NAM and nonsense: The mindlessness of Indian diplomacy

There was a time when Indian diplomats at the United Nations took toilet breaks to avoid voting on key resolutions because their governments didn’t want to take a stand on critical issues. Today, our foreign policy has become rather more sophisticated: we “ take the middle ground”, as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did in his speech at the NAM summit in Teheran. That’s diplomatic speak for a ‘policy of not having a policy’ on issues – or of speaking out of both sides of the mouth. Of course, a ‘middle path’ could in certain circumstances symbolise an informed charting of an independent foreign policy orientation. But in India’s case, given its history of long association with the NAM, which was non-aligned only in name and has been rudderless since the collapse of the Soviet Union (to whose apron string it was tied), it merely reinforces India’s irrelevance on the world stage and as a pretender to power. It doesn’t represent so much an India that is in the ‘middle ground’ as ‘muddling around’. In his speech, Singh gave voice to his thoughts on the ongoing crisis in Syria: in spirit, they sounded much like his anodyne pronouncement on everything he speaks of at home. India, he said, “supports popular aspirations for a democratic and pluralistic order… “ but “such transformations cannot be prompted by external intervention.” Singh also exhorted NAM to “take a clear stand on Syria” – as if the excited squawks of an impotent organisation such as NAM matters one whit in the world today. [caption id=“attachment_438440” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  PM with Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina at the NAM Summit in Tehran on Thursday. Atul Yadav/PTI[/caption] The situation on the ground in Syria is, of course, fairly complex, but then again, India’s disorientation vis-à-vis Damascus is only a symptom of a larger failing, which has a long history to it. In Jawaharlal Nehru’s time, and particularly in the early years of Independence, India’s foreign policy orientation — and early articulations of this “non-aligned” approach — appeared to be based on the genuine principle of charting an independent course, and came to be respected for it. As Nehru observed in 1947, in a letter to KPS Menon, India’s first ambassador to China, India’s “general policy is to avoid entanglement in power politics and not to join any group of powers. The two leading groups today are the Russian bloc and the Anglo-American bloc. We must be friendly to both and yet not join either.” But all that idealism collapsed in a heap as, first, Nehru, and subsequently Indira Gandhi drew India slowly into the Soviet orbit, abandoning all pretence of nonalignment. And once the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, India’s foreign policy was left rudderless; but since the foreign policy establishment had been ossified by long years of reflexive anti-Americanism, it couldn’t reorient itself to the changed world. Long after India’s foreign policy had been left orphaned, India had still not taken to a pragmatic promotion of its self-interest and instead opted for a moral hectoring tone on the world stage. Foreign diplomats recall to this day India’s “shrill, moralistic, irritating” tone of diplomacy in international forums, and its tired resort to clichéd “anti-colonial rhetoric” that may have held relevance in an earlier time, but which made no sense in a world whose map had been redrawn. Indian leaders’ speeches at the UN and other international forums seemed oriented towards domestic audiences back home and to signal an India that was ‘standing up’ to world powers. A former Canadian ambassador to India notes that even today, Indian multilateral diplomacy is sometimes considered to be stronger at countering and blocking than at problem-solving and results-oriented negotiating. Indian negotiators’ skills are “much admired, but the smartest person in the room doesn’t always win the argument,” he adds. For instance, Simon Tay, chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, reasons that India’s style of diplomacy is “spectacularly successful in, for instance, the Group of 77, where grand-standing is the name of the game. But when it comes to negotiating a Free Trade Agreement with Asean, India ends up ruffling feathers," he observes. China, on the other hand, went out of its way to ensure that an FTA with Asean was a strategic political initiative rather than a WTO-style bargaining. India’s economy is only a third or a fourth the size of China’s. But although Asean is a lot smaller than India, it has an outsized political role in Asian regionalism. Tay also cites another reason for the limitations of Indian diplomacy: India has very few foreign affairs specialists – “just a few hundred diplomats running around, which is inadequate for a country that has ambitions to engage with Asia and the world.” For far too long, the Indian foreign policy establishment has clung on to what an Australian strategic analyst described to me as the “fierce rhetoric of strategic independence”, which has served as an impediment in building alliances to enhance its influence. Ironically, one of India’s strengths is that its rise complements the existing global order – and doesn’t challenge it in the way China’s rise does. Most countries would be quite welcome to see India rise. However, to complement that, India must realise the importance of forging strategic partnerships with powers that are aligned in its interests. Yet, India’s foreign policy appears oriented towards chasing away prospective allies at the precise moment when the planets are lining themselves in a favourable alignment. The true advantage of non-alignment, if one must abide by that principle, lies in leveraging geopolitical situations as they evolve for our self-interest, without being burdened by any historical baggage. As is often said, there are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests. Today, India’s pursuit of diplomacy appears to be based neither on principles nor on the cynical advancement of its self-interest. In that sense, it is truly in the ‘middle ground’ of being neither here nor there.