The evolution of India’s foreign policy – Part II

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s departure brought significant changes in India’s foreign policy as well as its national security. Lal Bahadur Shastri became the Prime Minister of India on June 9, 1964 when Jawaharlal Nehru died in office on May 27, 1964. Congress Party President K Kamaraj was instrumental in making Shastri the Prime Minister as he wanted to keep the more conservative Morarji Desai from becoming the next Prime Minister of India. Shastri was a self proclaimed socialist but his policies were far more pragmatic then his predecessor’s. Shastri’s legacy is the slogan, “Jai Jawan Jai Kisan”, simply put, food self-sufficiency and national security. India would always remain indebted to this modest man who gave so much to his country without the self-promotion like Nehru-Gandhi cabal. We were so proud of Shastriji!

Lal Bahadur Shastri was the Prime Minister and a de facto Foreign Minister of India for only 19 months but his tenure became significant in terms of India’s foreign policy. The 22 days war with Pakistan in September 1965 and a simultaneous naked threat from China convinced Shastri and a peaceful democratic India that our neighbors have nothing to keep them united except to wage wars to divert domestic attention. India had no choice but to postpone national development and share scarce financial resources with national security needs. Shastriji had no hesitation in calling a spade a spade and build a national consensus for India’s defense buildup. The second factor was the advent of ‘Green Revolution’ and the ‘White Revolution’ in India. Prime Minister Shastri changed a starving India into self-sufficient and proud nation!

Prime Minister Shastri suddenly died of a heart-attack in Tashkent on January 11, 1966. He was attending a peace summit with Pakistani President Muhammad Ayub Khan and had signed the Tashkent Declaration the day before. The Indo-Pak accord was facilitated by the erstwhile Soviet Union. Once again Gulzarilal Nanda took over as an interim Prime Minister for 13 days. Once again Kamaraj stiffed Morarji Desai and manipulated the election of Indira Gandhi as technically the 5th Prime Minister of India on January 24, 1966. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi continued with Sardar Swaran Singh as her Minister for External Affairs but replaced him with Mahommedali Currim Chagla on November 14, 1966. The whole gang of Mrs Gandhi was self-proclaimed socialist and leaned towards the Communist Block of countries.

Indira Gandhi was a chip of the old block in terms of her politics. Just like her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, She did not trust the private sector in India. She nationalized the banks of India in July 1969. She felt comfortable dealing with the former Soviet Union but distrusted the United States of America, especially President Richard Nixon. They disliked each other from the bottom their hearts. Indo-US relations nose-dived to the lowest level in the entire history of independent India. Nixon seriously contemplated using a nuclear bomb against India, a fellow democracy during Indo-Pak war in 1971! Indira Gandhi was ideologically close to her socialist father but was the toughest Prime Minister when it came to India’s national security. She crushed Pakistan.

India had the balls to save the Dalai Lama

Can you imagine what would have happened to Dalai Lama and his fellow Tibetans if India had also chickened out the way United States and Great Britain did? Fifty years later, the five ‘Goondas’ sit at the high-table of the ‘UN Security Council’ and lecture the world about human rights. Now, Americans like Richard Gere and Nancy Pelosi go running to Dharamsala, India to sympathize with Dalai Lama but never go back home to tell the dumb Americans what their country has done for the ‘Buddhist Monk’. The whole thing makes me sick to the stomach! What hypocrisy, what audacity?

India and the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru paid a heavy price for that in 1962. China took its frustrations out on India by a full scale ‘Invasion of NEFA’ (North-East Frontier Agency), south of McMahon Line and Aksai Chin in Kashmir. India had no formal ‘Defense Strategy’ till that time. Our front-line border forces were carrying manual-loading .303 Lee Enfield Rifles to protect the country. The Chinese with their automatic, Soviet made weapons, just walked through the ‘Indian Defenses’. They could have grabbed Dalai Lama from his sanctuary in Dharamsala if President John Kennedy had not come to India’s aid. Can you imagine if John F Kennedy had not won the elections in 1960 and Richard Nixon had become the US President at that time? There would have been no Dalai Lama alive or any place called Tibet any more! President Nixon always had a hard-on for India. Just THINK about that!

Dalai Lama on February 11, 2009 in Baden-Baden (Germany)

Tibetan monks embarrass China – 27 Mar 08

McMahon Line is India’s ‘Agni Rekha’

China poses a significant threat to India!

The Nehru-Gandhi family is culturally Anglocentric

Starting with Motilal Nehru and right down to Rahul Gandhi, the entire Nehru-Gandhi family is the product of the British academia and the ‘English Civil Institutions’. This legacy has not served India and its people in any way. It is tragic that our first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru and his colleagues in the Congress Party decided to adopt a Parliamentary Democracy for a diverse country like India. This form of government has undermined our freedom and creativity. Indians have no say in the election of our Chief Executive or the Commander-in-Chief. The ruling party decides as to who would lead the nation of 1.2 billion people and who would be the Commander-in-Chief of one of the largest defense forces in the world. The people of India have no say what so ever in this matter. What could be more outrageous? This is the legacy of Nehru-Gandhi family. We need to THINK long and hard about it!

