The Hindu : Beyond the Iraq decision

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Wednesday, Jul 23, 2003

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Beyond the Iraq decision

By Harish Khare

India's "no troops" decision suggests that the creeping "American veto" in our internal affairs is not irreversible.

LAST WEEK, the Cabinet Committee on Security finally decided that India would not be sending its troops to Iraq. Before taking the decision, the foreign policy experts and military analysts had exhaustively debated the merits and demerits of the American request that India help "stabilise" occupied Iraq. Presumably, there were good arguments, made by good and honourable men, for and against sending troops to do the Americans' dirty work in Iraq. Since that decision, the members of the so-called strategic community have, by and large, gone into a sullen silence as if they are personally embarrassed over New Delhi's bad manners at the high table. But the manner and context in which the "no troops" decision came about is nothing short of a triumph of the democratic sentiment, given the fact that the Americans had left no one in any kind of doubt that New Delhi would be risking Washington's displeasure.

To begin with, the "no troops" decision suggests that the creeping "American veto" in our internal affairs is not irreversible. Large chunks of our political class — like our business elites — are beginning to think that the road to professional success and personal prosperity passes through Washington, and that somehow the "Americans" have it in their power to dispense initiatives and favours which could help an Indian politician achieve his or her personal leadership ambitions here at home; inversely, an American displeasure could derail this or that leader's quest for positions of influence, even the office of the Prime Minister. Call it creeping `banana republicanism' or our civilisational weakness to play the running dog to the imperial order of the day, the unstated "American veto" is silently respected by those who want to be our rulers and saviours.

Let it be recalled that before and during the United States' war on Iraq, the two major political parties in this country, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress, were unwilling to be associated with any kind of public protest. Unlike Europe, which was witnessing an exhilarating exhibition of democratic dissent, India and its leaders were silent. Except for localised mobilisation, in and around Kolkata, by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and others in the Left Front, the so-called mainstream political parties refused to run the risk of annoying the Americans. The Congress, in particular, was clearly guilty of confusion and timidity; this from a party whose finest moment was when its leader, Indira Gandhi, had defied the Seventh Fleet diplomacy.

Just as the Vajpayee regime has come to believe that the Americans can "help" it manufacture political and electoral success at home — through some kind of "breakthrough" in containing the `jehadi' violence or a quasi-membership of the United Nations Security Council — the Opposition parties, especially the Congress, too have come to put great faith in the Americans' capacity to re-jig our internal political equations. Sonia Gandhi's aides appear to believe that the Americans can help (or hinder) garner "respectability" for her "leadership", which would advance her prime ministerial ambitions.

This phenomenon of presumed or real foreign vetoes is not entirely unknown. In the 1960s and the 1970s, the Soviet Union's Indian friends were believed to be exercising undue and unhealthy influence on account of Moscow's geo-strategic clout; but, then, there were always the well-heeled American "agents" to keep the playing field rather levelled. Still, the pro-Soviet or pro-American arguments used to be made and finally approved by a reference to democratic wishes and preferences. All that has changed; with our economy firmly tied to the American "market place", and our middle classes unapologetically clamouring for the American visa, the space for autonomous thinking has shrunk considerably. One has to simply observe how the American ambassadors to New Delhi behave — and are treated — like pro-consuls.

It is no secret that a section of the Vajpayee Government was quite keen on earning the Americans' goodwill by getting on the right side of the Bush administration in the matter of troops deployment in Iraq; in fact, Washington's disappointment with New Delhi on the "no troops" decision is deeper precisely because many high-ranking visitors from India came pretty close to giving a commitment, in exchange for a White House welcome befitting a heir apparent. In this context, the Prime Minister and others who helped him arrive at the "no troops" decision have shown a refreshing respect for India's national interests and its self-respect. True, this is not the first time that India and the U.S. have disagreed; we have often disregarded the American preferences, like in the matter of how best to deal with the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf; but, on all such occasions the Americans had "understood" our position. In the matter of disagreement over Iraq, there is no such understanding, only disappointment, even bitterness. But had our troops been allowed to go to Iraq on a stabilisation mission, the decision would have hastened the integration of our polity in the America-centric global order, as defined and practised by whoever may happen to capture the White House.

The "no troops" decision goes beyond the timidity of this Opposition leader or the half-baked treachery of that Government official. This is the first decision in a long time in which the vested interests could not call the final shot; for once, the final decision-making in the Vajpayee Government was insulated from the belaboured entreaties of the careerists. This too is a departure from the emerging pattern. As it is, the Vajpayee Government has unfortunately developed a knack for allowing lobbyists and `smoothies' to stampede its decisions; the Conditional Access System (CAS) mess is a prime example of this pattern.

In fact, the Vajpayee Government's leitmotif has been to use "certificates of good conduct" from outsiders for building up an aura of global respectability around the Prime Minister. The BJP's spin-masters stumbled upon this formula during the Kargil War and encashed it electorally in the 1999 elections. Ever since, the regime has used cleverly, at times innovatively, "success" in foreign policy to set and influence the domestic agenda.

Foreign policy is not a private affair between professional diplomats and the strategic community. No country can pursue a foreign policy that does not find acceptance at home; no government can insist on a course of action that goes against the society's grain or the nation's deepest held beliefs. India may have changed but it has not changed to such an extent that we can assume to have jettisoned the traditions of anti-imperialistic struggles. Indian public opinion would not have accepted a role of a minor appendix of an imperial power. It required an act of statesmanship to understand this fact.

This is not just a matter of democratic propriety; it has to do with the efficacy of statecraft. Societies which are weak or internally distracted cannot be strong and purposive in dealing with the outside world. The crux of the matter was aptly summed up by Jawaharlal Nehru during a Lok Sabha debate in 1957: "Any part we want to play in world affairs depends entirely on the internal strength, unity and conditions in our country. Our views might create some impression on others for the moment but they will attach importance to our voice only in proportion to the strength they know we have. Therefore, both from the point of view of our primary needs and from the point of view of any desire we might have to play a part in world affairs, we have to pay the first attention to our own country's affairs." It is fashionable these days to mock Nehru, but there can be no truer reminder of the inherent connection between domestic strength and prosperity and the global role we may want to assign ourselves.

A country that ranks 127th on the United Nations Human Development Index cannot pretend to be a nuclear power, even though it may have nuclear weapons. It is possible to suggest that even if Indian public opinion had been mobilised dramatically on a big scale in the early stages of America's Iraq war, it would still not have changed Washington's course. But the continued opposition to the American designs finally had a bearing on the thinking of our leaders. It helped that at times even the Sangh Parivar voiced its reservations about sending troops to Iraq. This was a wonderful reaffirmation of the power of democratic mobilisation and protest. This is no mean achievement in this age of too much democratic noise and too little governmental accountability.

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