The evolution of India’s foreign policy – Part XII

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was perceived by Indian voters as a strong and decisive leader in 1998-99. His 13 month long second term plus 6 months as ‘care-taker prime minister’ convinced the people that the country would be safer in his hands. General Elections were held in India from September 5 to October 3, 1999, a few months after the ‘Kargil War’. The BJP-led NDA had won 303 seats in the 543 seat Lok Sabha, thereby securing a comfortable, stable majority. The coalition government that was formed lasted its full term of 5 years – the only non-Congress government to do so. On October 13, 1999, Atal Bihari Vajpayee took oath as Prime Minister of India for the third time. Just a day earlier, General Pervez Musharraf, Chief of Pakistan Army and the main architect of the ‘Kargil War’, seized power in Pakistan in a bloodless coup from a democratically elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. He probably found public support because of the ‘Kargil’ humiliation. This was bad news for India! On December 24, 1999, an Indian Airlines flight IC-814 was hijacked from Nepal by 5 Pakistani terrorists. The hijackers held 189 hostages and demanded the release of 3 dreaded, including Maulana Masood Azhar (founder of Jaish-e-Mohammed), Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh (the killer of The Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl) from the Indian prison. Once a hostage was stabbed to death, Government of India capitulated under public pressure and released the terrorists in exchange for the hostages. India and the world is still paying the price for that error of judgment! The crisis ended on December 31, 1999.

President Bill Clinton visited India from March 19 – 24, 2000. His was the first state visit to India by a US President in 22 years. He became the first President of the United States to visit Bangladesh on March 20, 2000. Clinton also visited Pakistan for a few hours on his way back home. Obviously he had very little interest in Pakistan sponsored terrorism and the spread of Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Instead of chasing around the Islamic terrorists in a distant Indian subcontinent, he decided to chase ‘white-bimbos’ right at home in Washington DC. America and the world had to pay a staggering price in blood and treasure just 18 months later on September 11, 2001. Now in 20-20 hindsight, it appears that Vajpayee Administration, Clinton Administration as well as the Bush Administration, all of them failed to see the looming catastrophe in Af-Pak. Aside from terrorism, Clinton-Vajpayee dialogue proved to be a watershed in Indo-US relations. India did not look back till 2008 US elections!

President George W Bush took office on January 20, 2001. He came to power with a soft-corner for India! We thought it was because of Condi Rice, that eventually proved to be a myth. George Bush considered China to be a rival and not a partner. He believed that an alliance with Australia, India, Japan and Singapore would be in the best interest of US national security. He was in the process of developing a consensus for this alliance within his administration when suddenly 9/11 happened. The world changed that day and with that India’s foreign policy became hostage to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. President had little time for any other issue. He became a war-time president. India had no choice but to adjust to the realities on the ground. Vajpayee was the first head of the state to call President Bush and offer assistance. Bush appreciates that gesture till date! As if this was not bad enough, a group of masked terrorists attacked the Indian Parliament on December 31, 2001. The terrorists managed to kill several security guards, but the building was sealed off swiftly and security forces cornered and killed the men, who were later proven to be Pakistan nationals. Although the Government of Pakistan officially condemned the attack, Indian intelligence reports pointed the finger at a conspiracy hatched in Pakistan. Prime Minister Vajpayee ordered a mobilization of India’s military forces, and as many as 500,000 servicemen amassed along the international border. Pakistan responded in kind. The Indian subcontinent was heading towards a nuclear exchange!

The evolution of India’s foreign policy – Part VIII

Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao and his administration had a profound impact on India’s image around the world. He was himself a consummate diplomat. Rao understood the importance of nation’s foreign policy and its impact on the domestic growth. He implemented his life-long agenda of unshackling the Indian economy. He was the first non Nehru-Gandhi Prime Minister to have completed a full five year term. Naturally his impact on India was very significant and long lasting. Narasimha Rao’s world view was significantly different from the Gandhi family. India is believed to have covert relations with the state of Israel since 1969 but it was Rao administration that established full diplomatic ties between the two countries on January 29, 1992. Madhavsinh Solanki was the Foreign Minister of India at that time. Israel has become a strong ally of India since then. Prime Minister Rao was intellectually persuaded to declare India a full and open ‘Nuclear Power’ but Americans leaned on him heavily to give up the idea. According to Vajpayee when he became the PM in 1996 Rao handed him a piece of paper which simply stated ‘Bomb is ready. You can go ahead.’ (referring to a nuclear device) and asked that it should not be made public. Vajpayee revealed this only after Rao’s death. Rao also launched the Look East foreign policy.

While Narasimha Rao succeeded in transforming the Indian Economy and Foreign Affairs, his administration was very week domestically. Kashmir insurgency that was brewing since 1989, flared up during the 5 year term of Prime Minister Rao. He was successful in curtailing the Punjab militancy but failed to stop the demolition of Babri Masjid by the goons of VHP (Vishva Hindu Parishad) on December 6, 1992. This destruction of the disputed structure, which was widely reported in the international media, unleashed large scale communal violence, the most extensive since the Partition of India. It is widely believed that the 1993 Mumbai Bombings, which claimed hundreds of innocent lives and left thousands injured was the Muslim underworld’s retaliation for the demolition of the Babri Mosque. This proved to be the single most damaging incident in India’s domestic policy. As I have written earlier, it was a phony excuse for Muslim extremists who were waiting for any such opportunity to create sectarian unrest; it was an idiotic lapse of judgment as far as Ministry of Home Affairs was concerned. This unnecessary violence gave India a very bad name in the international media and damaged the country’s reputation. But for his failed domestic policy P V Narasimha Rao would have been acclaimed as one of the most successful PMs of India! Despite his failures, Rao would remain the father of Modern India.

General elections were held in India in 1996 to elect the members of the 11th Lok Sabha. The result of the election was a hung parliament, which would see three Prime Ministers in two years and force the country back to the polls in 1998. The May 1995 defection of high profile Congress Party leaders like Arjun Singh and Narayan Dutt Tiwari divided the party into smaller factions. Bharatiya Janata Party emerged as the single largest party with only 161 seats in the parliament followed by Indian National Congress with 14o seats. The then President of India, Shankar Dayal Sharma, invited the leader of the largest party in parliament, Bharatiya Janata Party to form the government. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was sworn in as the new Prime Minister on May 15, 1996. He was required to prove a majority in the parliament by May 31, 1996. Vajpayee tried to build a coalition but failed to convince the moderate parties to support the BJP’s agenda. Instead of facing a loosing ‘confidence vote’ on May 31, he decided to resign as Prime Minister in just 13 days. Congress Party then declined to attempt a majority as the second largest party. Instead they agreed to support H D Deve Gowda, Chief Minister of Karnataka, as the next Prime Minister of India. He took office on June 1, 1996. Meanwhile the country drifted and India’s foreign policy was non-existent. Deve Gowda couldn’t last even a year and resigned on April 21, 1997.

Senator John McCain, my friend…

Senator John McCain was a very attractive Presidential Candidate in 2000 general elections. Had he won the Republican Party nomination, he might have been elected the president and probably a successful president. A lot has changed in the last eight years but John McCain has not. This is a new paradigm and a new world order. McCain sounds little out of touch. Eight years back, America was not engaged in the fight against terrorism. China was not an obsession of the world back then. United States’ economy was the envy of the world with projected surpluses stretching well into the future. Housing market was booming, there was no shortage of energy, gas was cheap at the pumps and credit was available to one and all. There was peace and prosperity for all. At least that is what we all believed.

It serves no purpose to put the blame on one party or the other. The fact of the matter is that we are here and we have to deal with the current situation. The question is, who is best suited to be the next President of the United States of America? When Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush went to college, there were hardly any foreign students in their classes. But when Bill Clinton and George W Bush went to college there were not only some foreign students in their classes but they also came from non-western world. In that respect John McCain has very little exposure to non-European population. Barack Obama, on the other hand, grew-up with very substantial non-white and non-western population and therefore has a natural understanding of their mind-set.

The arrogance of Indian Prime Ministers…

Either by the constitution or by choice, the Indian Prime Ministers do not visit the people that they serve. I do not remember any Prime Minister of India who has visited all 610 districts of India. Not even the most popular and the first Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, ever visited all 35 states (including the Union Territories) of India and their districts. But Nehru atleast communicated with all the Chief Ministers (CMs) of all the states, irrespective of party in power. Pandit Nehru wrote to a lot of politicians and Governors and the CMs on regular basis, to inform them about the state of the union, specially any major ‘Foreign Policy’ initiative that he planned to take. He never took the States of India for granted. Those days are long gone and forgotten. The people of India do not feel vested in the Central Government of India anymore. Therefore, the Prime Minister does not feel accountable to them.

This criticism is not directed towards a particular Prime Minister or a specific policy. My argument is about the center-state relationship. In a parliamentary democracy like India, the ‘National Parties’ contest all over the country and seek the election of a majority of MPs (Members of Parliament) to secure a simple ‘Parliamentary Majority’. Failing to secure a simple majority, the national parties either collaborate with smaller parties or seek the support of ‘Regional Parties’. These formations have resulted in coalition governments at the central government level. The coalition partners do not necessarily agree on all the policies of the ‘Ruling Party’. They have no choice but to agree on some basic policies to form the government. These basic policies are called the ‘Common Minimum Program’ (CMP). These CMPs are either agreed to before the ‘General Elections’ of just before forming the government.

These common minimum programs are becoming more and more vague to hide the differences rather than common principles or agreements within the coalition partners. The result is that the ‘Indian Government’ can not take any bold initiative or fulfill substantial election promises. The idea is to be in power and stay in power rather than govern the country. What is the point? Today, the president of either major national party is different than the Prime Minister or the prime ministerial candidate. Who is the leader of the party and who is going to define the agenda of the party? Very few people in India really understand what the national goals are and which party stands for what? Where are we headed and with whom?

Dr. Manmohan Singh is the Prime Minister of India on behalf of Indian National Congress (INC) which is part of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA). Lal Krishan Advani on behalf of Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), which is part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), wants to replace the current Prime Minister. As far as I can see, neither is talking to the people of India, person to person. They both need to learn something important from the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi. He went around discovering India and found it. India in return met him, liked him and therefore supported him. It was irrelevant that he belonged to the ‘Congress Party’. India identified with Gandhi and not necessarily with Indian National Congress. Dr. Singh and Advani Ji, are you listening? India wants to hear from you directly. Not through the filter of the mass media but in person, if you want to lead this country. Either one of you, go to all the states and visit as many districts as possible and the people of India would give you the mandate that you seek. India deserves a better government.

BJP goes south of the Vindhyas…

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has finally broken the stronghold of Indian National Congress and other regional parties in the South. Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa led his BJP to victory in Karnataka Elections-2008. This election might have profound impact on the General Elections due in May 2009. Unlike Congress Party, BJP has developed a cadre of regional satraps who can deliver their respective states. The case in point is Gujarat and now Karnataka. Born in the Hindi heartland, the party’s core constituency and its national appeal, was always limited. Over time that has changed. Bharatiya Janata Party could emerge as truly a national party in the years to come. The days of Gowdas (father and son) seem to be over.