Wise nations steer clear of others problems. look at the list of countries who abstained in Geneva. This lesson may be lost on a bureaucracy steeped in Congress-style deviousness, it shouldn’t be lost on the Government of the day
India’s vote against Israel at the special session of the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council on July 23 has understandably come as an unpleasant surprise to those who had expected the NDA Government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to abandon the deeply-flawed foreign policies of the previous UPA regime. The episodic framing of foreign policy by Manmohan Singh under Sonia Gandhi’s watch and the many blunders, including that committed at Sharm el-Sheikh, had little to do with India’s national interest. They were either aimed at vacuous moral posturing or pandering to vote-bank politics. Recall the crass manner in which mention of Chabad House was omitted from India’s statement to the UN Security Council after the 26/11 Mumbai carnage.
The arrival of the ‘Modi Sarkar’ was expected to mark the departure from such deviant policy-making in New Delhi and put an end to the Government of India playing ducks and drakes with national interest. Sixty days is a long time in politics but not long enough to forget that the BJP rode a massive popularity wave, fuelled by popular expectations, to power. Among those expectations was the hope that it would demolish the status quo that had become synonymous with the UPA’s decade of decay and reframe the Government’s terms of engagement with the people at home and the world at large. It is only natural that those who reposed their faith in this Government should have believed that it would chart a new course, vastly different from that charted by the Congress. After all, “Congress mukt Bharat” is not merely about numbers; indeed, it is about policy and programme untainted by the sullied and perverse thinking of the Congress.
Dismay over India’s statement at the UNHRC, which was indistinguishable from similar statements of UPA vintage, turned into disbelief as India voted in support of the Pakistan-sponsored resolution condemning Israel for “disproportionate use of force” and calling for an international commission of inquiry to investigate violations of international humanitarian law. India’s ‘Yes’ vote has made a mockery of the Government’s statement in
Parliament — that its position is neutral and not weighed in favour of either side in the ongoing conflict —while blocking a resolution on Gaza by the Opposition. Worse, it has forced the country, against its wishes if widespread support for Israel is any indication, into adopting an adversarial role that in no manner benefits our national interest. Of equal concern is the fact that the statement followed by the vote suggests the NDA Government is in no hurry to break with the policies of the UPA Government — the Congress, as is evident from its smirking congratulatory message, may be out of power but continues to wield enormous influence. last though not least, by seeking to invoke UN resolutions to resolve the territorial dispute that lies at the core of Israel’s troubles we have resuscitated the UN resolution on Jammu & Kashmir that has been in a coma for decades. Pakistan has reason to celebrate — not only has the resolution it co-sponsored sailed through without hard scrutiny, its initiative has fetched it an unexpected bonus. The potential outcome of our vote shows the distance that has been travelled from the occasion when we succeeded in forcing the withdrawal of a similar resolution against India in Geneva — foresight, it would seem, is a lost virtue.
It has been argued that India could not have voted differently, for instance, abstained, as it should have ideally done, because it had committed itself to a position adopted by the member-countries of BRICS as a block at Fortaleza. The BRICS declaration, adopted at the end of the recent sixth summit, explicitly commits signatories to “contribute to a comprehensive, just and lasting settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict on the basis of the universally recognised international legal framework, including the relevant UN resolutions, the Madrid Principles and the Arab Peace Initiative. We believe that the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a fundamental component for building a sustainable peace in the Middle East. We call upon Israel and Palestine to resume negotiations leading to a two-State solution with a contiguous and economically viable Palestinian State existing side by side in peace with Israel, within mutually agreed and internationally recognized borders based on the 4 June 1967 lines, with East Jerusalem as its capital…”
The argument is not without merit. But the counter-argument that could be posited is that India need not have appended its signature to a statement that is more of an entrapment for us than a blueprint for a solution to a problem that has festered since 1948. There is more that merits comment. First, the BRICS statement was not drafted overnight. It was prepared over months and the preparatory work, done by Foreign Office bureaucrats, would have begun long before the NDA came to power. Our bureaucrats would have agreed to the inclusion of “with East Jerusalem as its capital” (unless they actually proposed it and had it included) because this was the formulation introduced by UPA2 in 2009 and articulated for the first time in the UN by
Manmohan Singh in 2011. It was done with the narrow objective of appeasing Muslims at home. More important, it signalled a tectonic shift in India’s traditional stand on the Israel-Palestine issue that was based on Resolution 242: Our position on the demand for Palestinian statehood was restricted to reiterating support for a two-state solution based on the “sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of Israel and Palestine and their right to live side by side in peace within secure and recognised boundaries”.
It’s inexplicable as to why the NDA Government would adopt the unwarranted revision of the UPA regime. It only adds to the dismay and disbelief over the July 23 vote. It also raises some questions. Do we really believe Israel will be intimidated by sabre-rattling in GenevaIJ Or that it will revert to the Green lineIJ Or that it will give up ‘East Jerusalem’IJ These are not merely rhetorical questions; the answers to these tell us what is possible in the realm of peace-making and what is not. We could join the chorus demanding Israel should abandon its national interest, but that will not make an iota of difference in either Jerusalem or Tel Aviv — or in Gaza and West Bank, for that matter. Just how contemptuous Israel is of those who seek to give it moral advice is evident from the manner in which it has dismissed Brazil as an “irrelevant diplomatic partner” after the Brazilian ambassador was recalled. The comment is not without a message; the other members of BRICS could, of course, choose to ignore it. Wise nations steer clear of others problems. look at the list of countries who abstained from voting on the Geneva resolution. The lesson it offers may be lost on a bureaucracy still steeped in Congress-style duplicity and deviousness, it should not be lost on the Government of the day.
(The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist)