Make the IAEA the Nuclear Safety Watchdog.
By T.P.Sreenivasan (From Vienna)
A glaring irony created by the United Nations is that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), its specialised body for promotion of atoms for peace has been located in the capital of a country, Austria, which is opposed to promoting nuclear power as a panacea for global energy shortage. Geneva would have been a natural choice, but Austria's offer of terms for the venue for the IAEA were attractive. The legend also has it that Homi Bhabha's love for western music was also a factor in the choice of Vienna. IAEA's gradual evolution as a nuclear watch dog and a regulatory rather than a promotional agency made it acceptable to Austria, which has been a champion of nonproliferation. The location of the IAEA in Vienna enabled Kurt Waldheim to locate an impressive array of other UN offices on the Danube.
Not only Japan,but also the IAEA is in crisis over the Fukushima disaster, which the IAEA still euphemistically calls a "nuclear accident". Safety,one of the main pillars of the Agency, is badly shaken and its credibility as a crisis management body in the event of a nuclear accident has been called into question. The open admission by its Director General, Yukio Amano, himself a Japanese, that the IAEA is not mandated to intervene either to prevent accidents or to force itself into emergency situations have exposed the chinks in the armour of the agency. The impression on the ground in Vienna is that the Agency has failed to play its role in a nuclear emergency, for which it was supposed to be prepared.
The IAEA has its own alphabetical soup to deal with nuclear emergencies. IEC (International Emergency Centre), ISSC (International Seismic Safety Centre), RANET (Response Assistance Network) and INES (International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) are only some of the acronyms being heard in Vienna these days as the emergency response capabilities, some of which were in existence right from the inception of the IAEA and others added after the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents. But a study of the daily updates given on the IAEA website have little to show for action or intervention in Fukushima. The updates simply reproduce the data given by the Japanese authorities, without any interpretation or conclusion on the part of the IAEA. For radiation levels, there are reports from neighbouring countries. Among these reports was one from Singapore, which was subsequently denied. Even the down-gradation of the situation from "very serious" to "serious" is attributed to the Japanese authorities.
The daily updates from March 11, 2011 onwards show that the IAEA went by the book in dealing with an unprecedented tragedy of gigantic proportions. The Director General expressed condolences on the accident and went into "full response mode" and did virtually nothing else. Even after three full days of fast developments of alarming proportions, the the IAEA kept saying on its website that "the IAEA stands ready to provide technical assistance of any kind" The approach was cautious, sensitive and aimed at not causing alarm or loss of faith in nuclear power. IAEA could only offer "good offices" and the Japanese Government took time to assign some responsibilities to the IAEA.
A brief visit by the DG himself to Tokyo a week after the accident and his report to the IAEA Board of Governors pointed to the limitations of the IAEA in dealing with nuclear emergencies.The IAEA was given only the responsibility to take radiation measurements and the identification of Japanese needs for a future environmental monitoring programme. The Agency neither sought, nor was it asked to do any fire fighting at Fukushima.
Amano's report to the Board on March 21 was frank and forthright. "I explained that we are not a "nuclear safety watchdog" and that responsibility for nuclear safety lies with our Member States. The IAEA acts as a hub for international cooperation, helping to establish safety standards and providing expert advice on best practices. But, in contrast to the Agency's role in nuclear non-proliferation, nuclear safety measures are applied voluntarily by each individual country and our role is supportive", he said. In an atmosphere of overwhelming sympathy for Japan, the Governors did not take issue with the Director General, but it was clear that, for the IAEA, the main priority was safeguards and not safety.
The founding fathers of the IAEA was acutely aware of the safety dimension of nuclear activities and had given considerable attention to safety, together with safeguards and nuclear applications. But over the years, the call for "balance" among the activities of the IAEA became taboo as the IAEA began to stress safeguards to the detriment of its other activities. The situation became more complex after 9/11 because of the new concerns of nuclear security. The new duties of security were assigned to the safety wing of the Agency, with consequent downgrading of safety concerns.
The Three Mile Island accident as well as Chernobyl had prompted reviews of the safety dimensions of the Agency. New institutions were created, but it was left to the initiative of member states to make use of them, subject to the availability of resources.For instance, the Operational Safety Review Team (OSART) Programme set up after the Three Mile Island accident is available for peer review, but some countries, including India, have declined offers by OSART of safety inspections. The former Director General raised this issue with me on my first call on him and reminded me of the importance of India accepting OSART missions in its own interest. But we have remained adamant about not using it on the ground that we have sufficient safety measures and that we are members of the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), which was established after Chernobyl. OSART missions have been found useful by countries like France and it is time for us to reassess its value.
In response to the criticism that IAEA has been ineffective in dealing with nuclear emergencies, the IAEA has convened a High Level Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Safety in Vienna from 20 to 24 of June, 2011. This is indeed a timely and important initiative, bringing together foreign ministers of IAEA member states, the UN Secretary General and the heads of international organisations that are participating in the Joint Radiation Emergency Management Plan, led by the IAEA. The Director General has already indicated the direction the Conference could take on the basis that "nuclear power will remain an important and viable option for many countries as a stable and clean source of energy." The Agency's role in safety will need to be reexamined and safety standards may have to be made more stringent. The current international emergency response framework must be reassessed. A rapid deployment team of nuclear experts may be placed at the disposal of the Director General for emergency consultations and action. The possibilities are endless.
The need for the hour is to make the IAEA "the nuclear saety watchdog", a role which may be more important, in many ways, than being a non-proliferation watchdog. It should be given the authority,the resources, including technical capability to intervene expeditiously as and when necessary. For India, this is a splendid opportunity to make imaginative suggestions and offers, which go beyond our present hesitation to use the IAEA mechanisms for safety. It is not enough for the leader of the Indian delegation to the conference to place his hand on his chest and say that our nuclear facilities are safe. We should open up our reports on previous incidents in our facilities and accept expert opinion, including the services of the OSART programme. With the separation of our civilian facilities for safeguards, there should be no objection to intrusive safety inspections. A large contingent of Indian experts are already in Vienna to attend the fifth review meeting of the contracting parties to the Convention on Nuclear Safety.(April 4 to 14).The chance meeting of this body at this time should be fully exploited to test the waters before the June conference.
The IAEA is not the forum to raise issues relating to alternate sources of energy to replace nuclear power. But the reverberations for the persistent calls for the use of other forms of energy will certainly reverberate in the halls of the UN complex in Vienna.The Director General has gone on record as saying that "the worries of millions of people throughout the world about whether nuclear power is safe must be taken seriously." This is more than what some of the members of the IAEA are not prepared to say. The expectation of the nuclear renaissance will elude further as the focus shifts from appetite for energy to safety. The IAEA 2020 will be somewhat different from the picture envisaged in the report by the Eminent Persons Group, (Vision for the Future)of which I was the Executive Director. The IAEA should brace itself for change.
--
Thursday, April 07, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
My conversation with Nuclear Intelligence Weekly
This was in line with what nearly every other nuclear country
in the world had done, but it remained defensive. Indian
nuclear regulator the Atomic Energy Review Board (AERB)
noted that “all the reactors in India are designed to withstand
the effects of earthquake and tsunamis of specific magnitudes
which are decided based on conservative criteria.”
This was probably not enough. “The number of people
who have lost faith in nuclear power has also increased,”
retired Ambassador T.P. Sreenivasan, who is intimately
familiar with the Indian nuclear scene, told NIW. “Many are
now debating whether India should go on the path of what
the Germans have done. There are demands of that kind.”
Indeed, even Sreenivasan, despite his years of nuclear
advocacy and four years serving as India’s ambassador to the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is having
doubts. “Even I’ve been saying that maybe in the long term
that it’s better to look at alternatives, and to have an action
plan that could move away from nuclear power,”
Sreenivasan said.
“What you see on television every day is very frightening,”
he continued, and “the Japanese are the most disciplined
and scientifically advanced people on the planet.”
India would be unable to respond as effectively as the
Japanese have, he said.
This was in line with what nearly every other nuclear country
in the world had done, but it remained defensive. Indian
nuclear regulator the Atomic Energy Review Board (AERB)
noted that “all the reactors in India are designed to withstand
the effects of earthquake and tsunamis of specific magnitudes
which are decided based on conservative criteria.”
This was probably not enough. “The number of people
who have lost faith in nuclear power has also increased,”
retired Ambassador T.P. Sreenivasan, who is intimately
familiar with the Indian nuclear scene, told NIW. “Many are
now debating whether India should go on the path of what
the Germans have done. There are demands of that kind.”
Indeed, even Sreenivasan, despite his years of nuclear
advocacy and four years serving as India’s ambassador to the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is having
doubts. “Even I’ve been saying that maybe in the long term
that it’s better to look at alternatives, and to have an action
plan that could move away from nuclear power,”
Sreenivasan said.
“What you see on television every day is very frightening,”
he continued, and “the Japanese are the most disciplined
and scientifically advanced people on the planet.”
India would be unable to respond as effectively as the
Japanese have, he said.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Nuclear Disarmament Timeline Challenges
Nuclear Base Camp: The Numbers Conundrum
T.P.Sreenivasan
Ever since J.Robert Oppenheimer invoked the Bhagavad Gita to create the mother of all metaphors, “the radiance of a thousand suns” and “the destroyer of worlds”, the nuclear weapons and disarmament efforts have given us many images and metaphors. But they were all images of mutually assured destruction and inevitability of a nuclear catastrophe. There was even a telling image of the world resting comfortably under the hood of a cobra. But more recently, despair has turned into hope with the metaphor of a mountain which, though distant and high, does hold the promise of a panoramic view of a nuclear weapon free and non-violent world, if we reach the summit. The world realizes that the climb up the mountain will be slow and hazardous, but there appears to be a universal desire to make a determined effort.
The metaphor of the mountain has led to the image of a base camp, which is necessary to equip ourselves and to prepare for the climb. It is indeed a practical and necessary stage and translated into practical measures, it encourages all nations, whether they possess nuclear weapons or not, to build a staging ground. It means the establishment of intermediate goals towards disarmament on which there could be a consensus. The proponents of this concept have explained that the idea is to agree to proportional disarmament instead of smaller nuclear countries waiting till the others come down to their levels before they contemplate disarmament. They would like to craft a treaty, whereby countries, coming from different levels, could agree to work at reciprocal and proportional cuts, which would aim at all countries reaching the same lower number of weapons at a future date. William Perry characterizes the base camp as a place that would be safer than where we are today. It also serves as an organizing principle to “lead, but hedge”, in keeping with the US nuclear posture.
While the base camp concept is novel in the new context of optimism, it has been part of every plan that has been put forward in the past. Though the general and complete disarmament is the ultimate objective, giving priority to nuclear disarmament and that too through various intermediate stages is not very different from the base camp idea. The Rajiv Gandhi Action Plan of 1988 and the other practical steps put forward by various powers have contemplated intermediate stages of various descriptions. The proposal for a complete freeze was another logical step, which did not find acceptance by the nuclear weapon states. The proposed FMCT is another interim measure which is desirable and logical. We should welcome any step that reduces arsenals, strengthens non-proliferation and leads to elimination of nuclear weapons.
It is not clear, however, whether we can approach the base camp concept on the basis of numbers. Such an approach has been adopted in the case of START, but the world is skeptical about the numbers involved in the negotiations as all categories of weapons are not included in the numbers game. Transparency is highly desirable, but often absent when it comes to counting weapons. Fixing agreed numbers to reach the base camp is likely to elude us. The idea of proportionate reduction in arsenals regardless of the present size of the holdings will be anathema to those countries, which have only a minimum deterrent. India, for instance, has not revealed the number of weapons it considers necessary to have a credible minimum deterrent and the numbers are a matter of speculation. How would India participate in negotiations in reduction without revealing the numbers?
A broader approach, which takes into account the new optimism, generated by President Obama’s Prague speech, the sighting of the mountain, the encouraging signs at the latest NPT Review Conference and the Nuclear Security Summit, should move the disarmament effort forward.
India and the United States attempted precisely that at the summit level in their Joint Statement last year. The Prime Minister of India and the President of the United States agreed to join in a “strong partnership to lead global efforts for non-proliferation and universal and non-discriminatory global disarmament.” Further, “they affirmed the need for a meaningful dialogue among all states possessing nuclear weapons to build trust and confidence and for reducing the salience of nuclear weapons in international affairs and security doctrines.” The key words here are “trust and confidence” and “reducing the salience of nuclear weapons” in strategies. This will be a very good start for our journey to the base camp and beyond, but not easy to do as it requires fundamental rethinking in many capitals of the world. As the Norwegian foreign minister observed, “Every small demonstration of our willingness to move forward towards abolition make many of the intermediate obstacles more surmountable.”
The nuclear weapon states, sadly, still consider nuclear weapons important for their security and do not wish to consider a timeline for their elimination. In my view, the base camp will not be meaningful unless there is a collective commitment to a multilateral framework for negotiations within a time frame. Neither the NPT nor the CTBT has succeeded in accomplishing this. The FMCT negotiations remain stalled. An alternate route will be, as India has suggested, working on a global non-first use agreement as the first step towards delegitimisation of nuclear weapons. Hesitation on delegitimisation on the ground that it will outlaw retaliation seems unfounded as any use of the weapons will be unthinkable if there is delegitimisation. A commitment to negotiating a Nuclear Weapons Convention may also be an appropriate element of the base camp.
Changing of postures, rather than agreeing on nuclear force sizes may be a practical approach to the base camp. In the case of the two countries, which possess 95% of the nuclear warheads, numbers are relevant to build mutual confidence, but for the others, the doctrinal commitment to nuclear weapons, regardless of numbers, is the greater threat. It is no great comfort for the world to know that the nuclear weapons can now destroy the world only a dozen times, not dozens of times.
The coming to force of the START treaty on February 5 has been universally welcomed. But further progress may be stalled on account of fears of China’s growth. The focus is likely to shift to Asia, where the numbers game will be even more complex. In the Asian context, it will also be difficult to count the numbers considered necessary for minimum deterrent by different countries. Here again, a review of doctrines rather than entering a debate on numbers will have the desired impact.
The optimism that has entered the disarmament debate in recent years has not been fully justified by the latest signals from the major nuclear weapon states. The mountain and base camp images raise hope, but do not instill confidence. The urgency for nuclear disarmament, going beyond legal obligations has also been sidestepped in the process of setting up long term and intermediate stages. The time frame to reach global zero must be shorter if the world has to be safer.
Nuclear Base Camp: The Numbers Conundrum
T.P.Sreenivasan
Ever since J.Robert Oppenheimer invoked the Bhagavad Gita to create the mother of all metaphors, “the radiance of a thousand suns” and “the destroyer of worlds”, the nuclear weapons and disarmament efforts have given us many images and metaphors. But they were all images of mutually assured destruction and inevitability of a nuclear catastrophe. There was even a telling image of the world resting comfortably under the hood of a cobra. But more recently, despair has turned into hope with the metaphor of a mountain which, though distant and high, does hold the promise of a panoramic view of a nuclear weapon free and non-violent world, if we reach the summit. The world realizes that the climb up the mountain will be slow and hazardous, but there appears to be a universal desire to make a determined effort.
