Our neighbourhood policies have been emphatic successes almost without exception. The MEA must, however, introspect. Why is it that its failures are feted as gumption, and its greatest successes flogged as its failuresIJ Is it a messaging problem or is it a listening problemIJ
last fortnight, we saw some of the disastrous failures that have plagued our foreign policy in relation to nuclear and disarmament issues. Additionally there was a significant self-inflicted blow to our Canada policy, where a pro-India Government (as pro-India as it gets in the Canadian context) has been replaced with a Government whose individuals have zero goodwill but nurse immense malice towards India.
The question is always one of blame. Whom do we blame and what constitutes failureIJ Growing up an ‘IAS brat’ with both parents in the bureaucracy — the measure of this was always what my father told me (he served for a while as the Deputy Director of the academy in Mussoorie). It was that in service, you have to take decisions — sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong. The only thing you can ensure is that you haven’t imposed your own prejudices and agenda on policy, and you have sounded out every opinion and considered every available alternative.
The second is that success is measured by its impact in the medium term, not in the short term. That, in a nutshell, for me at least, has always been the measure of success or failure of policy.
By this measure, our Missile Technology Control Regime membership is sunk for the foreseeable future, and our Nuclear Supplies Group membership will continue to be a non-starter till realism replaces self-delusion. With Canada, our inaction and closed information loops have inflicted a medium-term setback, but one that can be hopefully rectified with concerted action. With the US, there is no permanent damage that cannot be fixed in the short-term. Clearly, the Ministry of External Affairs deserves all the brickbats aimed at it for these, if it fails to take remedial action.
However there have also been several misguided brickbats aimed at the ministry over the course of the last few months with regards to policy on Nepal, the Maldives, and a whole host of our neighbours. Far from being the failures they are portrayed to be, they don’t even stand the test of ‘wrong decisions’. Take Nepal for example. Here we had the MEA trying to assist the Government there as best as possible. The bad faith in the current downturn came about as a result of the Indian Foreign Secretary being deliberately misled as to the nature of the Constitution — which when announced the following day turned out to be a nasty surprise. In this situation, India had two options: Do nothing or come down hard on the Nepalese Government.
Each of these came with its pros and cons. In the end, the one thing we can be sure of is that, what was done was done as a last resort in the face of an untrustworthy Government in Kathmandu and the need to insulate Indian interests. Has it earned a lot of ire in KathmanduIJ Yes, but we must remember India is also seen now as being on the side of democracy and wide-based representation. The abuses hurled at India in the Kathmandu Press are at best temporary, and invariable when the situation calms down — as it invariably will— Indian advice would have proven to be right, the anti-India Kathmandu press and the Pro-Kathmandu elements of India’s Press would have proven to be wrong, and any negative image would be reversed within the space of a few months.
We should remember these same Rudaalis have cried themselves hoarse every time India has done anything at all in Nepal, claiming relations will be ‘irreparably harmed’ and invariable have been forced to eat crow after a few months went by.
The exact same template could be transposed to the Maldives. What were India’s optionsIJ An open intervention in support of ousted President Mohamed Nasheed or current President Abdullah Yameen would have bogged India down in the quagmire of Maldivian politics. The second option was to do nothing and allow the Maldivians to hang themselves with their own rope — which is exactly what we did.
Again, what should be remembered is that the projection of ‘Indian power’ that so many commentators have been calling for, would have brought nothing but hostility from the Maldivians — a lesson that should have been clear after the Sri lanka experience, when arch-rivals, the Sri lankan Government and the lTTE, ganged up to kick us out of the island. How many times have these interventionists landed up with egg on their faceIJ It is mind-boggling that almost every single time, the MEA has been proven right and the interventionists found to be wrong.
Ultimately, we are the big brother in the region, and being big brother is a thankless job. In many ways, this is captured by Mexican President Benito Juarez’s gripe against the United States: “Mexico’s tragedy is that it is so close to the United States and so far from god.”
Over the last two decades, our relationship with every single neighbour, save Pakistan, has stabilised. With Myanmar, our relations are so good that we can carry out cross-border raids, in spite of Ministers shooting their mouths off, and something the Myanmarese would never allow the Chinese to do. With Bangladesh our acrimony has mostly ended, with the downs no longer as venomous as they once used to be. let us not forget that just over a decade ago, our troops were being killed on that border.
With Sri lanka, we face ups and downs, but mostly ups. With Afghanistan, despite not sharing a border, we have ensured a Government friendly to India for 62 years out of 68 years of existence as an independent state. In each of these cases, our public intellectuals have panicked because of temporary reverses, and have pilloried the MEA for inaction. In every one of these instances, we have won the war despite the appearance of having lost battles— and even the supposed losses are highly debatable.
let us be clear: Our neighbourhood policies have been emphatic successes almost without exception. The MEA must however introspect. Why is it that its failures are feted as gumption, and its greatest successes flogged as its failuresIJ Is it a messaging problem or is it a listening problemIJ
(The writer specialises in foreign and defence policy)