Opinion Express View: Henry Kissinger was a man of the world

Henry Kissinger, the best-known American diplomat of modern times, is deeply associated in the Indian mind with the American tilt to Pakistan during the 1971 war to liberate Bangladesh. Many in India also view Kissinger as the one man responsible for the rise of China by drawing it into a long-term partnership with the United States against the Soviet Union. But Kissinger is more than the “villain” of the 1971 war and a lifelong “friend of China”. His contributions towards shaping American foreign policy and the evolution of the post-war world in the second half of the 20th century are immense and consequential. As Delhi reflects on Kissinger’s celebrated but controversial legacy, his statecraft holds lessons for a rising India seeking a larger role in the world.

The US tilt to Pakistan in 1971 did not involve firing an American shot against India, nor did it affect the outcome of the Bangladesh war. In criticising Kissinger’s China policy, it is easy to forget that New Delhi was a much bigger political champion of China in the 1950s when America was trying to isolate it. Large countries like India can’t be obsessed about specific moments in history and lose sight of the larger geopolitical dynamic. In Kissinger’s realpolitik, protecting an important Cold War ally — Pakistan — and turning an adversary like Communist China into a strategic partner was driven by a deep consideration for US interests in the 1970s. That world has now gone. There is now a robust India-US partnership no longer tied to Pakistan and aimed at securing an Asia that an assertive China has destabilised. As an exponent of power politics, Kissinger had no hesitation in accepting later that he would have done precisely what PM Indira Gandhi did in 1971 — seize an opportune moment to break up Pakistan and establish India’s primacy in the Subcontinent.

Advertisement

After the Cold War ended in 1991 and Delhi embarked on economic reforms, Kissinger became an ardent supporter of the US-India partnership. After India’s nuclear tests in 1998, he was among the first to urge Washington to recognise the reality of an atomic India and find a political accommodation with Delhi by putting aside the non-proliferation ideology. In an interview earlier this year, Kissinger said India’s foreign policy under PM Narendra Modi comes closest to his statecraft based on realpolitik. Kissinger’s praise is not surprising, given the profound reorientation of Indian diplomacy in recent years. Yet, Delhi also needs to learn from the tragedy of Kissinger’s worldview. While he sought to nudge the US towards pragmatism and away from the twin extremes of isolationism and ideological crusades, he had to repeatedly sacrifice the moral imperatives of justice in the pursuit of order and stability — from Indo-China to South Asia and Latin America. That made him a hated figure within left-liberal circles in the US and beyond. Delhi may be right to reorient its foreign policy towards realism, but it can’t afford to lose the balance between power and principle, between interests and values, in the conduct of its international relations.