The metaphor of the mountain has led to the image of a base camp, which is necessary to equip ourselves and to prepare for the climb. It is indeed a practical and necessary stage and translated into practical measures, it encourages all nations, whether they possess nuclear weapons or not, to build a staging ground. It means the establishment of intermediate goals towards disarmament on which there could be a consensus. The proponents of this concept have explained that the idea is to agree to proportional disarmament instead of smaller nuclear countries waiting till the others come down to their levels before they contemplate disarmament. They would like to craft a treaty, whereby countries, coming from different levels, could agree to work at reciprocal and proportional cuts, which would aim at all countries reaching the same lower number of weapons at a future date. William Perry characterizes the base camp as a place that would be safer than where we are today. It also serves as an organizing principle to “lead, but hedge”, in keeping with the US nuclear posture.
While the base camp concept is novel in the new context of optimism, it has been part of every plan that has been put forward in the past. Though the general and complete disarmament is the ultimate objective, giving priority to nuclear disarmament and that too through various intermediate stages is not very different from the base camp idea. The Rajiv Gandhi Action Plan of 1988 and the other practical steps put forward by various powers have contemplated intermediate stages of various descriptions. The proposal for a complete freeze was another logical step, which did not find acceptance by the nuclear weapon states. The proposed FMCT is another interim measure which is desirable and logical. We should welcome any step that reduces arsenals, strengthens non-proliferation and leads to elimination of nuclear weapons.
It is not clear, however, whether we can approach the base camp concept on the basis of numbers. Such an approach has been adopted in the case of START, but the world is skeptical about the numbers involved in the negotiations as all categories of weapons are not included in the numbers game. Transparency is highly desirable, but often absent when it comes to counting weapons. Fixing agreed numbers to reach the base camp is likely to elude us. The idea of proportionate reduction in arsenals regardless of the present size of the holdings will be anathema to those countries, which have only a minimum deterrent. India, for instance, has not revealed the number of weapons it considers necessary to have a credible minimum deterrent and the numbers are a matter of speculation. How would India participate in negotiations in reduction without revealing the numbers?
A broader approach, which takes into account the new optimism, generated by President Obama’s Prague speech, the sighting of the mountain, the encouraging signs at the latest NPT Review Conference and the Nuclear Security Summit, should move the disarmament effort forward.
India and the United States attempted precisely that at the summit level in their Joint Statement last year. The Prime Minister of India and the President of the United States agreed to join in a “strong partnership to lead global efforts for non-proliferation and universal and non-discriminatory global disarmament.” Further, “they affirmed the need for a meaningful dialogue among all states possessing nuclear weapons to build trust and confidence and for reducing the salience of nuclear weapons in international affairs and security doctrines.” The key words here are “trust and confidence” and “reducing the salience of nuclear weapons” in strategies. This will be a very good start for our journey to the base camp and beyond, but not easy to do as it requires fundamental rethinking in many capitals of the world. As the Norwegian foreign minister observed, “Every small demonstration of our willingness to move forward towards abolition make many of the intermediate obstacles more surmountable.”
The nuclear weapon states, sadly, still consider nuclear weapons important for their security and do not wish to consider a timeline for their elimination. In my view, the base camp will not be meaningful unless there is a collective commitment to a multilateral framework for negotiations within a time frame. Neither the NPT nor the CTBT has succeeded in accomplishing this. The FMCT negotiations remain stalled. An alternate route will be, as India has suggested, working on a global non-first use agreement as the first step towards delegitimisation of nuclear weapons. Hesitation on delegitimisation on the ground that it will outlaw retaliation seems unfounded as any use of the weapons will be unthinkable if there is delegitimisation. A commitment to negotiating a Nuclear Weapons Convention may also be an appropriate element of the base camp.
Changing of postures, rather than agreeing on nuclear force sizes may be a practical approach to the base camp. In the case of the two countries, which possess 95% of the nuclear warheads, numbers are relevant to build mutual confidence, but for the others, the doctrinal commitment to nuclear weapons, regardless of numbers, is the greater threat. It is no great comfort for the world to know that the nuclear weapons can now destroy the world only a dozen times, not dozens of times.
The coming to force of the START treaty on February 5 has been universally welcomed. But further progress may be stalled on account of fears of China’s growth. The focus is likely to shift to Asia, where the numbers game will be even more complex. In the Asian context, it will also be difficult to count the numbers considered necessary for minimum deterrent by different countries. Here again, a review of doctrines rather than entering a debate on numbers will have the desired impact.
The optimism that has entered the disarmament debate in recent years has not been fully justified by the latest signals from the major nuclear weapon states. The mountain and base camp images raise hope, but do not instill confidence. The urgency for nuclear disarmament, going beyond legal obligations has also been sidestepped in the process of setting up long term and intermediate stages. The time frame to reach global zero must be shorter if the world has to be safer.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Reform of Global Institutions
(Remarks by Mr. T.P.Sreenivasan, former Ambassador of India at the Lunch Session of the India-UK Roundtable on February 19, 2011)
Global institutions, by their very nature, have to remain dynamic and ready for change. The mere change of membership, the entry and exit of member states, brings in changes in priorities, agenda and nature of functioning, as the sovereignty of member states continues to be the guiding principle in international relations. Changes in the global power structure, sometimes gradual and quiet and sometimes sudden and dramatic, also do force changes in global institutions. Continuous reform, therefore, is essential for global institutions to remain relevant, effective and efficient. History has shown that only resilient global bodies have survived and gained acceptance of their members.
Reforms are cyclical in nature for all global institutions and the process can never be completed once and for all. The challenges of the time impose reform to meet immediate needs and it gets formalized only subsequently to bring the practice in line with the statutes of the organizations.
The most significant restructuring of global institutions in recent years is the emergence of G-20 in the wake of the global economic crisis. The speed and efficiency with which this was accomplished should be a model for other global institutions. Even the financial institutions, which were considered extremely conservative, have begun to see changes sweeping through them, as a result of the transformation of the world economy.
The Commonwealth underwent a fundamental change when India decided to remain within it as a Republic and its agenda has also been flexible and responsive to the demands of the time.
The United Nations itself is the classic example of an international organization, which has changed beyond recognition without any change in its Charter. The agenda of the UN and its priorities today were not dreamt of by the authors of the Charter. From peacekeeping to human rights, from terrorism to climate change, the UN has taken on tasks and responsibilities not envisaged in the Charter. They are subsumed in the general concept of maintenance of international peace and security. Fight against apartheid and the concept of humanitarian intervention have amended the basic tenet of non-interference in internal affairs of states. The existence in the Charter of outdated words and phrases, which make a mockery of the present state of the world, has not inhibited the functioning of the UN.
The adoption of the ‘Agenda for Peace and the ‘Agenda for Development’ and the massive array of declarations, treaties and resolutions have made the UN richer and relevant. The recent changes in the working methods of the Security Council and the General Assembly are far reaching enough to meet the aspirations of the members for change to a great extent.
The history of the UN has shown that one thing that cannot be changed without a formal amendment to the Charter is the composition of the Security Council. The UN went through the difficult process of amendment to the Charter in 1965 to raise the number of non-permanent members from 6 to 10. We have now reached a stage when a change in the Charter is necessary to reflect the realities, not only of the enhanced membership of the UN, but also of the power structure in the world, which is dramatically different from the days after the end of the Second World War.
This is one forum where I do not need to dwell upon the need for increase in the permanent and non-permanent categories in the Security Council as I shall be preaching to the converted. The UK and India are of one mind on this issue and what we can do is to compare notes on the situation today and work out a common strategy.
India is of the view that time for concrete action has come after 30 years of discussions on this matter. On a personal note, I was at the UN as a young diplomat when India introduced the relevant agenda item in the General Assembly in 1979. Every aspect of the issue has been considered and there is now a consensus that expansion is necessary in both categories of Security Council membership. Today, we have reached text based negotiations with different formulas and numbers. What is required is political will to act here and now.
In his report ‘In Larger Freedom’, Secretary General Kofi Annan had brought down the options to two and in our view, Plan A is clearly preferable for the simple reason that creating a new category of members, as outlined in Plan B, will be clearly invidious. Plan A, which envisages the addition of 6 new permanent members and three new non-permanent members should resolve the problems of size, balance and equity.
In discussing strategy, the one thing that we have to remember is that support to one country or another, however strongly worded, will not lead to a decision. Members, preferably the permanent members, should promote a formula, like Kofi Annan’s Plan A, which has the potential of securing a two thirds majority in the General Assembly. The UK is in a position to take the lead in this regard.
The G-4 countries, Japan, Germany, Brazil and India have taken certain initiatives to speed up the process of reform forward. The group has recently decided to make an effort to establish a time frame of a year to bring about change. It would be helpful to know whether the UK and the other permanent members will go along with this time frame. If not, what is the timeframe that you have in mind? Would delaying a decision in the best interests of the UN, as China seems to suggest.
As for the identity of the new permanent members, India has held the view that criteria should be established for them. An agreement on expansion with regard to categories and members and the criteria can be established this year, it would be a major accomplishment. The difficult question of veto can, perhaps, be tackled at a later stage. The India-UK Roundtable appears to be an ideal venue for reaching an understanding on this important issue.
|
(Remarks by Mr. T.P.Sreenivasan, former Ambassador of India at the Lunch Session of the India-UK Roundtable on February 19, 2011)
Global institutions, by their very nature, have to remain dynamic and ready for change. The mere change of membership, the entry and exit of member states, brings in changes in priorities, agenda and nature of functioning, as the sovereignty of member states continues to be the guiding principle in international relations. Changes in the global power structure, sometimes gradual and quiet and sometimes sudden and dramatic, also do force changes in global institutions. Continuous reform, therefore, is essential for global institutions to remain relevant, effective and efficient. History has shown that only resilient global bodies have survived and gained acceptance of their members.
Reforms are cyclical in nature for all global institutions and the process can never be completed once and for all. The challenges of the time impose reform to meet immediate needs and it gets formalized only subsequently to bring the practice in line with the statutes of the organizations.
The most significant restructuring of global institutions in recent years is the emergence of G-20 in the wake of the global economic crisis. The speed and efficiency with which this was accomplished should be a model for other global institutions. Even the financial institutions, which were considered extremely conservative, have begun to see changes sweeping through them, as a result of the transformation of the world economy.
The Commonwealth underwent a fundamental change when India decided to remain within it as a Republic and its agenda has also been flexible and responsive to the demands of the time.
The United Nations itself is the classic example of an international organization, which has changed beyond recognition without any change in its Charter. The agenda of the UN and its priorities today were not dreamt of by the authors of the Charter. From peacekeeping to human rights, from terrorism to climate change, the UN has taken on tasks and responsibilities not envisaged in the Charter. They are subsumed in the general concept of maintenance of international peace and security. Fight against apartheid and the concept of humanitarian intervention have amended the basic tenet of non-interference in internal affairs of states. The existence in the Charter of outdated words and phrases, which make a mockery of the present state of the world, has not inhibited the functioning of the UN.
The adoption of the ‘Agenda for Peace and the ‘Agenda for Development’ and the massive array of declarations, treaties and resolutions have made the UN richer and relevant. The recent changes in the working methods of the Security Council and the General Assembly are far reaching enough to meet the aspirations of the members for change to a great extent.
The history of the UN has shown that one thing that cannot be changed without a formal amendment to the Charter is the composition of the Security Council. The UN went through the difficult process of amendment to the Charter in 1965 to raise the number of non-permanent members from 6 to 10. We have now reached a stage when a change in the Charter is necessary to reflect the realities, not only of the enhanced membership of the UN, but also of the power structure in the world, which is dramatically different from the days after the end of the Second World War.
This is one forum where I do not need to dwell upon the need for increase in the permanent and non-permanent categories in the Security Council as I shall be preaching to the converted. The UK and India are of one mind on this issue and what we can do is to compare notes on the situation today and work out a common strategy.
India is of the view that time for concrete action has come after 30 years of discussions on this matter. On a personal note, I was at the UN as a young diplomat when India introduced the relevant agenda item in the General Assembly in 1979. Every aspect of the issue has been considered and there is now a consensus that expansion is necessary in both categories of Security Council membership. Today, we have reached text based negotiations with different formulas and numbers. What is required is political will to act here and now.
In his report ‘In Larger Freedom’, Secretary General Kofi Annan had brought down the options to two and in our view, Plan A is clearly preferable for the simple reason that creating a new category of members, as outlined in Plan B, will be clearly invidious. Plan A, which envisages the addition of 6 new permanent members and three new non-permanent members should resolve the problems of size, balance and equity.
In discussing strategy, the one thing that we have to remember is that support to one country or another, however strongly worded, will not lead to a decision. Members, preferably the permanent members, should promote a formula, like Kofi Annan’s Plan A, which has the potential of securing a two thirds majority in the General Assembly. The UK is in a position to take the lead in this regard.
The G-4 countries, Japan, Germany, Brazil and India have taken certain initiatives to speed up the process of reform forward. The group has recently decided to make an effort to establish a time frame of a year to bring about change. It would be helpful to know whether the UK and the other permanent members will go along with this time frame. If not, what is the timeframe that you have in mind? Would delaying a decision in the best interests of the UN, as China seems to suggest.
As for the identity of the new permanent members, India has held the view that criteria should be established for them. An agreement on expansion with regard to categories and members and the criteria can be established this year, it would be a major accomplishment. The difficult question of veto can, perhaps, be tackled at a later stage. The India-UK Roundtable appears to be an ideal venue for reaching an understanding on this important issue.
|
Monday, February 14, 2011
UN GAFFES ARE NOT RARE
By T.P.Sreenivasan
No wonder only the Indian Ambassador realized that our Minister of External Affairs was reading the wrong speech at the UN Security Council. The others were not listening, not even the Portuguese delegate who authored the text. In the UN, delegates develop selective hearing, because no one can listen to the millions of words spoken every day. Everyone knows that the first few minutes of the speeches in the Security Council will be devoted to congratulating the present President on his assumption of the position even though it is by rotation and thanking the previous President for his accomplishments, even if he did not achieve anything during his month long presidency. The members of the Council were waiting for our Minister to come to the substance of the debate to give him some attention. If he had said anything new or original, it would not have gone unnoticed.
But what happened to the practice in our Permanent Mission in New York of one officer being assigned to every politician to keep a copy of the speech and to make sure that every word is delivered correctly? In the case of the Minister of External Affairs, this used to be done at the level of the Deputy Permanent Representative himself. How could the officers occupying the four chairs behind the Minister not know he was reading the wrong speech for full three minutes?