How many people in the free-world would believe that just one individual in the largest democracy in the world decided as to who would be the next Prime Minister of India? In May 2004, it was left to Sonia Gandhi, the widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, to decide the next Chief Executive of India and she chose Dr Manmohan Singh to head the coalition government. She also single-handedly decided who would be the next President of India once the then incumbent Dr APJ Abdul Kalam finished his first term in office. The universally respected President of India was not offered the second term because ‘Madame’ did not like the idea. Do you call this form of government a democracy? I don’t! This is an insult to the billion plus people of India. Yet, there is nothing that ordinary Indians can do about it. When the largest democracy in the world is ruled by a ‘Madame’, you know what it should be called!

India must increase its Defense Budget to $60 billion…

India is a very large democracy surrounded by huge poverty all around. The Indian sub-continent has been unstable since it’s independence from the British in 1947. Pandit Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India mis-read the situation in the neighborhood and paid a heavy price in 1948. Jawaharlal Nehru had a different vision for India, some good some bad. Now India must follow the ‘Vision 2020’ articulated by former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam (the 11th President of India). He envisions India to emerge as a fully developed economy by the year 2020, ready to lead the world with other countries like the United States, China and Russia. It is time India starts taking its responsibilities seriously and act accordingly. If it does not, it would undermine its own security in the long run. There is a power vacuum in South Asia and beyond, since the fall of Soviet Union. If this space is not occupied by a rising power like India, China is bound to spread its influence beyond acceptable limits.

Currently, India’s defense budget is estimated between $26 billion and $34 billion, depending upon what is included and what is not. Either way, it is way too small to reasonably fund its security and humanitarian commitments. At this stage you can not calculate the defense allocation as percentage of GDP. The total footprint is too small and the basic defense infrastructure is virtually non-existent. India must also stop worrying about China’s defense budget. We have very different problems and very different commitments. The next question is, how do you fund such massive increase in the defense outlays? Government of India, for some strange reason, has continued to depend on ‘Public Sector Undertakings’ for major defense procurements, including capital equipment. Besides, all major weapon systems are either imported or locally assembled at the ‘State Owned Enterprises’. This is a major reason why our defense requirements are not being fully funded.

This bureaucratic mind-set must change. India is no more a command and control economy. We have a large and responsible ‘Private Sector’. There are more than 50 billionaires in India, spread across all 35 States and Union Territories. They have the technologies and the infrastructure to start contributing in developing India’s Military-Industrial Complex. Our private companies are large and resourceful enough to form collaborations all over the world and develop the most complicated weapon systems around. But, India needs far more than weapons alone. We do not have any significant lift capabilities by land, sea or air. Earlier this year, India placed an order for 6 Hercules C-130 J military transport planes from Lockheed Martin of USA. The deal is worth around $1 billion and the expected delivery date is 2011 at the earliest. The fact of the matter is that we are immediately short of 20 such transport planes but cannot commit any funds because of budgetary constraints.

India needs a long-term and a medium-term defense procurement policy. Let us say, our medium term defense budget is $60 billion starting April 1, 2010 and increases to $120 billion by March 31, 2020. This budget must be equally distributed amongst all three services. Indian Navy must get atleast 30 percent of the budget, Indian Air Force and Indian Army too should get 30 percent each. The remaining 10 percent must be allotted to a new ‘National Guard’, like the one in United States. But the most important component of this plan is the participation of the Indian Private Sector. To begin with, atleast 30 percent of the budget should be allocated to the private sector and by 2020, increase to 70 percent of all procurement. For example, let us take the case of Super Hercules C-130 transport aircraft. If we need additional 120 Hercules, we would rather assemble them in India than depend entirely on Lockheed Martin, and by implication, the whims of the US Congress. In that case, the order would increase from current $1 billion to $20 billion. Indian companies, like Tata or Ambanis or even Larsen & Toubro, could form a joint venture with Lockheed Martin to produce the required number of transport aircrafts for Indian Air Force, Indian Army and even Indian Navy. This plan would also spur the growth rate of the Indian economy.

Was The Bombay Plan ill conceived?

Probably! First of all, how many people in India are aware of ‘The Bombay Plan’? It was published in January 1944 and was the brain-child of JRD Tata (Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata). The presumption was that the Indian economy could not grow without government intervention and regulation. The Bombay Plan had the underlying assumption that the fledgling Indian industries would not be able to compete in a free-market economy. Tata passionately believed that future Indian government must protect indigenous industries against any foreign competition.

In this endeavor, JRD Tata was able to enlist the support of GD Birla (Ghanshyam Das Birla), Lala Shri Ram of DCM (Delhi Cloth Mills), Kasturbhai Lalbhai (Lalbhai Group) and the likes of Ardeshir Dalal (of Tatas & Viceroy’s Council), Ardeshir Darabshaw Shroff (Tatas Financial Adviser) and John Mathai (India’s first Railway Minister). The Plan had the blessings of Viceroy Lord Wavell and therefore the British Government. The First Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, did not officially accept the plan. The Bombay Plan had the Russian flavor.

Notwithstanding stout denials by the bureaucrats of that time, the Bombay Plan had a profound impact on India’s National Industrial Policy. Although not sounding socialist, the plan led to the first “Five Year Plan” in 1950. The principle flaw in the plan originated from the fact that the promoters were a small group of industrialists who not only had self-interest at the core, but had limited knowledge about the rest of India. During the first fifty years of the 20th century, India had upward of 100 major industrial houses, spread across the length and breadth of the country. No one was consulted by this group. The problem was not the fear of foreign competition, but the tendency to impose high-taxes on business. It was not just Nehru and his advisers, but the Tatas and the Birlas who stunted the growth of Indian industry.