Opinion Regional goes international

This is not the first time a foreign power has engaged a state government and leader. In March this year,a shift took place in Indian foreign policy. The country had to vote on a UN Human Rights Council resolution in Geneva,a tectonic event for the conduct of international relations. With the UN-sponsored Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation report,which dealt with human rights violations in the war in Sri Lanka,in the background,the US and India passed a resolution against Sri Lanka,with 24 nations voting for and 15 against. India’s vote in favour of the resolution was contrary to its national interest,but pressed by the DMK,an ally of UPA 2,India had to vote for the resolution.

Even before that,Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Bangladesh in September 2011 to sign the Teesta water-sharing accord — which could have radically improved relations between the two countries — was torpedoed by another UPA coalition partner,Banerjee.

Notwithstanding the tenets of non-alignment and Panchsheel,which followed a Nehruvian script,a vote against our southern neighbour Sri Lanka,on a country-specific UN resolution,and our failure to make a foreign policy breakthrough in Bangladesh,negates our post-Independence foreign policy record.

Earlier,even at our most traumatic moment immediately after Partition,India’s foreign policy emerged as a coherent treatise,blending national interest and international concerns. India’s foreign policy not only reinforced Indian nationalism,it was also an exemplar for newly-independent or struggling colonial countries.

For example,when Maharaja Hari Singh vacillated before signing the instrument of accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India in October 1947,Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s clarion call for the Indian Union was an epoch-making foreign policy exercise for the country. There was no regional pressure. Foreign policy strategies were free of pressure from fractured electoral mandates. There are several instances when the entire nation united on questions of foreign policy or national defence. Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s eloquent celebration of then-PM Indira Gandhi’s accomplishment in liberating Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971 is now part of political folklore.

Now,however,regional considerations are dictating vital strategic interests. For example,Tamil Nadu now determines the contours of our relationship with Sri Lanka. The Dravidian political formations in Tamil Nadu have generally hindered the Central government’s pursuit of an unfettered foreign policy vis-a-vis Sri Lanka as,currently,the support of 18 DMK MPs is crucial to the continued survival of UPA 2. Similarly,Banerjee can afford to be fractious towards the Union government,thanks to the 19 Trinamool Congress MPs whose support is also essential to the UPA. Not only did she refuse to accompany the PM to Bangladesh in September 2011,she announced an expert committee to assess the feasibility of sharing water from the Teesta with Bangladesh.

In contrast,there are several instances in the past when contrary provincial views were overlooked to safeguard the national interest. The Lal Bahadur Shastri-Sirimavo Bandaranaike pact of 1964 was unpopular in the then Madras state,because not only were people of Indian origin repatriated to Sri Lanka,the Katchatheevu Island was also ceded in the interest of “good neighbourly relations”. This pact was opposed not only by K. Kamaraj,the most powerful member of the “Syndicate” instrumental in installing Lal Bahadur Shastri as PM,but also by V.K. Krishna Menon,one of Jawaharlal Nehru’s foreign policy mavens. Similarly,just after Partition,the influx of refugees caused immense trouble in states bordering East and West Pakistan in 1947. Still,there was no provincial criticism about the foundations of our foreign policy. The refugee problem did not end with Partition — the crackdown in East Pakistan by the West Pakistan army in 1971 again resulted in unprecedented migration to West Bengal,almost changing the demographic profile of the state. But the state withstood the calamity without protest and concurred with national foreign policy.

The Global Summit on Changing Bihar held in February this year marked the first time that a policy initiative centred on provincial interests,albeit with international ramifications,was taken by a state. Since Independence,the Central government has not made a concerted effort to improve Indo-Nepal relations. Patna has a major stake in maintaining good relations with Kathmandu as it shares a long international border with Nepal. Most of the rivers that devastate Bihar originate in Nepal. By inviting the Nepal PM Baburam Bhattarai to open the summit,Bihar CM Nitish Kumar initiated an improved relationship between the two countries,thus reinforcing the Centre’s foreign policy towards Nepal.

The writer is member-secretary,Asian Development Research Institute ,Patna