Has the good custom of having a heading and even a separate cover sheet for the speeches of the Ministers been abandoned? Did the Portuguese Mission also circulate the speech without a heading or a cover? We need to have answers to these questions if we have to understand where the system went wrong. Such things are too important to be left to the Minister himself. After all, Ministers have too many things on their mind to check whether the text placed before them is the right one. The topic of the debate was also a motherhood issue, development, not any controversial matter.
I have had some experience of gaffes by our political delegates misreading or mispronouncing words. One distinguished Minister of State read 'Namibia" as "Nambiar" repeatedly from the podium of the General Assembly. Unlike in the Security Council, no one sits or stands behind the speaker when he speaks and there is no way to communicate with him quickly to correct any mistake. Another delegate, this time a lady, accustomed as she was during the decolonisation days to condemnations of various policies of imperial powers, decided to "condemn" UNESCO for helping a non-self governing territory to preserve its cultural heritage. The text, of course, meant to commend the UN Agency!
Speaking of pronunciation, my Indonesian colleague, sitting next to me in the General Assembly hall asked me once what language our delegate was speaking in. Normally if a delegate does not speak in any of the six languages of the UN, someone would read the English text from the booth. My Indonesian friend could not catch the English version as our delegate was actually speaking in his version of English.
On one occasion, we had a truly sick External Affairs Minister, who should have stayed at home without taking the strain of travelling to New York. In fact, the Minister of State was also sent to New York at the same time in case the Minister needed any help. But our Minister insisted on doing everything that the Ministers were expected to do, like making speeches and holding bilateral meetings. He resented any suggestion that he might want to rest after a few meetings. That was one occasion when I had smuggled myself behind the podium with the permission of the chair when the Minister spoke to help him, if necessary. In replying to the Minister's comments on Jammu & Kashmir, a particularly vicious Pakistani delegate referred to India as "the sick man of Asia", hitting somewhat below the belt.
The same Minister left us in a quandary when he called on the Secretary General. The Minister described all the problems we were having with Pakistan and repeatedly asked the Secretary General to intervene in some way. The Secretary General, who was very keen to intervene, knew the Indian policy too well to take the request seriously. Still, we did not feel comfortable till we wrote a letter to the Secretary General, on our return to the mission, that the Minister did not really mean to request for mediation.
We also had political delegates, who wanted to change policy when they were at the UN. A very senior delegate was convinced that our policy on Afghanistan was wrong. He was inclined to support the resolutions, which criticised the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but our policy was to abstain on them. We had abstained on the main resolution already, but in one of the committees, a similar resolution was introduced. Knowing his views, I tried to send him for coffee to the delegates' lounge when the vote came up. He was not interested in shopping or sightseeing. He was also very conscientious and did not leave the chair in the committee. When a roll call vote was announced and India's name was called, he said "yes", but I shouted loudly "abstention" from behind him. The secretariat official, who knew the Indian position well, recorded our vote as abstention and our delegate was not any wiser. He was hard of hearing.
We had another delegate, who was convinced that our policy on East Timor was faulty. He was seen hobnobbing with the Portuguese delegation in the lounge occasionally. He tried to persuade me to change our position on East Timor and denounce Indonesian colonialism. I explained to him the rationale of our policy and said that he could take the matter up with Delhi, which he was not inclined to do. He watered down the language of the speech I gave him, but as long as the speech conformed to the established policy of the Government, I had no problem. I kept a close watch on him as he read the speech and, sure enough, he deliberately changed a phrase to dilute it further. The statement that the people of East Timor had already exercised their right to self-determination was changed to suggest that we were not convinced that it was so. I was astonished by his dishonesty, but without saying a word, I went to the secretariat and handed over a copy of the speech and said that it should be reflected faithfully and the electronic recording should be ignored.
The secretariat normally obliges in such cases, but it does insist occasionally on showing the original and the correction. If a delegation votes wrongly on a particular resolution, the original vote will be recorded together with the amendment submitted subsequently. In the case of the Security Council, I do not know whether the secretariat will insist on recording the pleasure of our Minister in seeing two countries of the Portuguese speaking community in the Security Council.
India is not the only country that generates such gaffes in the UN. Uganda had a big problem once when no Ugandan delegate was present in the General assembly hall. When Uganda’s name was called, someone walked to the podium and made a speech denouncing the reigning President of Uganda, Idi Amin. By the time the official delegates heard about it and rushed to the hall to challenge him, the damage was done and the news was already in the air. The whole Ugandan team was recalled and a new team was sent with instructions that the Ugandan chairs should never be left vacant. Pakistan had to contend with a politician, a member of the official delegation, who denounced the regime in Islamabad. Knowing his views, the mission had refused to print out his speech, but he managed to type it on the teleprinter. Once when the Iraqi delegate referred to the Kuwaitis as small people, the interpreter referred to them as “pygmies”. The Zaire delegate protested and the Iraqi did not know why. “Pygmies” is not a politically correct word in Zaire! A delegate was asked to repeat his vote four times till the secretariat was convinced that he was acting as instructed.
Gaffes in the UN create some red faces and send a few chuckles around, but do not harm anyone as each country’s position is known and the situation can easily be retrieved. These add some entertainment to the rest of the dull proceedings and go down to the archives, which have plenty of faux pas recorded for posterity.
--
By T.P.Sreenivasan
No wonder only the Indian Ambassador realized that our Minister of External Affairs was reading the wrong speech at the UN Security Council. The others were not listening, not even the Portuguese delegate who authored the text. In the UN, delegates develop selective hearing, because no one can listen to the millions of words spoken every day. Everyone knows that the first few minutes of the speeches in the Security Council will be devoted to congratulating the present President on his assumption of the position even though it is by rotation and thanking the previous President for his accomplishments, even if he did not achieve anything during his month long presidency. The members of the Council were waiting for our Minister to come to the substance of the debate to give him some attention. If he had said anything new or original, it would not have gone unnoticed.
But what happened to the practice in our Permanent Mission in New York of one officer being assigned to every politician to keep a copy of the speech and to make sure that every word is delivered correctly? In the case of the Minister of External Affairs, this used to be done at the level of the Deputy Permanent Representative himself. How could the officers occupying the four chairs behind the Minister not know he was reading the wrong speech for full three minutes?
Has the good custom of having a heading and even a separate cover sheet for the speeches of the Ministers been abandoned? Did the Portuguese Mission also circulate the speech without a heading or a cover? We need to have answers to these questions if we have to understand where the system went wrong. Such things are too important to be left to the Minister himself. After all, Ministers have too many things on their mind to check whether the text placed before them is the right one. The topic of the debate was also a motherhood issue, development, not any controversial matter.
I have had some experience of gaffes by our political delegates misreading or mispronouncing words. One distinguished Minister of State read 'Namibia" as "Nambiar" repeatedly from the podium of the General Assembly. Unlike in the Security Council, no one sits or stands behind the speaker when he speaks and there is no way to communicate with him quickly to correct any mistake. Another delegate, this time a lady, accustomed as she was during the decolonisation days to condemnations of various policies of imperial powers, decided to "condemn" UNESCO for helping a non-self governing territory to preserve its cultural heritage. The text, of course, meant to commend the UN Agency!
Speaking of pronunciation, my Indonesian colleague, sitting next to me in the General Assembly hall asked me once what language our delegate was speaking in. Normally if a delegate does not speak in any of the six languages of the UN, someone would read the English text from the booth. My Indonesian friend could not catch the English version as our delegate was actually speaking in his version of English.
On one occasion, we had a truly sick External Affairs Minister, who should have stayed at home without taking the strain of travelling to New York. In fact, the Minister of State was also sent to New York at the same time in case the Minister needed any help. But our Minister insisted on doing everything that the Ministers were expected to do, like making speeches and holding bilateral meetings. He resented any suggestion that he might want to rest after a few meetings. That was one occasion when I had smuggled myself behind the podium with the permission of the chair when the Minister spoke to help him, if necessary. In replying to the Minister's comments on Jammu & Kashmir, a particularly vicious Pakistani delegate referred to India as "the sick man of Asia", hitting somewhat below the belt.
The same Minister left us in a quandary when he called on the Secretary General. The Minister described all the problems we were having with Pakistan and repeatedly asked the Secretary General to intervene in some way. The Secretary General, who was very keen to intervene, knew the Indian policy too well to take the request seriously. Still, we did not feel comfortable till we wrote a letter to the Secretary General, on our return to the mission, that the Minister did not really mean to request for mediation.
We also had political delegates, who wanted to change policy when they were at the UN. A very senior delegate was convinced that our policy on Afghanistan was wrong. He was inclined to support the resolutions, which criticised the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but our policy was to abstain on them. We had abstained on the main resolution already, but in one of the committees, a similar resolution was introduced. Knowing his views, I tried to send him for coffee to the delegates' lounge when the vote came up. He was not interested in shopping or sightseeing. He was also very conscientious and did not leave the chair in the committee. When a roll call vote was announced and India's name was called, he said "yes", but I shouted loudly "abstention" from behind him. The secretariat official, who knew the Indian position well, recorded our vote as abstention and our delegate was not any wiser. He was hard of hearing.
We had another delegate, who was convinced that our policy on East Timor was faulty. He was seen hobnobbing with the Portuguese delegation in the lounge occasionally. He tried to persuade me to change our position on East Timor and denounce Indonesian colonialism. I explained to him the rationale of our policy and said that he could take the matter up with Delhi, which he was not inclined to do. He watered down the language of the speech I gave him, but as long as the speech conformed to the established policy of the Government, I had no problem. I kept a close watch on him as he read the speech and, sure enough, he deliberately changed a phrase to dilute it further. The statement that the people of East Timor had already exercised their right to self-determination was changed to suggest that we were not convinced that it was so. I was astonished by his dishonesty, but without saying a word, I went to the secretariat and handed over a copy of the speech and said that it should be reflected faithfully and the electronic recording should be ignored.
The secretariat normally obliges in such cases, but it does insist occasionally on showing the original and the correction. If a delegation votes wrongly on a particular resolution, the original vote will be recorded together with the amendment submitted subsequently. In the case of the Security Council, I do not know whether the secretariat will insist on recording the pleasure of our Minister in seeing two countries of the Portuguese speaking community in the Security Council.
India is not the only country that generates such gaffes in the UN. Uganda had a big problem once when no Ugandan delegate was present in the General assembly hall. When Uganda’s name was called, someone walked to the podium and made a speech denouncing the reigning President of Uganda, Idi Amin. By the time the official delegates heard about it and rushed to the hall to challenge him, the damage was done and the news was already in the air. The whole Ugandan team was recalled and a new team was sent with instructions that the Ugandan chairs should never be left vacant. Pakistan had to contend with a politician, a member of the official delegation, who denounced the regime in Islamabad. Knowing his views, the mission had refused to print out his speech, but he managed to type it on the teleprinter. Once when the Iraqi delegate referred to the Kuwaitis as small people, the interpreter referred to them as “pygmies”. The Zaire delegate protested and the Iraqi did not know why. “Pygmies” is not a politically correct word in Zaire! A delegate was asked to repeat his vote four times till the secretariat was convinced that he was acting as instructed.
Gaffes in the UN create some red faces and send a few chuckles around, but do not harm anyone as each country’s position is known and the situation can easily be retrieved. These add some entertainment to the rest of the dull proceedings and go down to the archives, which have plenty of faux pas recorded for posterity.
--
Thursday, January 27, 2011
A Wedding to Remember
My brother-in –law, Mohan and his wife, Latha, were in Indianapolis last May on a significant mission. Their daughter, Prarthana (‘Papu’ for us) a budding film director, who had already won a prize for her student production, chose to marry her friend from her institute, Edward Timpe. They went to convey not only their own blessings, but of the entire family to the couple and to meet Edward’s family. My son, Sreenath and his daughter, Durga, were at hand to celebrate the happy occasion. It was a matter of joy for all of us that Prathana had found her life partner.
It was really hectic for Mohan, Latha and the rest of the family ever since, planning and executing a grand wedding in a matter of 9 months. Shopping seemed endless as Latha, with her sisters, Madhu and Shanti, travelled to Delhi, Jaipur and other cities to hunt for the best for the children and the guests. Deepa and Sharu, two avid shoppers in the family, provided local expertise. Lekha was on her own hunt for clothes for herself and the rest of the family and for the best gift for Prarthana.
The first sign of the fruition of their efforts came when the invitation cards for the various events came in a golden box with goodies inside. Anyone, who received the box, could not have resisted the invitation. It must have been hard to choose the right people for the right events, though some of us received the entire package. Lekha and I set aside four days, Jan 22 to 25, 2011 and returned early from the US to get ready for the event. Lekha was busy before our trip to the US and after, handing out invitations to the large group of relatives and friends. Radhika and Hari also helped out. Mohan and Latha came to Thiruvananthapuram to invite some important guests. Many of them, including Princess Aswathy Thirunal. made the journey to Chennai to be part of the celebration.
The first event was a magnificent Chinese dinner at ‘Mainland China’ hosted by Latha’s youngest sister, Shanti and her globe- trotting husband, Ashok Kumar. This was within the family and the bridegroom’s party, consisting of Edward himself and his parents, were introduced to the family. They endeared themselves to everyone with their simple, but sophisticated ways. Till Ed met Prarthana, India was to them just the first two syllables of Indiana! They were travelling outside the US for the first time, but they did not seem to suffer from culture shock. The conservative “Indianaians” had no problem merging with Indians of three generations. The gifts that they brought from Indiana gladdened hearts all around.
The Mehendi Day the next day was primarily for women to get dressed for the wedding, to make merry and to celebrate the last day of Prarthana as a single girl. Artists adorned the palms of women with henna and the women were seen walking around with hands raised to get the henna dry. Dancing came naturally and as the men joined, there was a riot of colours in Hotel Park as magicians, tarot card readers, portrait painters entertained. Colourful bangles were available to adorn the slender female hands. The feast was but a harbinger of many more to come in the next two days.
The day of the wedding, January 24, also the wedding anniversary day of Mohan and Latha, started early when we drove at daybreak to the Shirdi Temple in the outskirts of Chennai for the ‘mangalsutra’ ceremony. In traditional Kerala clothes, Ed tied the ‘thali’ on his bride’s neck with Gopika’s help, perhaps the most important ceremony of a Nair wedding. The rest of the short ceremony ordained by the Nair community took place in a large hall, to the accompaniment, not only of the mandated ‘nadaswaram’, but also the lively ‘chenda’, the masterly percussion instrument of Kerala. The backdrop of the ceremony was the facade of a Kerala temple. The thirty-course sadya on plantain leaves completed the wedding ceremony with an endless line of well wishers lining up to greet the couple.
Those who missed the morning event and some of us who did not want to miss any event assembled for a grand dinner that evening. The bride and groom and the family were in new clothes, lined up against a new backdrop. Between the two events, the Who’s Who in Chennai was covered. We spotted Deputy Chief Minister Stalin, with machine gun wielding black cats, P. Suseela and S.Janaki, the legendary singers, Elayaraja and M.Jayachandran, music directors, Sujatha and Vijay Jesudas, the singers and many others.
