India's diplomatic outreach

THE NEW VIGOUR in India's ties with Australia and New Zealand is a testimony to pragmatism. In a sense, the common denominator of democracy, which binds India and Australia as also New Zealand together, is a factor that enhances the comfort level of New Delhi's differential engagement with Canberra, on one side, and Wellington on the other. Yet, it is New Delhi's unconventional diplomatic outreach that seems to have been in greater evidence during the latest visit to Australia and New Zealand by the External Affairs and Defence Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh. Much credit for India's new exploration of this geopolitical sub- region should go to Australia's Prime Minister, Mr. John Howard, and Foreign Minister, Mr. Alexander Downer, who rediscovered a nuclear-armed India in an altogether new light last year. By now, it is an old story that Australia, which played a pivotal role in fast-forwarding the global agenda in regard to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in the mid-1990s, could only frown upon India when it conducted a significant series of nuclear-weaponisation tests in 1998. Thereafter, and almost entirely coincidentally, Australia began a high-level re-engagement with New Delhi at about the same time last year when the then U.S. President, Mr. Bill Clinton, visited India on a phenomenal note of diplomatic vibrance. One of the several factors that influenced Australia in such a decisive re-engagement with New Delhi was a recognition of the restraint that India demonstrated during the Kargil crisis in 1999. On the whole, however, Australia's India-oriented initiatives in 2000 were guided by a sense of democratic fellowship with New Delhi, which had already embarked upon far- reaching policies of economic liberalisation at home.

In a very subtle sense now, the question of democracy within the Commonwealth, a forum of common interest to India as also Australia and New Zealand, may come into a sharp focus in their triangular interactions. Canberra has expressed concern over Gen. Pervez Musharraf's latest act of usurping more powers through personal decrees in Pakistan, while the Vajpayee administration, which plans to hold talks with him in Agra next month, is more circumspect about Islamabad's internal matter of this magnitude. Soon, Fiji in Australia's geopolitical neighbourhood may also induce New Delhi and Canberra to explore the meaning of democracy within the Commonwealth context. It remains to be seen whether India and Australia will find themselves cruising together in assessing Fiji's political will to renew its rendezvous with democratic pluralism later this year.

There is much scope for an intensified engagement between India and Australia as also New Zealand over several multilateral issues pertaining to world trade and international security. Australia and the U.S. do not often tune to the same wavelength over global trade issues. Mr. Singh seems to have exchanged ideas with Aussie and Kiwi leaders over the current plans of the U.S. to fashion a missile defence system with a global impact. Yet, the future contours of the U.S.' plans in this sphere might be determined mainly by Washington's own separate consultations with several key interlocutors including the unenthusiastic powers such as Russia and China. To this extent, India's talks with Australia and New Zealand on the U.S.' plans for a new security framework may not be of direct consequence to Washington's immediate calculations. To say this is not to discount the likely American interest in the collective and separate views of India and Australia on the missile defence issue in the actual run-up to a possible system of this kind. However, security issues pertaining to the Indian Ocean rim and the Asiatic side of the Asia-Pacific zone will serve as a more definitive framework for a prospective Indo-Australian strategic dialogue. Global issues concernig weapons of mass destruction and systems to deliver them, besides economic concerns such as energy security, cannot of course be left out of such a dialogue.

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