We and the World

David Malone gives an insight into Indian foreign policy. But ignore his advice on NPT and Myanmar

In David Malones eminently readable and insightful book on Indian foreign policy,past and present,there is a chapter subhead called From high ground to high table. It is a terse,if oversimplified,summing up of what he has to say. The term high moral ground harks back to the post-Independence decades when Indian foreign policy dominated by Jawaharlal Nehru was branded,principally in the United States,as preachy and moralistic. More now than then,some Indians have also started singing this tune. The high table,needless to add,is the one around which the chosen few meet to decide how the world order,such as it is,would be run. Malone is right in saying that while Rising India has acquired a role in G-20 and allied economic fora,a seat around the horseshoe table at the UN Security Council remains an aspiration.

Unlike Nehrus critics,foreign and Indian,Malone holds: With hindsight of sixty years,this Nehrus policy of nonalignment seems the best choice at the time Western,particularly US,tactics viewed with hindsight today were distasteful,and,in any event,proved consistently counterproductive in compelling Indias compliance. He also says: Most Indian prime ministers holding office for more than a few months have stepped on to the world stage,but only the first of them really bestrode it. This,in my view,is rejoinder enough to those BJP worthies who,in 1998,pompously described the era before their ascension to power as Fifty Wasted Years.

Malone,a former high commissioner of Canada to India and currently president of Ottawa-based International Development Research Centre,deals with his subject authoritatively and comprehensively,underscoring that Indias rising profile and influence emanate from a combination of its size and democratic weight with fast-accelerating economic growth. Its nuclear status is another factor. However,the credibility of Indias rise internationally hinges on a continued strong economic performance. On this score,future economic and social challenges remain daunting notwithstanding the resilience,industriousness and talent of its human capital. Demographic dividend would depend on how well the people are educated. Indias political scene,about which Malone seems more sanguine,has unfortunately worsened since his book was written.

Perhaps the most positive developments of all, says the author,has been a fundamental shift in Indias relations with the USA8230; This shift is a victory for both sides. He dismisses the fear that this might drive India to side with the USA reflexively but adds,A more realistic concern is that Washington will not always understand Indias inability to agree with it,creating a perception of Delhi as a false friend. Come to think of it,something akin to the apprehension seems to be happening already because of Americas ambivalence about the implementation of the India-US nuclear deal and its manifest resentment against the elimination,on merit,of the two American firms from the list of potential suppliers of 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft MMRCA needed by the Indian Air Force. Malones sound advice to the US is not to hector India. This would be as useless as Indias own hectoring in the past. On the other hand,he wants India to be more willing to share global burdens than it is now.

India-China relations get a whole chapter Two Tigers Sharing a Mountain in the book. Pakistan is discussed at some length in a chapter devoted to South Asia as a whole. Indias potential global role,says Malone,remains somewhat constrained by its unsatisfactory regional dispensation. He wants Indians to recognise the gap between China and that it is compounding year by year,not lessening. Also,the fundamentally competitive relationship would yet require greater accommodation between the Asian giants. As for Pakistan,he wants India,as the larger country,to make generous concessions to the western neighbour. There is nothing exceptionable in that. But shouldnt one explore what the other side,that considers India as its only existential threat and is never reluctant to use terrorism as an instrument of policy,want?

Where Malone seems off beam is in advising this country to find some way to sign the NPT and CTBT and to tilt Indian policy on Myanmar in favour of democratic forces. Unfortunately,this would drive Myanmar more deeply into Chinese arms. He is too seasoned a diplomat not to know that ultimately national interest has to prevail over high principle.

One of his recommendations that we must implement immediately is that the Indian Foreign Service,competent but woefully short of personnel,must be expanded massively. Corresponding services of Singapore and New Zealand are much larger.

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Finally,a word about the apt depiction of India as the elephant: it is a huge,lumbering,even clumsy animal that takes a long time even to get up,but once it gets going,on the right track or wrong,it cannot be stopped easily. Above all,the elephant can never be anybodys pet.