The scene shifted to the Radisson Resort in Mahabalipuram for the grand finale on January 25, a gala dinner hosted by Vicky, the bride’s only brother. The youth took over the show, with toasts, singing and dancing. A video presentation showed the bride and bridegroom as they grew from tiny tots to adulthood. Speeches by elders were full of sentiments and love. I said that I was making up for not being present at Mohan’s wedding more than 30 years ago. I mentioned that it was appropriate that the bridegroom for the first international wedding in the family had come from the only super power. Prarthana had done more for India-US relations in a couple of years than what I could through diplomacy over ten years. I said that my son and grand daughter, who went to Indianapolis to meet Ed’s family, had reported that the Timpe family was a great asset. The cake, the food, the décor and the music were without blemish. It was past midnight when the tempo of the music reached feverish pitch and the young took over the dance floor and the elders took leave.
Presiding over the entire proceedings from the day one to the climax was the the bride’s grandfather, maestro M.S.Viswanathan, who strode the southern Indian film music scene like a colossus for half a century, and his wife. They had tears of joy in their eyes as they came to terms with the first granddaughter bidding goodbye. Mohan and Latha, who were so engrossed in making sure that everything went well, perhaps had no time to think of the distant home their daughter had acquired. The bridegroom and his parents, the only people in the bridegroom’s party, appeared to be enjoying the pomp and show of an Indian wedding, without having to worry about doing much, except to play their roles in the choreography. The absence of a self-important and demanding bridegroom’s party must be the dream of parents of every Indian bride!
For us, the bonus was catching up with youngsters in the family, whom we had met some years ago when they were much younger. Some of them had become adults and had their own families. As we boarded the flight for home after a hectic four days of feasting and bonding, the overwhelming thought was one of fulfillment that we were part of a joyous event of bringing together two cultures, two families and two souls in love.
My brother-in –law, Mohan and his wife, Latha, were in Indianapolis last May on a significant mission. Their daughter, Prarthana (‘Papu’ for us) a budding film director, who had already won a prize for her student production, chose to marry her friend from her institute, Edward Timpe. They went to convey not only their own blessings, but of the entire family to the couple and to meet Edward’s family. My son, Sreenath and his daughter, Durga, were at hand to celebrate the happy occasion. It was a matter of joy for all of us that Prathana had found her life partner.
It was really hectic for Mohan, Latha and the rest of the family ever since, planning and executing a grand wedding in a matter of 9 months. Shopping seemed endless as Latha, with her sisters, Madhu and Shanti, travelled to Delhi, Jaipur and other cities to hunt for the best for the children and the guests. Deepa and Sharu, two avid shoppers in the family, provided local expertise. Lekha was on her own hunt for clothes for herself and the rest of the family and for the best gift for Prarthana.
The first sign of the fruition of their efforts came when the invitation cards for the various events came in a golden box with goodies inside. Anyone, who received the box, could not have resisted the invitation. It must have been hard to choose the right people for the right events, though some of us received the entire package. Lekha and I set aside four days, Jan 22 to 25, 2011 and returned early from the US to get ready for the event. Lekha was busy before our trip to the US and after, handing out invitations to the large group of relatives and friends. Radhika and Hari also helped out. Mohan and Latha came to Thiruvananthapuram to invite some important guests. Many of them, including Princess Aswathy Thirunal. made the journey to Chennai to be part of the celebration.
The first event was a magnificent Chinese dinner at ‘Mainland China’ hosted by Latha’s youngest sister, Shanti and her globe- trotting husband, Ashok Kumar. This was within the family and the bridegroom’s party, consisting of Edward himself and his parents, were introduced to the family. They endeared themselves to everyone with their simple, but sophisticated ways. Till Ed met Prarthana, India was to them just the first two syllables of Indiana! They were travelling outside the US for the first time, but they did not seem to suffer from culture shock. The conservative “Indianaians” had no problem merging with Indians of three generations. The gifts that they brought from Indiana gladdened hearts all around.
The Mehendi Day the next day was primarily for women to get dressed for the wedding, to make merry and to celebrate the last day of Prarthana as a single girl. Artists adorned the palms of women with henna and the women were seen walking around with hands raised to get the henna dry. Dancing came naturally and as the men joined, there was a riot of colours in Hotel Park as magicians, tarot card readers, portrait painters entertained. Colourful bangles were available to adorn the slender female hands. The feast was but a harbinger of many more to come in the next two days.
The day of the wedding, January 24, also the wedding anniversary day of Mohan and Latha, started early when we drove at daybreak to the Shirdi Temple in the outskirts of Chennai for the ‘mangalsutra’ ceremony. In traditional Kerala clothes, Ed tied the ‘thali’ on his bride’s neck with Gopika’s help, perhaps the most important ceremony of a Nair wedding. The rest of the short ceremony ordained by the Nair community took place in a large hall, to the accompaniment, not only of the mandated ‘nadaswaram’, but also the lively ‘chenda’, the masterly percussion instrument of Kerala. The backdrop of the ceremony was the facade of a Kerala temple. The thirty-course sadya on plantain leaves completed the wedding ceremony with an endless line of well wishers lining up to greet the couple.
Those who missed the morning event and some of us who did not want to miss any event assembled for a grand dinner that evening. The bride and groom and the family were in new clothes, lined up against a new backdrop. Between the two events, the Who’s Who in Chennai was covered. We spotted Deputy Chief Minister Stalin, with machine gun wielding black cats, P. Suseela and S.Janaki, the legendary singers, Elayaraja and M.Jayachandran, music directors, Sujatha and Vijay Jesudas, the singers and many others.
The scene shifted to the Radisson Resort in Mahabalipuram for the grand finale on January 25, a gala dinner hosted by Vicky, the bride’s only brother. The youth took over the show, with toasts, singing and dancing. A video presentation showed the bride and bridegroom as they grew from tiny tots to adulthood. Speeches by elders were full of sentiments and love. I said that I was making up for not being present at Mohan’s wedding more than 30 years ago. I mentioned that it was appropriate that the bridegroom for the first international wedding in the family had come from the only super power. Prarthana had done more for India-US relations in a couple of years than what I could through diplomacy over ten years. I said that my son and grand daughter, who went to Indianapolis to meet Ed’s family, had reported that the Timpe family was a great asset. The cake, the food, the décor and the music were without blemish. It was past midnight when the tempo of the music reached feverish pitch and the young took over the dance floor and the elders took leave.
Presiding over the entire proceedings from the day one to the climax was the the bride’s grandfather, maestro M.S.Viswanathan, who strode the southern Indian film music scene like a colossus for half a century, and his wife. They had tears of joy in their eyes as they came to terms with the first granddaughter bidding goodbye. Mohan and Latha, who were so engrossed in making sure that everything went well, perhaps had no time to think of the distant home their daughter had acquired. The bridegroom and his parents, the only people in the bridegroom’s party, appeared to be enjoying the pomp and show of an Indian wedding, without having to worry about doing much, except to play their roles in the choreography. The absence of a self-important and demanding bridegroom’s party must be the dream of parents of every Indian bride!
For us, the bonus was catching up with youngsters in the family, whom we had met some years ago when they were much younger. Some of them had become adults and had their own families. As we boarded the flight for home after a hectic four days of feasting and bonding, the overwhelming thought was one of fulfillment that we were part of a joyous event of bringing together two cultures, two families and two souls in love.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
India's Smart Power in the US
January 19, 2011 19:59 IST
As India's [ Images ] involvement in the growth of the US deepens, the search for the soul of India gains momentum, says T P Sreenivasan.
Fareed Zakaria's The Post-American World may well be in the making as the East rises and the West declines. But New York is still vibrant and lively, majestic and magical. It has not lost its colour and noise, its variety and verve. Kishore Mahbubani's (the leading thinker on Asian and world affairs and professor at the National University of Singapore) comment that going from New York to New Delhi [ Images ] is like going from a funeral to a wedding seems to be an overstatement.
President Obama [ Images ] may have brought business deals and jobs from India, but what is in evidence everywhere is the Indian smart power. It is palpable not only in the traditional 'Little Indias' in different cities, but in mainstream newspapers, Ivy League universities, and the boardrooms of American companies. Most news channels have Indian anchors and most newspapers have Indian bylines. Indian authors, who write on India, get bought by major publishing houses.
Travel in the US in winter is hazardous even in the best of times. We missed flights, stayed indoors for three days as a snow storm consumed Manhattan and sprinted across five concourses at Atlanta airport to make it to the departure gate at midnight when the monorail came to a grinding halt.
The mayor of New York was taken to task for not cleaning up the roads on time. The snow played havoc with the subway system and yellow cabs disappeared from the streets when they were wanted most. But New York seemed to have recovered from the worst of its recession woes.
India is very much a part of the recovery of the US. The gifts that President Obama brought back from India do not tell the whole story.
New York is a happening place whether it is frozen cold or steaming hot. A peep into the control room of a CNN live show, featuring the media star Anderson Cooper, is enough to know the zest that goes into television production here. In the electronic maze of the control room are multiple men and women glued to television and computer screens, performing specialised functions which a single individual may be required to do in an Indian studio.
Cooper has about 40 people working for him in his production team -- this is for a single, nightly one-hour show. But his stardom does not keep Cooper from being as charming in personal conversations as he is on camera. He recalled his visits to India and said that India was an exciting place to cover. It was nice to see the walls and screens of the CNN office feature its Indian stars, Fareed Zakaria [ Images ] and Dr Sanjay Gupta.
Stars aren't just on television in America; the best chefs are celebrities, too. Manhattan's proud Indian fusion restaurant, Tabla, with its legendary Goan chef, Floyd Cardoz, closed its doors at the end of 2010. Its innovative Indian cuisine had held New Yorkers spellbound for ten years. But the owners of the restaurant found it harder after the recession to fill its massive dining rooms night after night. But I am sure Cardoz will not be wasted in the city that loves its Indian haute cuisine.
An equally resplendent, expensive Indian restaurant, Junoon, has opened its doors just around the corner from where Tabla thrived. Vikas Khanna, a young chef from Amritsar [ Images ], who began cooking at the age of eleven, has become the talk of the town.
The owner of Junoon, Rajesh Bhardwaj, originally from the Taj group, whose Cafe Spice chain is popular with New Yorkers, seemed confident that the US economy was on its way to full recovery and invested in a first-class gourmet place for Indian food. And just last week, Chef Hemant Mathur, part of the widely-acclaimed Devi with Suvir Saran, has opened another high-end Indian eatery, Tulsi.
Talking of the Taj group and the Tatas, it was an experience to walk into the Pierre Hotel on Fifth Avenue, the place I spent my first day in New York back in 1979, then famous for having been Nixon's campaign headquarters.
Today, it is a Taj establishment with special Indian decor in many suites. Anand Giridharadas of The New York Times launched his India Calling, An Intimate Portrait of a Nation's Remaking at the hotel's Rajput suite. His launching his book at a Tata enterprise in New York in the presence of his parents had its own story to tell. His father had left a Tata establishment many years ago in pursuit of the American dream, but now Tatas had become part of the American dream, the story that Giridharadas tells in his book in his own inimitable way.
Giridharadas tells the familiar story of the Indian miracle from the point of a returning native to whom India is an enigma wrapped up in mystery. But the style is refreshing and his keen eye for detail makes it enthralling reading. Living in India and reporting on a country he had to understand first and analyse it for the West, makes his book a must-read.
But like any number of foreign correspondents, Giridharadas spends too much time pondering over India's contradictions than its promises. He uses the technique of comparing what he heard about three generations of Giridharidases to the real people who met in India to explore modern India's dreams, ambition, pride, anger and love. The fault of this methodology is evident, but the book is an intimate account of his encounters.
The growth of literature on India by Indian and American authors, which began in earnest at the turn of the century, continues steadily. US bookstores are filled with new fiction and nonfiction about India and about other topics by Indians. They include familiar names -- Salman Rushdie [ Images ] (Luka and the Fire of Life), William Dalrymple (Nine Lives), Parag Khanna (How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance) -- as well as newcomers: Shilpi Somaya Gowda (Secret Daughter).
Meanwhile, presiding over the entire US publishing industry is its most powerful editor and impresario, Sonny Mehta, editor-in-chief of Alfred A Knopf. While I was there, the news came that Mehta, the man who had earlier bought Bill Clinton's [ Images ] memoirs for $10 million and Pope John Paul II's for $8.5 million, has also clinched a deal with Julian Assange of Wikileaks fame.
One of the books that Mehta personally championed last year, Cutting for Stone by Dr Abraham Verghese, has been on the NYT bestseller list for 50 straight weeks. Mehta is the son of Ambassador Amrik Mehta, one of my predecessors in Vienna [ Images ].
Business with India is very much on the minds even of immigration officers. Among the intriguing questions that an immigration agent of Thai origin asked me on my arrival in Atlanta from a short trip to Montego Bay was whether India was purchasing defence equipment from Atlanta.
While the other members of the family moved past the immigration with ease, the immigration officer suddenly got interested in a bundle of five diplomatic passports I passed to him as the US visa was on the oldest one. He began examining every page, reading out the names of countries I had visited in the last 10 years.
Then he began asking me political questions, which were of no relevance to my visit to the US. "Why did India accept Partition?" he asked with the curiosity of a research scholar. I was not in a mood to recount the history of the subcontinent and mumbled something about the colonial legacy.
Then came the interesting question about purchase of military aircraft. Apparently, he was referring to F-16s, which Lockheed Martin manufactures in Atlanta. He also asked about my views on China! My mind was more on my connecting flight I was sure to miss than on the future of China. I was relieved to see him stamping my passport.
An American friend saw a pattern of harassment of Indian diplomats in the questioning of the immigration official, having heard recently about the experiences of other diplomats. Perhaps, the days of diplomats breezing through immigration and customs lines are over in the US.
Reports that certain countries might be issuing diplomatic passports at a price must have alerted the Americans to the danger of terrorists masquerading as diplomats. But the question on F-16s lingered in my mind.
I am not sure if there are Indians building F-16s, but Indians continue to play a major role in US business. Two of the most powerful CEOs in New York are Pepsico's Indira Nooyi [ Images ] (named by Fortune magazine for the fifth year in a row to the top of its '50 most powerful women' list) and Vikram Pandit of Citigroup (who has successfully brought the bank back from the depths of the economic meltdown), not to speak of many other Indian business wizards at different levels in hundreds of US firms.
As India's involvement in the growth of the US deepens, the search for the soul of India gains momentum. India's smart power gets projected in the US in very many ways. The effort of Indian public diplomacy in the US should be to accentuate the positive elements.
T P Sreenivasan is a former ambassador of India to the United Nations, Vienna, and a former Governor for India at the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna. For
January 19, 2011 19:59 IST
As India's [ Images ] involvement in the growth of the US deepens, the search for the soul of India gains momentum, says T P Sreenivasan.
