Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: June 19, 2005
The country has reason to be extremely
indebted to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for throwing the
much-needed spanner in the works of a peace process that has spun out of
control. Even though the timing of his letter to Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh is the subject of much low-life speculation, Vajpayee has articulated
important nationalist concerns over New Delhi dancing to the tune of the
military band in Islamabad.
It was important for someone of
consequence to point out to a well-meaning but innocent Manmohan Singh
that Pakistan made an absolute monkey of India over the travel bandobast
of the Hurriyat delegation. First, it got India to climb down from its
insistence that travel across the LoC must be conducted through passports.
Second, in the case of the Hurriyat delegation, it violated the agreement
that any travel outside the boundaries of the undivided Jammu and Kashmir
would need passports and visas. Finally, President Pervez Musharraf had
the cheek to brag that the irrelevance of the Indian passport at LoC confirmed
that Jammu and Kashmir is disputed territory.
It is one thing for Pakistan to
gloat over its undoubted diplomatic success. The triumphalism assumes an
entirely different meaning when India responds with stony silence. Worse,
Pakistan demonstrates that it can't be trusted with something as minor
as arrangements over border crossing and the Indian Prime Minister responds
by proposing Siachen be made a symbol of peace. Manmohan makes this gesture
despite Pakistan refusing to authenticate any LoC in the mountains.
Musharraf doesn't think Indians
are fools. Yet, after this fortnight he must be convinced India is a nation
of invertebrates which equates self-destruction with nobility. As India
resounds with talk about thinking out of the box and walking the extra
mile, Musharraf must be dreaming of winning by diplomacy what he couldn't
secure through war. No wonder he talks freely about sorting it all out
in just two weeks. He has smelt an Indian meltdown.
It is curious that tell-tale cracks
in the Indian diplomatic edifice are emerging at a time the US has proclaimed
its intention of almost forcibly turning India into a great power with,
if all goes well, associate permanent membership of the UN Security Council.
Is India, therefore, jettisoning "old " diplomacy and embracing the more
exciting global concerns of a new century?
The reality, unfortunately, is not
so full of nuances. It is a tale of confusion and incompetence. First,
there is an astonishing absence of coherence and coordination at the top.
The energies of the National Security Adviser are spent in managing domestic
politics and running the intelligence services. The External Affairs Minister
has reduced himself to Sonia Gandhi's stenographer, a role he played with
diligence in Moscow last week. His Ministry, which has traditionally played
a role in policy making, is openly contemptuous of its own Minister and
pursues the private agendas of its top officials. The PMO has compounded
the mess because it is handicapped by the absence of a worthwhile successor
to JN Dixit.
However, individuals are not the
issue. What Vajpayee, quite understandably, didn't address in his letter
is the growing impression that Indian foreign policy has mortgaged its
soul to the US. Now, this may be an over-statement and fuelled by the cacophony
of a fringe in the media, but it is important to recognise that such an
impression not only exists but is bolstered each time India turns a blind
eye to Pakistan's transgressions. The US' open disapproval of the Iran-Pakistan-India
gas pipeline may have earned Mani Shankar Aiyar needless brownie points
but it has also driven home the fact that Washington's desire for Indo-Pak
bonhomie isn't entirely altruistic.
It is time India takes a dispassionate
but hard look at where the peace process is heading. You don't have to
be a hardliner or a war-monger to believe that Indian foreign policy has
to be governed by enlightened self-interest, and not the agenda of a US-sponsored
sadbhavna lobby.
