India as 'Uncle Tom' - Crawling when asked to Bend

(Originally appeared in the 1990s in the Times of India, as published in M. D. Nalapat's book "Indutva", Har-Anand Publications, 1999)

When Pranab Mukherjee formed a party of his own after being

cold-shouldered by Rajiv Gandhi in the mid-1980s, it was clear

that he was an optimist. That quality was again in evidence on

the eve of his departure to New York for the UN General

Assembly meeting, when the external affairs minister said that

the passing of the Hank Brown amendment "would not affect"

Indo-US relations. Clearly, Mukherjee does not believe public

opinion: to be a factor in relations between democracies.

Had Josef Stalin been alive today, he would have felt at home

in the MEA and its US counterpart. Major negotiations and shifts

in position (the latter almost entirely on the Indian side) are

conducted in closed-door sessions. If it were not for the fact that

Stalinist secrecy is hard to maintain in the free-wheeling culture

of Washington, Indians may never have got to learn of the policy

positions taken by their own government. It is from the US side,

for instance, that we first learnt about the stopping of research

on Agni and the slowing down of the development of Prithvi.

It is worth remembering that several Senators who voted in

favour of the Brown amendment did so because, on the basis of

their talks with officials in New Delhi, they got the impression

that passing the amendment would not create major frictions in

Indo-US relations. Had the MEA been as feisty as the Indian

embassy in Washington in putting forward India’s case, at least

a few law-makers may have voted against the passage of the

amendment rather than for it. However, for the past four years,

the MEA policy has been to avoid "provoking" the United States.

Thus, even on matters where vital Indian interests are concerned,

the reaction from New Delhi is hesitant and mild. Despite the

rhetoric of being an Asian tiger, this country has lately been

behaving like a domestic cat.

Subservient Role

According to policymakers in Delhi, diplomacy has had to play

a subservient role to economic policy. If "sources close to the

Prime Minister" are to be believed, this kowtowing to US

sensibilities is on the advice of the finance ministry, which claims

that concessional assistance and other material goodies will flow

only if Washington is propitiated. Thanks to such advice 

embraced with enthusiasm by the Prime Minister’s Office-over

the past four years there has been a stream of unilateral

concessions to the developed world. If any extra benefit has

accrued to India from such a policy, this has not so far been made

public. On the contrary, whether on security issues such as Agni,

Prithvi and Kashmir or on trade matters, US·led pressure for

fresh concessions has never eased.

For an economy of its size, India must be the only country

where the government routinely puts foreign interests above

national ones. Whether it is in permitting MNCs to increase their

stakes in once-neglected subsidiaries cheaply, or in handing over

effective control to the foreign partner (as took place with Maruti

in 1993) or in the financial institutions tacitly helping an MNC

to retire an inconvenient chairman (the ITC case), those in charge

of economic policy have functioned as though their actions were

not dictated by the citizens of this country but the interests of the

multinationals. When economic policy is decided by those with

dollar pensions - and who are hoping for future dollar salaries -

is it any wonder that local interests get neglected?

Fault Line

The obsession with secrecy prevalent in South Block has prevented

it from getting feedback from outside its ranks on the efficacy of

its policies. Consequently, it has been unable to make the

gestures that would have generated public enthusiasm for its

policies. Had workers been offered discounted shares in PSUs,

or major cuts made in direct tax rates, or the food policy geared

to the interests of the small cultivator and the consumer rather

than the big landlord, today’s political landscape would have

been dominated by Narasimha Rao's party. The lack of a public

dimension in the framing of economic policy is only one of the

fault lines running through the present governmental structure.

Another is the inability to recognise that when the Clinton

administration says that it wants to pursue an "even-handed"

policy as between India and Pakistan, it should be taken at face

value. The direction of present American policy towards the

subcontinent is to wipe out the tactical and strategic advantages

that India has over Pakistan and ensure parity between the two.

This can only be done if Indian technological advances and

defence procurement are checked, while Pakistan's is not. Hence

the not-so-hidden pressure on the Russians to slow down or stop

critical supplies to India despite the rupee-rouble deal. This also

explains the open (and till now successful) efforts to destroy

Indian technological advances in the nuclear, missile and other

sectors. Another five years of this kind of policy and India will

be a sitting duck even for a conventional attack by Pakistan.

One of the many admirable features in the US system of

government is the power of the legislature to order enquiries on

matters of concern. A future Parliament will need to investigate

why critical technologies were allowed to be aborted at a time

when Pakistan was "upping the ante" through subversion. It will

need to investigate how proposals for the purchase of cheap

frigates from the UK or tanks from Russia were scuttled. It will

need to find out why so much official prominence has been given

to a group of failed Kashmiri politicians with open links to

Islamabad, the Hurriyat. Or why a Congress chief minister in a

north-eastern state is being allowed to openly promote subversion.

Or why a "godman" who would be a security risk in any part

of the world is allowed regular access to the Prime Minister, even

to the extent of taking his car up to the doorstep of the official

residence.

Borrowing a leaf from George Kennan's essay, India needs

to surround its major security threat, Pakistan, with a ring of

alliances forged on political and economic grounds. Rather than

just waste time on the Bhutto fan club in Washington, New Delhi

needs to focus on giving trade incentives to its neighbours.

Specifically, Kabul should be helped to ensure that Afghanistan

does not become a client state of Islamabad. Trade ties need to

be developed with Iran and the Central Asian republics. Despite

the Kozyrevs, the Russian government is slowly emerging out of

its subservience to the West, and contacts with Moscow - and

Beijing - need to be regarded as being more crucial than the

postures of the self-declared "sole superpower". If Mahathir

Mohammed is not adopting the Indian habit of merging fiery

rhetoric with capitulation, he should welcome India’s entry into

ASEAN, despite opposition from influential quarters.

Repeating 1962

Clearly, a favoured model for present day Indian policy-makers

is the "hero" of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel. While this may

please some NRI businessmen and "godmen" and their

international patrons, it runs the risk of repeating 1962, this time

with Pakistan. Had the leadership of this country shown the

same resolve in deterring Islamabad from its subversion as it has

demonstrated against the likes of Arjun Singh, N.D. Tiwari and

Rangarajan Kurnaramangalam, India would not now have been

reduced to its present cringing status. The undertakers of Indian

science are actively lobbying for the replacement of the Abdul

Kalams with some of their own people. Why bother about

forming a new East India Company when Raisina Hill itself is

doing the job so thoroughly?