Fareed Zakaria's The Post-American World may well be in the making as the East rises and the West declines. But New York is still vibrant and lively, majestic and magical. It has not lost its colour and noise, its variety and verve. Kishore Mahbubani's (the leading thinker on Asian and world affairs and professor at the National University of Singapore) comment that going from New York to New Delhi [ Images ] is like going from a funeral to a wedding seems to be an overstatement.
President Obama [ Images ] may have brought business deals and jobs from India, but what is in evidence everywhere is the Indian smart power. It is palpable not only in the traditional 'Little Indias' in different cities, but in mainstream newspapers, Ivy League universities, and the boardrooms of American companies. Most news channels have Indian anchors and most newspapers have Indian bylines. Indian authors, who write on India, get bought by major publishing houses.
Travel in the US in winter is hazardous even in the best of times. We missed flights, stayed indoors for three days as a snow storm consumed Manhattan and sprinted across five concourses at Atlanta airport to make it to the departure gate at midnight when the monorail came to a grinding halt.
The mayor of New York was taken to task for not cleaning up the roads on time. The snow played havoc with the subway system and yellow cabs disappeared from the streets when they were wanted most. But New York seemed to have recovered from the worst of its recession woes.
India is very much a part of the recovery of the US. The gifts that President Obama brought back from India do not tell the whole story.
New York is a happening place whether it is frozen cold or steaming hot. A peep into the control room of a CNN live show, featuring the media star Anderson Cooper, is enough to know the zest that goes into television production here. In the electronic maze of the control room are multiple men and women glued to television and computer screens, performing specialised functions which a single individual may be required to do in an Indian studio.
Cooper has about 40 people working for him in his production team -- this is for a single, nightly one-hour show. But his stardom does not keep Cooper from being as charming in personal conversations as he is on camera. He recalled his visits to India and said that India was an exciting place to cover. It was nice to see the walls and screens of the CNN office feature its Indian stars, Fareed Zakaria [ Images ] and Dr Sanjay Gupta.
Stars aren't just on television in America; the best chefs are celebrities, too. Manhattan's proud Indian fusion restaurant, Tabla, with its legendary Goan chef, Floyd Cardoz, closed its doors at the end of 2010. Its innovative Indian cuisine had held New Yorkers spellbound for ten years. But the owners of the restaurant found it harder after the recession to fill its massive dining rooms night after night. But I am sure Cardoz will not be wasted in the city that loves its Indian haute cuisine.
An equally resplendent, expensive Indian restaurant, Junoon, has opened its doors just around the corner from where Tabla thrived. Vikas Khanna, a young chef from Amritsar [ Images ], who began cooking at the age of eleven, has become the talk of the town.
The owner of Junoon, Rajesh Bhardwaj, originally from the Taj group, whose Cafe Spice chain is popular with New Yorkers, seemed confident that the US economy was on its way to full recovery and invested in a first-class gourmet place for Indian food. And just last week, Chef Hemant Mathur, part of the widely-acclaimed Devi with Suvir Saran, has opened another high-end Indian eatery, Tulsi.
Talking of the Taj group and the Tatas, it was an experience to walk into the Pierre Hotel on Fifth Avenue, the place I spent my first day in New York back in 1979, then famous for having been Nixon's campaign headquarters.
Today, it is a Taj establishment with special Indian decor in many suites. Anand Giridharadas of The New York Times launched his India Calling, An Intimate Portrait of a Nation's Remaking at the hotel's Rajput suite. His launching his book at a Tata enterprise in New York in the presence of his parents had its own story to tell. His father had left a Tata establishment many years ago in pursuit of the American dream, but now Tatas had become part of the American dream, the story that Giridharadas tells in his book in his own inimitable way.
Giridharadas tells the familiar story of the Indian miracle from the point of a returning native to whom India is an enigma wrapped up in mystery. But the style is refreshing and his keen eye for detail makes it enthralling reading. Living in India and reporting on a country he had to understand first and analyse it for the West, makes his book a must-read.
But like any number of foreign correspondents, Giridharadas spends too much time pondering over India's contradictions than its promises. He uses the technique of comparing what he heard about three generations of Giridharidases to the real people who met in India to explore modern India's dreams, ambition, pride, anger and love. The fault of this methodology is evident, but the book is an intimate account of his encounters.
The growth of literature on India by Indian and American authors, which began in earnest at the turn of the century, continues steadily. US bookstores are filled with new fiction and nonfiction about India and about other topics by Indians. They include familiar names -- Salman Rushdie [ Images ] (Luka and the Fire of Life), William Dalrymple (Nine Lives), Parag Khanna (How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance) -- as well as newcomers: Shilpi Somaya Gowda (Secret Daughter).
Meanwhile, presiding over the entire US publishing industry is its most powerful editor and impresario, Sonny Mehta, editor-in-chief of Alfred A Knopf. While I was there, the news came that Mehta, the man who had earlier bought Bill Clinton's [ Images ] memoirs for $10 million and Pope John Paul II's for $8.5 million, has also clinched a deal with Julian Assange of Wikileaks fame.
One of the books that Mehta personally championed last year, Cutting for Stone by Dr Abraham Verghese, has been on the NYT bestseller list for 50 straight weeks. Mehta is the son of Ambassador Amrik Mehta, one of my predecessors in Vienna [ Images ].
Business with India is very much on the minds even of immigration officers. Among the intriguing questions that an immigration agent of Thai origin asked me on my arrival in Atlanta from a short trip to Montego Bay was whether India was purchasing defence equipment from Atlanta.
While the other members of the family moved past the immigration with ease, the immigration officer suddenly got interested in a bundle of five diplomatic passports I passed to him as the US visa was on the oldest one. He began examining every page, reading out the names of countries I had visited in the last 10 years.
Then he began asking me political questions, which were of no relevance to my visit to the US. "Why did India accept Partition?" he asked with the curiosity of a research scholar. I was not in a mood to recount the history of the subcontinent and mumbled something about the colonial legacy.
Then came the interesting question about purchase of military aircraft. Apparently, he was referring to F-16s, which Lockheed Martin manufactures in Atlanta. He also asked about my views on China! My mind was more on my connecting flight I was sure to miss than on the future of China. I was relieved to see him stamping my passport.
An American friend saw a pattern of harassment of Indian diplomats in the questioning of the immigration official, having heard recently about the experiences of other diplomats. Perhaps, the days of diplomats breezing through immigration and customs lines are over in the US.
Reports that certain countries might be issuing diplomatic passports at a price must have alerted the Americans to the danger of terrorists masquerading as diplomats. But the question on F-16s lingered in my mind.
I am not sure if there are Indians building F-16s, but Indians continue to play a major role in US business. Two of the most powerful CEOs in New York are Pepsico's Indira Nooyi [ Images ] (named by Fortune magazine for the fifth year in a row to the top of its '50 most powerful women' list) and Vikram Pandit of Citigroup (who has successfully brought the bank back from the depths of the economic meltdown), not to speak of many other Indian business wizards at different levels in hundreds of US firms.
As India's involvement in the growth of the US deepens, the search for the soul of India gains momentum. India's smart power gets projected in the US in very many ways. The effort of Indian public diplomacy in the US should be to accentuate the positive elements.
T P Sreenivasan is a former ambassador of India to the United Nations, Vienna, and a former Governor for India at the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna. For
Sunday, January 02, 2011
Clear Objectives in Foreign Policy in 2010
By T.P.Sreenivasan
At the end of the first decade of the new millennium, Indian foreign policy has clear objectives. These are not vague or ideological. India pursues them with dogged determination. Had it not been for multiple scams and signs of emerging political instability, India could have accomplished much more in 2010.
The significance of 2010 was not that the leaders of the permanent five and others visited India in one year. India never had any dearth of visitors, particularly in the salubrious winter months in Delhi. Our hospitality and accessibility are legendary. Perhaps the largest number of important foreign visitors came to India when sweeping changes took place in Delhi in 1977, 1980 and in 1998. There was always curiosity about Indian openness, just as there was curiosity about the Chinese enigma. But the visits in 2010 were not exploratory. They came to do business, to firm up long term relationships, to give and take. The balance sheet, in the end, was in favour of India.
India is no more the “elephant in the room” in multilateral negotiations. Nor are we the peace makers or honest brokers anymore. We are the builders of coalitions, not in pursuit of some vague idealistic goals, but with clear political and economic objectives. India now has a clear agenda and the world is willing to go more than half way to meet it. The world is convinced that the emergence of India on the global scene is largely beneficial as India plays by the rules. Bilateral relationships with India are now the building blocks of global governance.
Combating terrorism is not a new priority for India. But it was never the touchstone of our bilateral relationships as it has become today. We have blown hot and cold even with Pakistan on this issue and tolerance of terrorism was no sin for our friends if they saw it as an instrument of freedom fighters. For fear of our anti-terrorist policy being construed as anti-Pakistan, we set the conclusion of a comprehensive convention against terrorism as our goal, which has eluded us even in the aftermath of 9/11. Today, a country’s position and policies towards Pakistan’s trade in terrorism is a major factor in our bilateral relations. For this reason, the UK and Russia gained, the US and France won points and China failed in Indian eyes.
Nuclear policy is determined today not just by pursuit of disarmament, but by the need for energy. NPT may be taboo and CTBT may be problematic still, but FMCT is not untouchable. Nuclear cooperation is paramount in our calculations and that explains why it was possible to conclude the reprocessing agreement with the US and to sign the Vienna Convention of Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage. India was also able to overcome the objections to the purchase of the French Evolutionary Power Reactors. Non-prolifertion is part of our global agenda today and we are willing to be part of the NSG and MTCR. We are willing to consider even other arrangements relating to chemicals and conventional weapons if these bodies enhance fruitful cooperation. We object to China building nuclear reactors in Pakistan and Iran experimenting with explosion technology because of the risk of proliferation in our neighbourhood. We have no quarrel with either country developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
Pragmatism and clarity of purpose are visible in trade and environment also, though the path to be pursued appears confusing. We have begun to look at our own protective tendencies in return for major concessions from the rest of the industrial world. Even at the risk of diluting the principle of “common, but differentiated responsibility” and the concept of per capita emissions, we have moved from no binding commitments to voluntary commitments on reduction of greenhouse gases, subject to international monitoring and verification. The nation has not accepted the new approach, but these are issues in which we are more than willing to tango with the Chinese. India has matured enough to find our causes and our allies in different fields.
The pursuit of permanent membership of the UN Security Council is another clearly stated objective that has emerged in 2010. It may not be attainable in the near future, the sacrifices we have to make to pursue it may be too big and even its value as an objective may be called into question. But at no time had this objective been clearer since we first mooted the expansion in 1979. India knows well that individual commitments to India without a universally acceptable formula are meaningless. But we expect that the contours of such a formula will emerge sooner than later and we should not be wanting in support at that time. France, the UK, Russia and the US, perhaps in that order of warmth, acceded to the wishes of India and even China could not remain altogether silent. The objective of entering the Security Council, even without a veto is clear. What is not clear is the value of being there, except as an acceptance of our political status, commensurate with our economic growth. G-20 is an accomplished fact, which has whetted our appetite for a larger horse-shoe table at the United Nations.
In 2010, India demonstrated that it is possible to secure political concessions from others for economic deals, even when such deals are mutually beneficial. In the old days, Santa Claus came with a bag full of gifts, but went back empty handed. But in 2010, his bag was more than full on his return journey too. Each one of our visitors had something to show to his people as the gains from India. Except for China, they made gestures of various kinds in return in areas of our priority- anti-terrorism, energy, environment, trade and a role in global governance. Such gains at the global level have not been forthcoming in the past. India demanded reciprocity and equity on issues ranging from diplomatic immunity to Jammu and Kashmir, without being brow beaten by more powerful nations.
We seem to have succeeded in insulating foreign policy from chaos at home. One telling example was delaying the firing of the Maharashtra Chief Minister till Air Force One was clearly out of sight. India may have lost heavily in the Commonwealth Games, but the foreign athletes went back fairly happy. The communications network survived the 2 G spectrum scandal. The world has not lost faith in our democracy even after an entire parliament session was wasted. The steady course of our foreign policy may well have helped us survive 2010
By T.P.Sreenivasan
At the end of the first decade of the new millennium, Indian foreign policy has clear objectives. These are not vague or ideological. India pursues them with dogged determination. Had it not been for multiple scams and signs of emerging political instability, India could have accomplished much more in 2010.
The significance of 2010 was not that the leaders of the permanent five and others visited India in one year. India never had any dearth of visitors, particularly in the salubrious winter months in Delhi. Our hospitality and accessibility are legendary. Perhaps the largest number of important foreign visitors came to India when sweeping changes took place in Delhi in 1977, 1980 and in 1998. There was always curiosity about Indian openness, just as there was curiosity about the Chinese enigma. But the visits in 2010 were not exploratory. They came to do business, to firm up long term relationships, to give and take. The balance sheet, in the end, was in favour of India.
India is no more the “elephant in the room” in multilateral negotiations. Nor are we the peace makers or honest brokers anymore. We are the builders of coalitions, not in pursuit of some vague idealistic goals, but with clear political and economic objectives. India now has a clear agenda and the world is willing to go more than half way to meet it. The world is convinced that the emergence of India on the global scene is largely beneficial as India plays by the rules. Bilateral relationships with India are now the building blocks of global governance.
Combating terrorism is not a new priority for India. But it was never the touchstone of our bilateral relationships as it has become today. We have blown hot and cold even with Pakistan on this issue and tolerance of terrorism was no sin for our friends if they saw it as an instrument of freedom fighters. For fear of our anti-terrorist policy being construed as anti-Pakistan, we set the conclusion of a comprehensive convention against terrorism as our goal, which has eluded us even in the aftermath of 9/11. Today, a country’s position and policies towards Pakistan’s trade in terrorism is a major factor in our bilateral relations. For this reason, the UK and Russia gained, the US and France won points and China failed in Indian eyes.
Nuclear policy is determined today not just by pursuit of disarmament, but by the need for energy. NPT may be taboo and CTBT may be problematic still, but FMCT is not untouchable. Nuclear cooperation is paramount in our calculations and that explains why it was possible to conclude the reprocessing agreement with the US and to sign the Vienna Convention of Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage. India was also able to overcome the objections to the purchase of the French Evolutionary Power Reactors. Non-prolifertion is part of our global agenda today and we are willing to be part of the NSG and MTCR. We are willing to consider even other arrangements relating to chemicals and conventional weapons if these bodies enhance fruitful cooperation. We object to China building nuclear reactors in Pakistan and Iran experimenting with explosion technology because of the risk of proliferation in our neighbourhood. We have no quarrel with either country developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
Pragmatism and clarity of purpose are visible in trade and environment also, though the path to be pursued appears confusing. We have begun to look at our own protective tendencies in return for major concessions from the rest of the industrial world. Even at the risk of diluting the principle of “common, but differentiated responsibility” and the concept of per capita emissions, we have moved from no binding commitments to voluntary commitments on reduction of greenhouse gases, subject to international monitoring and verification. The nation has not accepted the new approach, but these are issues in which we are more than willing to tango with the Chinese. India has matured enough to find our causes and our allies in different fields.
