The Hindu : Sinha's NAM agenda

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 19, 2002

Opinion

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Sinha's NAM agenda

By C. Raja Mohan

Nudging the NAM towards a pragmatic pursuit of collective interests... must be at the core of India's political strategy for the next summit.

ALTHOUGH THE summit of the non-aligned movement (NAM) is just two months down the road in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, there is hardly any political excitement in New Delhi. The movement that used to send the Indian foreign policy establishment into overdrive is barely causing a ripple in the South Block. The External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, however, seems determined to whip up enthusiasm among the mandarins and breathe some life into the moribund NAM. In trying to restore Indian activism in the NAM, Mr. Sinha wants to steer the middle path between the two perceptions that have deeply divided the Indian thinking about the movement. One has declared that the NAM is dead and the other wants to return it to the old days of confronting the United States.

Mr. Sinha's strategy is to avoid the pitfalls of these two strongly held positions and look for a modest but purposeful agenda for the NAM that would bring some benefits to India and the movement as a whole.

The first school says the NAM is passe in the changed world order. The end of the Cold War between the East and the West, it is pointed out, had left little rationale for a movement that tried to steer between the two blocks from the 1960s to the turn of the 1990s. Those who have pronounced the demise of the NAM underline the reality that the economic strategy of most developing countries has changed from that of collective self-reliance to globalisation.

On the security front, most countries have found it prudent to work with the sole superpower than against it. India itself has proclaimed the U.S. as a "natural ally".

They also insist that if India wants to improve the lot of the Third World, it could start by helping itself. Much of the Third World that remains today is within India itself. If New Delhi raises the living standards of its people, it is suggested, the lot of the Third World is automatically transformed. The critics of the NAM warn against the delusion in New Delhi of "leading the Third World". They point to the wisdom of the Chinese leader, Deng Xiaoping, who prevented Beijing from taking on such a role in the last couple of decades.

Speaking to the top party cadres in 1990, Deng said: "Some developing countries would like China to become the leader of the Third World. But we absolutely cannot do that — this is one of our basic state policies. We can't afford to do it and besides, we aren't strong enough. There is nothing to be gained by playing that role; we would only lose most of our initiative." In avoiding the leadership role, Deng said, "we do not fear anyone, but we should not give offence to anyone either". Many believe Deng's advice should hold good for India as well. Some old hands at NAM diplomacy recall that the radicalisation of the NAM, and its intense anti-Western orientation in the 1970s and 1980s did not often correspond to India's own understanding of non-alignment and complicated New Delhi's pursuit of its enlightened self-interest.

There is the other school in India which insists that the NAM must be restored to its old glory of a permanent confrontation with the West. This declining band of ideologues criticises India for abandoning the leadership position in the NAM and allowing it to drift. It insists that at a time when there are growing anxieties around the world about American unilateralism the NAM has a definitive role in countering it and that India must take the lead. It also argues that in cosying up to the U.S. on a number of global and regional issues, India is beginning to lose goodwill and support among key countries of the developing world. Giving up non-alignment, these ideologues claim, is tantamount to the rejection of the political inheritance of the national movement and India's distinctive place in world affairs.

Whatever the Indian debate on the NAM might be, it is unlikely to disappear in the near future. The NAM might be dead, but no one is likely to come forward to bury it. If the movement is destined to limp along, why not India give it some purpose and coherence? It is this attitude which appears to have led Mr. Sinha to make a cautious but important attempt to reinvigorate the NAM.

After some internal brainstorming here last week, Mr. Sinha headed to Cape Town, South Africa where a group of Ministers from key NAM countries met to discuss the future of the movement. Mr. Sinha was invited to lead the discussion on the future priorities for the NAM and his proposals were accepted broadly and would serve as inputs for the preparation of the work for the summit by Malaysia.

Mr. Sinha's proposals for a new NAM agenda are clustered around five groups. The first would be an effort by the movement to make a significant intervention in the ongoing global debate on unilateralism and multilateralism. While this discussion is largely centred around Europe and the U.S., Mr. Sinha believes India and the NAM can bring forward an "alternative perspective" that would go beyond the current parameters and involve the democratisation of the global institutions including the United Nations, international financial institutions and the World Trade Organisation.

A second set of ideas from Mr. Sinha revolves round human security. They recognise that the NAM cannot make a credible case for democratisation of the international system while perpetuating undemocratic structures within. While India will steadfastly oppose humanitarian intervention, it believes the NAM should internalise the values of good governance, transparency and accountability to its own citizens.

The third set of proposals acknowledges the fundamental changes in the nature of security threats to the international system and the urgency of promoting international cooperation to root out the forces of extremism and terrorism.

Fourth, India believes that the NAM must move from the past blind opposition to globalisation and grasp the opportunities that are coming its way. In limiting the negative affects of globalisation and building capacities within the NAM nations to increase their bargaining power, India and other advanced countries within the NAM will have to lead by sharing their expertise and technology with the others. Fifth, Mr. Sinha wants to reinforce the traditional notion of solidarity among the developing nations through a special contribution by the NAM in accelerating the pace of development in marginalised areas such as Africa.

Mr. Sinha's carefully crafted agenda for the NAM can succeed at Kuala Lumpur only if India, along with other key nations, can exorcise the ghosts of radicalism that permeated the NAM in the past. Nudging the NAM towards a pragmatic pursuit of collective interests, creating more space for the weaker nations in the world order, expanding democratic space within the NAM and generating the political will to deal with new threats such as terrorism must be at the core of India's political strategy for the next summit.

While working with the minimalist consensus that will be hammered out at the summit, India should also be prepared at Kuala Lumpur to outline its own vision of a new global order and announce some major unilateral initiatives on cooperation with other developing countries.

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