MISSING SHANGRI-LA
Eighty per cent of success, Woody Allen famously said,is just showing up. Indias longest serving defence minister,A.K. Antony,however,was a no-show at Asias leading annual defence forum,the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore last week.
The MoDs approach to the SLD has been unprofessional,to say the least. Personal whims rather than a careful consideration of Indias interests seem to define New Delhis decisions. Consider the fact that Antony headed out to Singapore en route to Australia and Thailand on Monday. But he could not schedule participation in the SLD on the weekend that preceded it.
While the SLD has become a regular fixture on the calendar of all Asian defence ministries it takes place on the last weekend of May the MoD never makes up its mind until the very last minute on who might represent the country. In a very lucky year Antony might agree,with great reluctance,to fetch up in Singapore. More often than not,it is the junior minister in the MoD who is dispatched; sometimes it is the National Security Adviser,Shivshankar Menon. This year,Admiral D.K. Joshi,the Chief of Naval Staff,was the top Indian delegate to the SLD.
Representation at less than the cabinet level,however,is a protocol handicap when it comes to speaking slots and meetings on the margins of the conference. At this years SLD,there was no Indian speaker in the prestigious plenary sessions.
DEFENCE DIPLOMACY
Antony,the minister,might be excused for not seeing the salience of Indias defence diplomacy. But shouldnt the MoD bureaucrats be tendering professional advice rather than pandering to the ministers predilections? Why is it so hard for the MoD to decide on sending a substantive delegation led by the defence minister every year to the Shangri-La Dialogue,and touch base with all the Asian security establishments that are so eagerly seeking engagement with India?
Our foreign office can get the prime minister to sign up high-sounding declarations on the Look East policy and proclaim strategic partnerships with ASEAN nations. But when our southeast Asian interlocutors turn to the MoD for follow-up,they run into a brick wall.
In track-two interactions,ASEAN policymakers vent their frustration in dealing with the MoD at the bilateral as well as the multilateral level. Many bilateral agreements with ASEAN countries on defence cooperation are languishing because of the MoDs inability to implement them.
Worse still,the MoD is also very suspicious that our armed forces are keen to develop deeper interaction with Asian militaries and the MEA,which recognises defence diplomacy as a new quiver in its armoury.
At a time when China and the United States have dramatically stepped up their defence diplomacy in Asia,the MoD seems out for lunch and a siesta. At the SLD last week,US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel invited all the ASEAN defence ministers for an interaction in Hawaii next year. Chinas Peoples Liberation Army has been engaging the ASEAN defence establishments,collectively,for many years.
No one expects the MoDs current leadership both political and bureaucratic to take bold new initiatives towards ASEAN. What surprises southeast Asia is the passive incoherence of the MoDs participation in the various defence forums of ASEAN neither ready to lead nor willing to respond.
SECURITY PROVIDER
Some tend to dress-up the MoDs feckless defence diplomacy as a deeply felt assertion of Indias strategic autonomy. Nice try. The real problem is the lack of political will in Delhi to take defence diplomacy in Asia seriously.
To be fair,Antony has occasionally referred to Indias role as a net security provider in the Indian Ocean and beyond. What Antony needs is a strong institutional base in the MoD that can effectively collaborate with the armed forces and the foreign office and facilitate Indias emergence as a valuable security partner for friendly Asian nations.
The writer is a distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation,Delhi and a contributing editor for
The Indian Express