The pursuit of permanent membership of the UN Security Council is another clearly stated objective that has emerged in 2010. It may not be attainable in the near future, the sacrifices we have to make to pursue it may be too big and even its value as an objective may be called into question. But at no time had this objective been clearer since we first mooted the expansion in 1979. India knows well that individual commitments to India without a universally acceptable formula are meaningless. But we expect that the contours of such a formula will emerge sooner than later and we should not be wanting in support at that time. France, the UK, Russia and the US, perhaps in that order of warmth, acceded to the wishes of India and even China could not remain altogether silent. The objective of entering the Security Council, even without a veto is clear. What is not clear is the value of being there, except as an acceptance of our political status, commensurate with our economic growth. G-20 is an accomplished fact, which has whetted our appetite for a larger horse-shoe table at the United Nations.
In 2010, India demonstrated that it is possible to secure political concessions from others for economic deals, even when such deals are mutually beneficial. In the old days, Santa Claus came with a bag full of gifts, but went back empty handed. But in 2010, his bag was more than full on his return journey too. Each one of our visitors had something to show to his people as the gains from India. Except for China, they made gestures of various kinds in return in areas of our priority- anti-terrorism, energy, environment, trade and a role in global governance. Such gains at the global level have not been forthcoming in the past. India demanded reciprocity and equity on issues ranging from diplomatic immunity to Jammu and Kashmir, without being brow beaten by more powerful nations.
We seem to have succeeded in insulating foreign policy from chaos at home. One telling example was delaying the firing of the Maharashtra Chief Minister till Air Force One was clearly out of sight. India may have lost heavily in the Commonwealth Games, but the foreign athletes went back fairly happy. The communications network survived the 2 G spectrum scandal. The world has not lost faith in our democracy even after an entire parliament session was wasted. The steady course of our foreign policy may well have helped us survive 2010
NEW YEAR WISHES AND THOUGHTS 2011
I have the privilege this year to greet you in the New Year from the island paradise of Jamaica, where all the Sreenivasans have assembled. For some of us, it is a holiday from holiday, but for our children and grandchildren, it is a welcome change from hectic work and study. The holiday was meticulously planned by Sreenath and Roopa. Sharavati, Sreekanth’s wife, who joined the family in November 2009 was also actively involved. The most excited are our grandchildren, Durga and Krishna, who have begun to value family bonding.
The year 2010 was a year more of continuity than change for us. I continued my second career as a writer, broadcaster and an evangelist for foreign policy. As a member of the National Security Advisory Board, I travelled frequently to Delhi and participated in intellectually stimulating discussions with some of the best minds in India. The Kerala International Centre today is a credible think tank with an impressive membership and interesting activities. I had more invitations for talks in India and abroad than I could accept, but I did as many as I could. My third book went to the publishers this year and it should be out in the New Year.
Lekha continued her artistic and charitable pursuits. She realized her dream of setting up a Karuna Charities home for the sick and the destitute in Thiruvananthapuram, which has the facility to put up and look after about 20 people at a time. She finds peace and joy in giving attention to the sick and the poor.
My elder son, Sreenath, who is in his 17th year at Columbia, turned 40 and used it as an excuse to connect 40-year-olds around the world in a social-media effort to help those who live where life expectancy is less than 40, via Giftof40.com. He has added social media to his academic repertoire, and was named by the prestigious Poynter Institute as one of the 35 most influential people in social media and by the Society of Professional Journalists as of the 20 journalists to follow on Twitter (but as a teacher, he was most proud of the fact that three of his students were on the same list!). If you are on Twitter yourself, you can follow him at @sree.
Sreenath's wife, Roopa, (@roopaonline) continues to play senior roles at Pfizer, the world's largest pharma company. She is now a vice president of strategy for the company, which is going through major changes as it transitions in a new CEO and deals with the integration of another pharma giant Wyeth, which it bought for $68 billion. I continue to marvel at how Roopa does it all: being a corporate executive while being a highly engaged mother to her twins. She's a role model for working mothers everywhere.
The twins, Durga and Krishna, now 7.5 years old, are thriving in second grade. Their extracurriculars include fencing and basketball for Krishna; fencing and Bharata Natyam for Durga. They both study Hindi on Saturdays. One of the highlights for me this year is that I've gotten to spend more time with them, including on this extended Jamaica vacation. Though I have been nervous as they, like their mother, have become daredevils. My heart has been in my throat as they do things like parasailing, whitewater rafting, snorkeling and ziplining.
My younger son, Sreekanth and his wife, Sharavati have just celebrated their first wedding anniversary and settled down well in Gurgaon. Shree is now the General Manager of Netra India Limited which has made much headway in establishing its business in India. His passion for music of all kinds and social networking has won him a broad circle of friends around the globe. You may follow him at @shreedel.
Sharavati, who left her position as an anchor in ‘Headlines Today’ just before marriage, partnered me in my new book as a researcher and writer.
As for the wider family circle, my brothers and their families have done well in the year. One significant decision taken by my elder brother and his daughter, Suni and her husband Jayakumar to rebuild our family home in Kayamkulam gladdened all of us. My younger brother, Madhu retired as an Air Vice Marshall and moved to Jamshedpur to serve the Tatas. My brother in the Foreign Service, Seetharam, enjoyed his tenure as the Joint Secretary (West Europe) in the Ministry of External Affairs. The younger generation too brought laurels to the family.
The first international marriage by a member of the family was fixed during the year. We look forward in the New Year to the wedding of Prarthana, the daughter of my brother-in-law, Mohan, and Ed Timpe of Indiana.
The overwhelming sense about India in the year, despite our many accomplishments, particularly in foreign policy, was one of despondency about corruption growing deeper and deeper. The sense of resignation about this cancer is terrifying. In my view, the danger of this trend is that fewer people will be willing to make sacrifices for the country since the fruits of their labour will go the crooked and the corrupt. The best we can hope for the future is that the corrupt will be brought to book and that a sense of responsibility and fair play will prevail. My year-end analysis of India's foreign policy is available at http://bit.ly/tpsfp2010
The end of the year is the time to learn from our experiences and to plan for the future. We may still make mistakes, but the history of mistakes will not repeat itself. Good New Year resolutions should be made even if some of them are broken.
Lekha and I thank you for your kindness and friendship in the year 2010, for the messages of good wishes in various forms that we have received in the past weeks and wish you and yours the very best in 2011. We hope our paths will cross in the New Year and we will have much to share and cherish.
Sincerely,
Sreeni
(@sreeniv)
December 31, 2010
I have the privilege this year to greet you in the New Year from the island paradise of Jamaica, where all the Sreenivasans have assembled. For some of us, it is a holiday from holiday, but for our children and grandchildren, it is a welcome change from hectic work and study. The holiday was meticulously planned by Sreenath and Roopa. Sharavati, Sreekanth’s wife, who joined the family in November 2009 was also actively involved. The most excited are our grandchildren, Durga and Krishna, who have begun to value family bonding.
The year 2010 was a year more of continuity than change for us. I continued my second career as a writer, broadcaster and an evangelist for foreign policy. As a member of the National Security Advisory Board, I travelled frequently to Delhi and participated in intellectually stimulating discussions with some of the best minds in India. The Kerala International Centre today is a credible think tank with an impressive membership and interesting activities. I had more invitations for talks in India and abroad than I could accept, but I did as many as I could. My third book went to the publishers this year and it should be out in the New Year.
Lekha continued her artistic and charitable pursuits. She realized her dream of setting up a Karuna Charities home for the sick and the destitute in Thiruvananthapuram, which has the facility to put up and look after about 20 people at a time. She finds peace and joy in giving attention to the sick and the poor.
My elder son, Sreenath, who is in his 17th year at Columbia, turned 40 and used it as an excuse to connect 40-year-olds around the world in a social-media effort to help those who live where life expectancy is less than 40, via Giftof40.com. He has added social media to his academic repertoire, and was named by the prestigious Poynter Institute as one of the 35 most influential people in social media and by the Society of Professional Journalists as of the 20 journalists to follow on Twitter (but as a teacher, he was most proud of the fact that three of his students were on the same list!). If you are on Twitter yourself, you can follow him at @sree.
Sreenath's wife, Roopa, (@roopaonline) continues to play senior roles at Pfizer, the world's largest pharma company. She is now a vice president of strategy for the company, which is going through major changes as it transitions in a new CEO and deals with the integration of another pharma giant Wyeth, which it bought for $68 billion. I continue to marvel at how Roopa does it all: being a corporate executive while being a highly engaged mother to her twins. She's a role model for working mothers everywhere.
The twins, Durga and Krishna, now 7.5 years old, are thriving in second grade. Their extracurriculars include fencing and basketball for Krishna; fencing and Bharata Natyam for Durga. They both study Hindi on Saturdays. One of the highlights for me this year is that I've gotten to spend more time with them, including on this extended Jamaica vacation. Though I have been nervous as they, like their mother, have become daredevils. My heart has been in my throat as they do things like parasailing, whitewater rafting, snorkeling and ziplining.
My younger son, Sreekanth and his wife, Sharavati have just celebrated their first wedding anniversary and settled down well in Gurgaon. Shree is now the General Manager of Netra India Limited which has made much headway in establishing its business in India. His passion for music of all kinds and social networking has won him a broad circle of friends around the globe. You may follow him at @shreedel.
Sharavati, who left her position as an anchor in ‘Headlines Today’ just before marriage, partnered me in my new book as a researcher and writer.
As for the wider family circle, my brothers and their families have done well in the year. One significant decision taken by my elder brother and his daughter, Suni and her husband Jayakumar to rebuild our family home in Kayamkulam gladdened all of us. My younger brother, Madhu retired as an Air Vice Marshall and moved to Jamshedpur to serve the Tatas. My brother in the Foreign Service, Seetharam, enjoyed his tenure as the Joint Secretary (West Europe) in the Ministry of External Affairs. The younger generation too brought laurels to the family.
The first international marriage by a member of the family was fixed during the year. We look forward in the New Year to the wedding of Prarthana, the daughter of my brother-in-law, Mohan, and Ed Timpe of Indiana.
The overwhelming sense about India in the year, despite our many accomplishments, particularly in foreign policy, was one of despondency about corruption growing deeper and deeper. The sense of resignation about this cancer is terrifying. In my view, the danger of this trend is that fewer people will be willing to make sacrifices for the country since the fruits of their labour will go the crooked and the corrupt. The best we can hope for the future is that the corrupt will be brought to book and that a sense of responsibility and fair play will prevail. My year-end analysis of India's foreign policy is available at http://bit.ly/tpsfp2010
The end of the year is the time to learn from our experiences and to plan for the future. We may still make mistakes, but the history of mistakes will not repeat itself. Good New Year resolutions should be made even if some of them are broken.
Lekha and I thank you for your kindness and friendship in the year 2010, for the messages of good wishes in various forms that we have received in the past weeks and wish you and yours the very best in 2011. We hope our paths will cross in the New Year and we will have much to share and cherish.
Sincerely,
Sreeni
(@sreeniv)
December 31, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Art of Dealing with the Weather-George and Bowie
By T.P.Sreenivasan
This may be an apocryphal story, but worth recounting as the weather has turned the United States topsy turvy, with flights canceled, trains stranded, roads blocked, holiday plans scuttled and people put to endless misery. The most powerful and scientifically advanced nation bowed to mother nature.
The story is about the visit to Washington by the President of India, Dr.Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan at the time of President John F.Kennedy. The presidential helicopter landed on the White House lawns in torrential rain and the entire welcome ceremony was ruined. As President Radhakrishnan braved the rain and finally stepped into the White House, President Kennedy said: "Mr.President, I am sorry, we have not yet developed the science of controlling the weather." President Radhakrishnan did not miss the arrogance in that statement. "Don't worry, Mr.President," he said, "we in India mastered the art of dealing with the weather centuries ago."
The ancient Indian art of dealing with the weather came in handy this Christmas Day for us. Having complained that the Christmas was not white this year for the sake of my daughter-in-law, Sharavati, who preferred the cold New York to the warm Bali for a holiday, eight Sreenivasans set out for La Guardia airport, ready to fly out for Montego Bay via Atlanta. The Delta lines appeared thin for Christmas day and we congratulated ourselves for booking our flights after Christmas eve. Then came the shocker that all flights to Atlanta were canceled because of bad weather there and we should remain in line for alternate flights to Montego Bay. There were rumours that there was nothing wrong with the weather and that the Delta employees were on a slow down strike.
Of course, the Delta employee, with whom we spent the next hour, with children sleeping on chairs and all of us making various suggestions, was indeed slow, but helpful. She took a long time to locate the Sreenivasans, an Unnikrishnan and a Choksi and finally when she did, she decided to arbitrarily make us into pairs and send us in different directions such as Cincinnati, Colorado and Sacramento. When we wanted to make changes in the pairings, she adamantly refused, as though her computer would not accept such logic.But our persistence paid off and she found seats on a direct flight to Montego Bay from JFK, but not without insisting that she would book us only two at a time. As Roopa and Durga were the last pair ordained by the computer, they had to wait the longest.
As we were lounging in exhaustion in a corner, a huge African- American employee in Delta uniform walked towards us menacingly and we were ready for some stern advice about airport behaviour. We could barely make out his accent when he asked us: "What remains short even if we add anything to it?" Then only we realised he was trying to keep us amused with a riddle. We dont know, we said in consternation. "The word"short"!", he said triumphantly and walked off to the next group of weary passengers!
Having obtained the seats on a direct flight the next day, we started to deal with the situation. The first thing to remember was that Roopa's parents would arrive in the next hours expecting to have an empty apartment for themselves and they would have to cope with eight Sreenivasans for a night. But we had faith in their ability to put up with us just for a night. We gave them a surprise by not telling them the happy news that we would be there to receive them. The weather was still good, though there were predictions of a snow storm the next day afternoon. We said triumphantly that we would take off before the snow arrived and settled on inflated mattresses and convertible sofas.
We drove the next morning to JFK with the confidence that all of us had confirmed tickets. There were hardly any passengers to be seen and we thought we had a whole plane to ourselves. Armed with boarding passes, we breezed through immigration and security, feeling great that there was no pat-down on any of us except little Durga, who was given special treatment.
After two hours of joyful savouring of sandwiches and cofee and coconut water in anticipation of the tropics, we were invited to board and as we stood in line, we heard an announcement seeking volunteers to stay back and get a package of some Delta dollars, hotel room, food vouchers and taxi fares, together with confirmed booking in Business Class three days later. We joked that we could volunteer and stay back, but dismissed the thought immediately as we wanted to be together in the balmy Jamaica before the arrival of the snow storm in New york. We decided to help the airline by spreading the news of the offer to those in line, but no one obliged. Then came the surprises of surprises. Delta was seeking volunteers to find seats for us, Lekha, myself and a Jamaican lady, whom we had seen even on the previous day. There was only one seat for the three of us. We became the reluctant volunteers as both of us could not go and the Jamaican lady boarded with our children, who wished us a happy stay in New York as they bid a reluctant goodbye.
