Howard set to rediscover nuclearised India

By P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE, JULY 9. The Australian Prime Minister, Mr. John Howard's two-day visit to India beginning tomorrow, is being seen as a significant event in Canberra's current diplomatic calendar, despite the fact that the bilateral visit forms only part of his larger political itinerary of a foreign policy-related odyssey at this time.

Some Australian commentators have suggested that a separate voyage of bilateral bonhomie, without the India visit being linked to Mr. Howard's travels elsewhere at this time, could have signified a more powerful political message about Canberra's new mood of renewing and intensifying a friendship with New Delhi that came under a cloud after the Vajpayee Government conducted nuclear tests in 1998. However, the counter- argument is that Mr. Howard had taken the initiative to rediscover a nuclearised India in the light of its democratic and economic credentials.

With the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, agreeing to Mr. Howard's ``expressed desire'' for a visit at this juncture, the stage is set for improving the diplomatic atmospherics and enlarging the agenda of bilateral cooperation. This certainly is the view from Canberra as evident during a recent visit there.

Mr. Howard has not only said he was looking forward to his India visit but also emphasised that he would not enter into talks with Mr. Vajpayee in any ``negative'' frame of mind.

The Australian Foreign Minister, Mr. Alexander Downer, had prepared the ground for this renewed bilateral dialogue at the highest level. Mr. Downer, who recently visited India, told this correspondent in Canberra that two factors weighed in Australia's calculus of a ``return'' to ``normality'' in bilateral ties in this post-Pokhran-II phase.

To ``begin the process of strengthening'' the Australia-India relationship ``beyond what it once was before the nuclear tests,'' Mr. Downer said Canberra was ``encouraged'' by India's ``moratorium'' on further atomic tests and New Delhi's search for a ``consensus'' on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Expressing ``appreciation'' of this restraint, Mr. Downer said: ``Given that India has a moratorium now, there is no point in maintaining measures against the country which has a moratorium. We can't of course undo the tests that took place.'' Identifying the second but not the least positive factor as the Vajpayee Government's move towards ``working to build a consensus for signing the CTBT,'' Mr. Downer said Canberra would ``encourage'' India to do that. Mr. Downer's brass-tacks reasoning of this magnitude complements Mr. Howard's own political view that ties between two democracies such as India and Australia ``transcend'' the differences that might have arisen over the nuclear issue.

With the nuclear haze over the Australia-India diplomatic landscape having cleared now, the Howard visit is expected to widen the areas of bilateral economic cooperation. Several Ministers in the Howard Cabinet have indicated to this correspondent a degree of willingness and even eagerness to liaise with India in such diverse spheres as agriculture and information technology for mutual benefit.

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