Indian diplomacy do not change from one calendar year to the next. The opportunities and problems of 2011 will spill over into 2012 as they are not defined by calendar years. The end of the year provides, nonetheless, an occasion to reflect on some general and specific issues of our foreign policy.
Critics frequently say that India gives too much attention to some countries and unjustifiably ignores some others. The perception that we do not give balanced attention to our important external relationships will not go away in 2012. Some say India should focus more on our neighbourhood as we cannot play our slated regional or international role without our periphery being stable. Others would want us to pay more attention the Gulf in view of the density of our energy, trade, financial and human interests there. Still others would advocate a more active role in South East and East Asia because of the geopolitical challenge that China’s rise poses to all of us.
Those who feel that India is losing ground in Africa would counsel stepped up engagement there not only to retrieve lost ground but also secure access to natural resources for a growing Indian economy. Many feel that India is excessively preoccupied with its US relationship. Our obsession with Pakistan, to the relative neglect of our other neighbours, invites adverse comment too.
In actual fact the attention we pay to individual countries or regions is largely a function of the degree of involvement of our current interests there. We cannot unilaterally elevate the level of relationship with any country or region; there has to be reciprocal response and interest. Major new opportunities for expanding a mutually beneficial relationship with a key country(the US) may explain why excessive attention is paid to it. Similarly major issues that persist in the management of relationships with problematic countries (Pakistan and China) would explain disproportionate attention paid to them.
Media interest in specific countries (US, Pakistan, China) is inordinately high. Similarly, the level of business interest in a country(US) can determine how much attention it gets nationally. Having said that, we should pay attention in 2012 to organizing high level bilateral visits, particularly at PM’s level, to smaller countries of importance to us. We could learn from the Chinese example. For spreading our attention, the strength of the Ministry of External Affairs at headquarters needs a major expansion, and here too we could learn from the example of many of our peer countries endowed with a much larger diplomatic service.
One supposes that most countries find it difficult to coordinate their external, defence and economic policies. Institutionalized mechanisms are needed for this and, even more, institutional discipline. Protection of turf is always a contentious issue. Often the culture of various Ministries, because of tradition and a different perspective on the world, differs. In an authoritarian state such coordination might be easier as decision making is more centralized and the latitude available to individual Ministries to follow their own inclinations is limited. In a democracy such an exercise becomes much more difficult, though a Presidential form of government might be more suitable for a more pooled approach than a cabinet one. In India such coordination is weak and desultory both at bureaucratic and political levels. The Prime Minister’s office can play a coordinating role but the cabinet form of government and the Rules of Business are an obstacle. As India’s international profile grows, its military strength increases and its economic interests spread, a more coherent foreign policy buttressed by defence capacity and focussed on serving our economic goals is needed and realization of this should grow, hopefully, in 2012.
A balanced and well-coordinated foreign policy is organically linked to internal governance. How a country functions abroad cannot be delinked from how it functions at home. Drift, indecisiveness, lack of leadership, populism, a sense of weakness, lack of conviction, a tendency to choose soft options, a willingness to reach bad compromises, fear of the media etc in domestic affairs gets reflected also in external affairs. On the contrary, strong leadership, a sense of authority, clear goals and a determination to achieve them, a refusal to make unwanted compromises under duress etc in the conduct of internal politics gets mirrored in dealings with other countries. The decision makers and the quality of the system in which they function remains the same whether internal or external affairs are being conducted. This is not to obliterate the differences between the compulsions of internal politics and more freedom available for the conduct of foreign policy. One can be divided at home and still be united in the face of an external adversary, though in India’s case political fractiousness has now begun to affect the area of foreign policy too.
We are going through a difficult phase domestically; to insulate our foreign policy from its deleterious impact is not easy, especially as we are an open society, the world is now interconnected and external views about us are influenced by the plethora of unfiltered information that is readily available. If we hope for a more effective foreign policy in 2012 we should wish for a revival of political consensus on the basic orientation of our foreign policy.
On specifics, the crumbling politics of Pakistan internally and externally will nor make our Pakistan problem easier in 2012. A priori, unstable politics in Pakistan cannot bring about stability in India-Pakistan ties. It is a bizarre state of affairs in a nuclear armed country that its President cannot be treated locally because his life would be in danger, its Prime Minister should fear a military take-over, its Defence Ministry should say that the armed forces are not under its control, its Army Chief should move the Supreme Court against the government and the Supreme Court Chief Justice should inveigh against an army take-over.
With China, 2012 will not bring us any closer to a resolution of the border issue. However, efforts to avoid tensions on the border will continue, even as the economic relationship expands at India’s cost unless the mounting trade deficit with China is reduced. If our relationship with the US has reached a plateau, as some suggest, it is not the Deccan plateau but a Tibetan one in height, and that is progress. The positive trends in the US-India relationship will continue in 2012, even as we resist too close an embrace to maintain a balance in our foreign policy and retain our independence of choice and action.
How much we could profit from the fraying US-Pakistan relationship is uncertain, but we would not lose from it. Afghanistan is unlikely to see better days in 2012, more so as Pakistan is losing some of its internal and external moorings. The Islamic revival in the Arab world creates uncertainties for us as we move into 2012. The Iran-Saudi Arabia stand off will sharpen in 2012 and present us with difficult choices. The Russian relationship will remain politically stable but economically disappointing. Our Asian relations to the east will maintain their momentum.
On the whole, when we ring in 2012 the chime of our foreign policy will remain familiar.
(The writer is a former Foreign Secretary (sibalkanwal@ gmail.com)