Delta kept the promise and gave us a handful of vouchers and sent us back home in a stately limousine to be received by smiling Unnikrishnans and snow flurries, which had begun to dance in the wind. Within hours, a snow storm, unprecedented since 1996, turned New york into a mountain of snow. We sent out the news on Facebook and Twitter to get an avalanche of messages and phone calls suggesting activities ranging from reading to honeymoon. We saw the power of social networking.
We too called our fellow KICian, Attorney Ram Cheerath,who, we heard, had already spent a day at JFK, not knowing when he would leave. Apparently, 'Etihad' had told him that their flight was on time and he took seven hours to get to the airport only to find that the counter was closed. He could not return home and he told us there was not enough food and water there to go round. We could give him nothing but a lot of sympathy.
Only one caller to us, Bowie, the wife of the musician, George Mathew, a close friend of Sree, who had visited us in Trivandrum a few months ago, said that she and her husband would like to come over with some food. Mathew, who had brought symphonic music to focus on global humanitarian issues,had raised funds for war victims in Darfur and flood victims in Pakistan. I had heard about his new project, "Beethoven for the Indus Valley."
I assured Bowie that we had stocked up food and that the Gristedes next door was still open. But she insisted on coming and I agreed, thinking that they would not be able to make it. But there they were, not only with a bag of chicken stew and material to make the Kerala specialty, puttu, but also a bundle of joy, their three months old son, Akbar, about whom we were not even aware!
They made puttu in our own kitchen and after a delightful meal, they walked into the pouring snow, not even sure of getting a cab. We could only pray that they reached home safely and they did. As we settled down to our snow prison term for the next three days, we wondered what prompted the Mathews to brave into the brutal weather outside with a little baby. The art of dealing with the weather was never on such splendid display! Bowie was not even born in India. She had learnt the Indian art from her husband.
By T.P.Sreenivasan
This may be an apocryphal story, but worth recounting as the weather has turned the United States topsy turvy, with flights canceled, trains stranded, roads blocked, holiday plans scuttled and people put to endless misery. The most powerful and scientifically advanced nation bowed to mother nature.
The story is about the visit to Washington by the President of India, Dr.Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan at the time of President John F.Kennedy. The presidential helicopter landed on the White House lawns in torrential rain and the entire welcome ceremony was ruined. As President Radhakrishnan braved the rain and finally stepped into the White House, President Kennedy said: "Mr.President, I am sorry, we have not yet developed the science of controlling the weather." President Radhakrishnan did not miss the arrogance in that statement. "Don't worry, Mr.President," he said, "we in India mastered the art of dealing with the weather centuries ago."
The ancient Indian art of dealing with the weather came in handy this Christmas Day for us. Having complained that the Christmas was not white this year for the sake of my daughter-in-law, Sharavati, who preferred the cold New York to the warm Bali for a holiday, eight Sreenivasans set out for La Guardia airport, ready to fly out for Montego Bay via Atlanta. The Delta lines appeared thin for Christmas day and we congratulated ourselves for booking our flights after Christmas eve. Then came the shocker that all flights to Atlanta were canceled because of bad weather there and we should remain in line for alternate flights to Montego Bay. There were rumours that there was nothing wrong with the weather and that the Delta employees were on a slow down strike.
Of course, the Delta employee, with whom we spent the next hour, with children sleeping on chairs and all of us making various suggestions, was indeed slow, but helpful. She took a long time to locate the Sreenivasans, an Unnikrishnan and a Choksi and finally when she did, she decided to arbitrarily make us into pairs and send us in different directions such as Cincinnati, Colorado and Sacramento. When we wanted to make changes in the pairings, she adamantly refused, as though her computer would not accept such logic.But our persistence paid off and she found seats on a direct flight to Montego Bay from JFK, but not without insisting that she would book us only two at a time. As Roopa and Durga were the last pair ordained by the computer, they had to wait the longest.
As we were lounging in exhaustion in a corner, a huge African- American employee in Delta uniform walked towards us menacingly and we were ready for some stern advice about airport behaviour. We could barely make out his accent when he asked us: "What remains short even if we add anything to it?" Then only we realised he was trying to keep us amused with a riddle. We dont know, we said in consternation. "The word"short"!", he said triumphantly and walked off to the next group of weary passengers!
Having obtained the seats on a direct flight the next day, we started to deal with the situation. The first thing to remember was that Roopa's parents would arrive in the next hours expecting to have an empty apartment for themselves and they would have to cope with eight Sreenivasans for a night. But we had faith in their ability to put up with us just for a night. We gave them a surprise by not telling them the happy news that we would be there to receive them. The weather was still good, though there were predictions of a snow storm the next day afternoon. We said triumphantly that we would take off before the snow arrived and settled on inflated mattresses and convertible sofas.
We drove the next morning to JFK with the confidence that all of us had confirmed tickets. There were hardly any passengers to be seen and we thought we had a whole plane to ourselves. Armed with boarding passes, we breezed through immigration and security, feeling great that there was no pat-down on any of us except little Durga, who was given special treatment.
After two hours of joyful savouring of sandwiches and cofee and coconut water in anticipation of the tropics, we were invited to board and as we stood in line, we heard an announcement seeking volunteers to stay back and get a package of some Delta dollars, hotel room, food vouchers and taxi fares, together with confirmed booking in Business Class three days later. We joked that we could volunteer and stay back, but dismissed the thought immediately as we wanted to be together in the balmy Jamaica before the arrival of the snow storm in New york. We decided to help the airline by spreading the news of the offer to those in line, but no one obliged. Then came the surprises of surprises. Delta was seeking volunteers to find seats for us, Lekha, myself and a Jamaican lady, whom we had seen even on the previous day. There was only one seat for the three of us. We became the reluctant volunteers as both of us could not go and the Jamaican lady boarded with our children, who wished us a happy stay in New York as they bid a reluctant goodbye.
Delta kept the promise and gave us a handful of vouchers and sent us back home in a stately limousine to be received by smiling Unnikrishnans and snow flurries, which had begun to dance in the wind. Within hours, a snow storm, unprecedented since 1996, turned New york into a mountain of snow. We sent out the news on Facebook and Twitter to get an avalanche of messages and phone calls suggesting activities ranging from reading to honeymoon. We saw the power of social networking.
We too called our fellow KICian, Attorney Ram Cheerath,who, we heard, had already spent a day at JFK, not knowing when he would leave. Apparently, 'Etihad' had told him that their flight was on time and he took seven hours to get to the airport only to find that the counter was closed. He could not return home and he told us there was not enough food and water there to go round. We could give him nothing but a lot of sympathy.
Only one caller to us, Bowie, the wife of the musician, George Mathew, a close friend of Sree, who had visited us in Trivandrum a few months ago, said that she and her husband would like to come over with some food. Mathew, who had brought symphonic music to focus on global humanitarian issues,had raised funds for war victims in Darfur and flood victims in Pakistan. I had heard about his new project, "Beethoven for the Indus Valley."
I assured Bowie that we had stocked up food and that the Gristedes next door was still open. But she insisted on coming and I agreed, thinking that they would not be able to make it. But there they were, not only with a bag of chicken stew and material to make the Kerala specialty, puttu, but also a bundle of joy, their three months old son, Akbar, about whom we were not even aware!
They made puttu in our own kitchen and after a delightful meal, they walked into the pouring snow, not even sure of getting a cab. We could only pray that they reached home safely and they did. As we settled down to our snow prison term for the next three days, we wondered what prompted the Mathews to brave into the brutal weather outside with a little baby. The art of dealing with the weather was never on such splendid display! Bowie was not even born in India. She had learnt the Indian art from her husband.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
China Reacts to my Rediff Article
I am flattered that 'Global Times' China has responded to my Rediff article on India China relations.
(http://www.rediff.com/news/column/column-india-china-relations-worse-than-in-1962/20101221.htm)
By using selective quotations from the article, the newspaper has characterised my article as "irresponsible" and contrasted it with the statements made by the Foreign Secretary and the President of India. This is standard practice for the Chinese press. Interestingly, the paper has not listed among the examples the J&K related developments ie the stapled visas and the disappearance of the length of the border. This indicates that they see those as the more negative elements in Chinese policy. A colleague has just sent me an English translation, which is below. I wish the Chinese themselves had denied the assessment instead of using public statements of Indian dignitaries!
The article appeared in the Global Times (Huanqiu Shibao)
‘Some people in India continue to make provocative statements with regard to China-India relations. A few days ago, former Indian ambassador to the US Mr. T.P. Sreenivasan made an irresponsible assertion that the future of China-India relations is bound to result in conflict. He also said that the current state of China-India relations is even worse than 1962.
According to Rediff India news report on 21st December, in a commentary on India-China relations, Mr. Sreenivasan said, “Those who know China would not be complacent enough to think that the China threat is an illusion”. He said, “It is no more a question whether there will be a confrontation between India and China, but when it will take place”.
He further said that the current state of China-India relations is worse than 1962. Sreenivasan listed the following examples: In 1962, China had not gifted Pakistan with nuclear weapons; however, it has gifted two nuclear reactors to Pakistan in 2010. In 1962, there was only a border dispute; however, in 2010, there is not only a border dispute, but “China also occupies tens of thousands of square kilometers of Indian territory”.
Mr. Sreenivasan is currently the Director General of Kerala International Centre which is an Indian foreign policy think-tank. He is also a member of Indian National Security Advisory Board. His remarks above seem to run contrary to the views of Indian authorities. Commenting on the recent visit of Premier Wen to India, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said that this visit has deepened the understanding and trust between the two countries and is important in the context of further development of relations between the two countries. On December 16, President Prathiba Patil said after meeting with Premier Wen that she hopes that the friendly relations between the two peoples would last for generations and also said that this visit is significant, coming as it does on the 60th anniversary year of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.’
I am flattered that 'Global Times' China has responded to my Rediff article on India China relations.
(http://www.rediff.com/news/column/column-india-china-relations-worse-than-in-1962/20101221.htm)
By using selective quotations from the article, the newspaper has characterised my article as "irresponsible" and contrasted it with the statements made by the Foreign Secretary and the President of India. This is standard practice for the Chinese press. Interestingly, the paper has not listed among the examples the J&K related developments ie the stapled visas and the disappearance of the length of the border. This indicates that they see those as the more negative elements in Chinese policy. A colleague has just sent me an English translation, which is below. I wish the Chinese themselves had denied the assessment instead of using public statements of Indian dignitaries!
The article appeared in the Global Times (Huanqiu Shibao)
‘Some people in India continue to make provocative statements with regard to China-India relations. A few days ago, former Indian ambassador to the US Mr. T.P. Sreenivasan made an irresponsible assertion that the future of China-India relations is bound to result in conflict. He also said that the current state of China-India relations is even worse than 1962.
According to Rediff India news report on 21st December, in a commentary on India-China relations, Mr. Sreenivasan said, “Those who know China would not be complacent enough to think that the China threat is an illusion”. He said, “It is no more a question whether there will be a confrontation between India and China, but when it will take place”.
He further said that the current state of China-India relations is worse than 1962. Sreenivasan listed the following examples: In 1962, China had not gifted Pakistan with nuclear weapons; however, it has gifted two nuclear reactors to Pakistan in 2010. In 1962, there was only a border dispute; however, in 2010, there is not only a border dispute, but “China also occupies tens of thousands of square kilometers of Indian territory”.
Mr. Sreenivasan is currently the Director General of Kerala International Centre which is an Indian foreign policy think-tank. He is also a member of Indian National Security Advisory Board. His remarks above seem to run contrary to the views of Indian authorities. Commenting on the recent visit of Premier Wen to India, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said that this visit has deepened the understanding and trust between the two countries and is important in the context of further development of relations between the two countries. On December 16, President Prathiba Patil said after meeting with Premier Wen that she hopes that the friendly relations between the two peoples would last for generations and also said that this visit is significant, coming as it does on the 60th anniversary year of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.’
India-China Relations in 2010 worse than in 1962
The bewildering questions that haunt mankind like “who?” and “when?” may have nothing to do with the names of Chinese leaders, Hu and Wen, but they bewilder us as much today as the eternal questions always did. Even the best Indian minds are unable to fathom the intentions and inclinations of the duo, which is poised to take the leadership of the world. After the latest Wen visit, it is no more a question whether there will be a confrontation between India and China, but “when” it will take place and “who” the dramatis personae will be when it occurs.
We have assurances from those who know China well that 1962 will not happen again. They contend that China is no more an isolated dragon, learning the art of breathing fire into the neighbourhood. As it has grown huge and powerful, it has become domesticated and responsible and would like to tango with the elephant. The elephant can relax in the thought that the dragon will not step on its toes or its fiery breath will not incinerate it. But there is one condition: the elephant has to tango to the tune of the dragon. The dragon, in the meantime, grows big enough to swallow the elephant at short notice. But we are also assured that the dragon is not as strong as it appears and it has bad entrails, which may afflict it at any time.
The year 2010 is certainly not 1962. At that time, there was only a border dispute and the presence of the Dalai Lama to provoke a war. Today, those two still remain and China misses no opportunity to remind us that there was “a certain unpleasantness” in the relationship sometime in the past. According to our calculations, China still occupies 38,000 square kilometers of Indian territory in Ladakh and another 5000 square kilometers, ceded to it by China in Kashmir. Nothing has changed in that situation since the devastating defeat of 1962.
On the other hand, there is much at the close of 2010 which should cause us concern. In 2010, 1600 km of the border between India and China suddenly disappeared from Chinese maps, which amounts to nothing but handing over Kashmir to Pakistan. It is not even a disputed territory anymore. One has to see whether China has extended its border with Pakistan by the same extent. In 1962, China had not gifted Pakistan with nuclear weapons. In 2010, China has added two more nuclear reactors to a country, which has the fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world. In 1962, people of Jammu and Kashmir and those who worked there could get Chinese visa on their Indian passports. Today, they have to use Chinese staples to attach themselves to their motherland. In 1962, China did not characterize India-China relations as fragile, but in 2010, China warns us that it is so fragile that India should take the responsibility not to let it break.
India and China were not incommunicado in the years preceding 1962. Prime Ministers met and talked, but China gave no inkling of its intentions to take law into its own hands. The dozen meetings our Prime Minister had with Prime Minister Wen, including the one at the end of 2010 should give us no cause for comfort. Stung by India’s attendance at the Oslo ceremony, Prime Minister Wen made it a point not to concede an inch on the core issues of concern to India. Is there any precedent for such a result in previous meetings?
The trend of 2010 was for the most powerful states in the world to come to India to sign contracts, which could have been signed at other levels. In fact, many of those contracts were finalized years ago at the level of experts. President Obama got USD 15 billion, President Sarkozy got USD 16 billion and Prime Minister Wen got even more. President Medvedev must be having his own package to carry home. The friendliest among them all was the one who got the least, Prime Minister Cameron of the UK, who put Pakistan on notice for terrorism against India in so many words. President Obama at least reprimanded Pakistan for giving safe havens to terrorists and expressed his hope that one day India would be a permanent member of the Security Council. President Sarkozy expressed dismay that India was not on the Security Council as yet. All of them sang for their supper, but Prime Minister Wen took the contracts and gave nothing in return. No opposition to Pakistani terrorism, no talk of permanent membership of the Security Council. He cannot even do without staples! The increase in trade envisaged (USD 100 billion by 2015) will benefit China more than India. Unlike the others, he did not think it was necessary to make political concessions for economic benefits.
Indian assertiveness in response too is a far cry from 1962. At that time, India had just completed its mission to get the Peoples Republic of China its rightful place in the world, having even declined the permanent seat in the Security Council offered to it, instead of China. We had not challenged Chinese suzerainty over Tibet. India had never provoked China even to the extent of taking the position we have taken in 2010 that if Tibet is important for China, Jammu and Kashmir is equally important for India.
Prime Minister Wen offered the panacea of trade for all the ills in the relationship. To think that the situation today is better than that of 1962, one has to be an optimist with a vengeance. Perhaps, war clouds are not gathering over the Himalayas because of the nuclear status of the two countries. Perhaps, the future war will be in cyberspace and there will be no clouds to detect. We could take comfort in the fact that China’s rise is peaceful and the dragon is more than willing to tango with the elephant. We may also take comfort in the fact that we are cooperating with China in Doha, Copenhagen and Cancun. Otherwise, those who know China would not be complacent enough to think that the Chinese threat is an illusion.
“Grandpa Wen” played with the children and spread sunshine and cheer. But his visit was a clear signal that, if anything, India-China relations are worse in 2010 than it was in 1962.
The bewildering questions that haunt mankind like “who?” and “when?” may have nothing to do with the names of Chinese leaders, Hu and Wen, but they bewilder us as much today as the eternal questions always did. Even the best Indian minds are unable to fathom the intentions and inclinations of the duo, which is poised to take the leadership of the world. After the latest Wen visit, it is no more a question whether there will be a confrontation between India and China, but “when” it will take place and “who” the dramatis personae will be when it occurs.
We have assurances from those who know China well that 1962 will not happen again. They contend that China is no more an isolated dragon, learning the art of breathing fire into the neighbourhood. As it has grown huge and powerful, it has become domesticated and responsible and would like to tango with the elephant. The elephant can relax in the thought that the dragon will not step on its toes or its fiery breath will not incinerate it. But there is one condition: the elephant has to tango to the tune of the dragon. The dragon, in the meantime, grows big enough to swallow the elephant at short notice. But we are also assured that the dragon is not as strong as it appears and it has bad entrails, which may afflict it at any time.
The year 2010 is certainly not 1962. At that time, there was only a border dispute and the presence of the Dalai Lama to provoke a war. Today, those two still remain and China misses no opportunity to remind us that there was “a certain unpleasantness” in the relationship sometime in the past. According to our calculations, China still occupies 38,000 square kilometers of Indian territory in Ladakh and another 5000 square kilometers, ceded to it by China in Kashmir. Nothing has changed in that situation since the devastating defeat of 1962.
On the other hand, there is much at the close of 2010 which should cause us concern. In 2010, 1600 km of the border between India and China suddenly disappeared from Chinese maps, which amounts to nothing but handing over Kashmir to Pakistan. It is not even a disputed territory anymore. One has to see whether China has extended its border with Pakistan by the same extent. In 1962, China had not gifted Pakistan with nuclear weapons. In 2010, China has added two more nuclear reactors to a country, which has the fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world. In 1962, people of Jammu and Kashmir and those who worked there could get Chinese visa on their Indian passports. Today, they have to use Chinese staples to attach themselves to their motherland. In 1962, China did not characterize India-China relations as fragile, but in 2010, China warns us that it is so fragile that India should take the responsibility not to let it break.
India and China were not incommunicado in the years preceding 1962. Prime Ministers met and talked, but China gave no inkling of its intentions to take law into its own hands. The dozen meetings our Prime Minister had with Prime Minister Wen, including the one at the end of 2010 should give us no cause for comfort. Stung by India’s attendance at the Oslo ceremony, Prime Minister Wen made it a point not to concede an inch on the core issues of concern to India. Is there any precedent for such a result in previous meetings?
The trend of 2010 was for the most powerful states in the world to come to India to sign contracts, which could have been signed at other levels. In fact, many of those contracts were finalized years ago at the level of experts. President Obama got USD 15 billion, President Sarkozy got USD 16 billion and Prime Minister Wen got even more. President Medvedev must be having his own package to carry home. The friendliest among them all was the one who got the least, Prime Minister Cameron of the UK, who put Pakistan on notice for terrorism against India in so many words. President Obama at least reprimanded Pakistan for giving safe havens to terrorists and expressed his hope that one day India would be a permanent member of the Security Council. President Sarkozy expressed dismay that India was not on the Security Council as yet. All of them sang for their supper, but Prime Minister Wen took the contracts and gave nothing in return. No opposition to Pakistani terrorism, no talk of permanent membership of the Security Council. He cannot even do without staples! The increase in trade envisaged (USD 100 billion by 2015) will benefit China more than India. Unlike the others, he did not think it was necessary to make political concessions for economic benefits.
Indian assertiveness in response too is a far cry from 1962. At that time, India had just completed its mission to get the Peoples Republic of China its rightful place in the world, having even declined the permanent seat in the Security Council offered to it, instead of China. We had not challenged Chinese suzerainty over Tibet. India had never provoked China even to the extent of taking the position we have taken in 2010 that if Tibet is important for China, Jammu and Kashmir is equally important for India.
Prime Minister Wen offered the panacea of trade for all the ills in the relationship. To think that the situation today is better than that of 1962, one has to be an optimist with a vengeance. Perhaps, war clouds are not gathering over the Himalayas because of the nuclear status of the two countries. Perhaps, the future war will be in cyberspace and there will be no clouds to detect. We could take comfort in the fact that China’s rise is peaceful and the dragon is more than willing to tango with the elephant. We may also take comfort in the fact that we are cooperating with China in Doha, Copenhagen and Cancun. Otherwise, those who know China would not be complacent enough to think that the Chinese threat is an illusion.
“Grandpa Wen” played with the children and spread sunshine and cheer. But his visit was a clear signal that, if anything, India-China relations are worse in 2010 than it was in 1962.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Impact of IT on Diplomacy
I am delighted that I have been invited to address the IT Summit 2010, even though I feel a little out of place in the company of technologists and technocrats. I am quite innocent of technology and as for computers, I had thought till recently that personal computers made excellent hat or book stands. For fear of being treated as an illiterate, I learnt from my children and grandchildren to handle email, facebook and twitter. Now I feel very technologically savvy when I see my contemporaries think that facebook is a book on cosmetology and that twitter was invented by Dr. Shashi Tharoor.
Indeed, I represent the generation in transition, someone who has worked mostly with typewriters, carbon paper, stenographers and innumerable drafts and now coping with paperless workplaces. It is a bewildering world, with two kinds of IT posing some of the grave challenges of the 21st century, Information Technology and International Terrorism. One IT was benign so far and the other IT deadly and widespread. Today even the first IT is assuming dangerous proportions, with the prospect of the next world war being fought not with bombs or guns, but with laptops and cell phones. Is IT another Frankenstein monster that man has created?
Our topic today is E-governance, the art of governing a corporation or a country with the gifts of IT. We are entering a world of digital interaction between the Government and citizens, Government and business and between Government agencies. This is still in its infancy in India as our connectivity and network of computers are still very low. But the fact is that the growth of IT has made a big difference to the way Governments function and whether we like it or not, the age of E-governance are upon us.
You will understand if I draw upon my experience in the field of diplomacy to show how IT has transformed the way the Government functions. Perhaps IT has revolutionized the art of diplomacy more than any other profession. There was a time when ambassadors were truly “extraordinary and plenipotentiary” and they were sent to lie abroad for their country largely on their own. Armed with the credentials with the sign and seal of their heads of state, they became masters of their areas of accreditation. They had the authority to make peace or declare war as they deemed fit to secure the interests of their nation. They negotiated treaties, acquired territories and won hearts and minds of foreign nations. Their masters came to know of their accomplishments only when they dispatched a messenger or when they themselves returned to recount their exploits. They enjoyed victories and suffered defeats by themselves. Their dispatches, written at leisure in flowery language traveled to their Governments by the venerable diplomatic bag at snail’s pace. No instructions came and they came late, if at all, leaving ambassadors to their own devices.
Today, both Information Technology and International Terrorism have changed diplomacy beyond recognition. The communication revolution has transformed the way diplomacy works. Diplomats cannot lie abroad anymore because news, both good and bad, travel fast and unless they employ the latest IT tools, they cannot cope with the flow of information. Foreign ministers and heads of state meet frequently and talk to each other on phone, giving the Governments diverse channels of communication at multiple levels. Ambassadors have to struggle hard to remain relevant today. As for the impact of the other IT, International Terrorism, ambassadors have become suspects, being patted down at airports, not to speak of those who have been injured and killed in terrorist attacks.
More than any other department of the Government of India, it is the foreign office and our missions abroad that will have to use IT tools effectively. I recall my days in Fiji, when the paradise was plagued by the first military coup in the South Pacific in 1987. The first thing that Sitiveni Rabuka, the coup leader did was to cut the telephone and teleprinter links with the rest of the world, a standard practice for coup leaders. For three days, I had no contact with Delhi and all I did was entirely on my own. But the British High Commissioner told us that his fax line was not cut as the authorities were not aware of its existence. We learnt our lesson and our High Commission in Fiji became our first mission abroad to be equipped with a fax machine. Today the fax machine has become too antiquated. No military dictator can ever cut communications in the cyber era and no ambassador can claim that he had no way of seeking instructions from home.
The way we report from abroad has also changed dramatically. Till the advent of the fax machine, diplomats used to read newspapers and magazines in their countries of accreditation, absorb them, analyze them and send only the most relevant portions with their considered comments and recommendations to the headquarters. With the introduction of fax machines, we began transmitting texts of everything important, shifting the burden of reading to headquarters. Today, with the world press at the finger tips of decision makers at home, diplomatic reporting is relevant only if it contains instant analysis of a confidential nature. Of course, the confidentiality of diplomatic correspondence, considered sacrosanct has also been violated by Wikileaks, a fall out of technology. When messages were coded and decoded by human hands and transmitted by telegrams, it was possible to share frank assessments without fear of compromise and embarrassment. Not anymore. Wikileaks must have changed the way ambassadors, at least American ambassadors, report.
Today, the Public Diplomacy Division of the Ministry of External Affairs has not only an interactive website, but also facebook and twitter accounts. How times have changed!
IT has brought speed and efficiency and transparency in Governments, it reduces corruption and error of human judgment, but at the same time, opens out possibilities of hacking, manipulation of data and total loss of valuable material. The overarching danger of cyber warfare looms over the horizon. But one thing is certain. No Government, no profession can stem the tide of IT and even if we can, it would be unwise to attempt it. There may be paperless Governments and phoneless conversations, but there can never be Governments without the human touch. Compassion and consideration must remain as important ingredients of Governments. E-governance, however efficient, cannot serve the people without the human touch.
Although India takes pride in being the software super power of the world, we are not even one of the 50 countries in the world, which have e-government ready status. So we have to go a long way in terms of connectivity, adaptation, innovation and creativity before e-governance becomes a reality.
Turning to Kerala itself, I recently had a glimpse of the achievements in this field as a member of the jury which chose products and processes for the e-governance awards. From imaginative websites to user friendly services, there was an array of innovative measures adopted by different departments of the Government. Among them were innovative citizen services of the Kozhikode Collectorate, digital base of doctoral theses of Mahatma Gandhi University and the selection process of engineering and medical students online. These are major accomplishments, but they also show that we have to travel much before we reach anywhere near e-governance becoming a reality. More than anything else, a change in the mindset and attitude is absolutely essential.
I have no doubt that this conference has contributed to the development of IT in Kerala, including the development of our e-governance skills.
I am delighted that I have been invited to address the IT Summit 2010, even though I feel a little out of place in the company of technologists and technocrats. I am quite innocent of technology and as for computers, I had thought till recently that personal computers made excellent hat or book stands. For fear of being treated as an illiterate, I learnt from my children and grandchildren to handle email, facebook and twitter. Now I feel very technologically savvy when I see my contemporaries think that facebook is a book on cosmetology and that twitter was invented by Dr. Shashi Tharoor.
Indeed, I represent the generation in transition, someone who has worked mostly with typewriters, carbon paper, stenographers and innumerable drafts and now coping with paperless workplaces. It is a bewildering world, with two kinds of IT posing some of the grave challenges of the 21st century, Information Technology and International Terrorism. One IT was benign so far and the other IT deadly and widespread. Today even the first IT is assuming dangerous proportions, with the prospect of the next world war being fought not with bombs or guns, but with laptops and cell phones. Is IT another Frankenstein monster that man has created?
Our topic today is E-governance, the art of governing a corporation or a country with the gifts of IT. We are entering a world of digital interaction between the Government and citizens, Government and business and between Government agencies. This is still in its infancy in India as our connectivity and network of computers are still very low. But the fact is that the growth of IT has made a big difference to the way Governments function and whether we like it or not, the age of E-governance are upon us.
You will understand if I draw upon my experience in the field of diplomacy to show how IT has transformed the way the Government functions. Perhaps IT has revolutionized the art of diplomacy more than any other profession. There was a time when ambassadors were truly “extraordinary and plenipotentiary” and they were sent to lie abroad for their country largely on their own. Armed with the credentials with the sign and seal of their heads of state, they became masters of their areas of accreditation. They had the authority to make peace or declare war as they deemed fit to secure the interests of their nation. They negotiated treaties, acquired territories and won hearts and minds of foreign nations. Their masters came to know of their accomplishments only when they dispatched a messenger or when they themselves returned to recount their exploits. They enjoyed victories and suffered defeats by themselves. Their dispatches, written at leisure in flowery language traveled to their Governments by the venerable diplomatic bag at snail’s pace. No instructions came and they came late, if at all, leaving ambassadors to their own devices.
Today, both Information Technology and International Terrorism have changed diplomacy beyond recognition. The communication revolution has transformed the way diplomacy works. Diplomats cannot lie abroad anymore because news, both good and bad, travel fast and unless they employ the latest IT tools, they cannot cope with the flow of information. Foreign ministers and heads of state meet frequently and talk to each other on phone, giving the Governments diverse channels of communication at multiple levels. Ambassadors have to struggle hard to remain relevant today. As for the impact of the other IT, International Terrorism, ambassadors have become suspects, being patted down at airports, not to speak of those who have been injured and killed in terrorist attacks.
More than any other department of the Government of India, it is the foreign office and our missions abroad that will have to use IT tools effectively. I recall my days in Fiji, when the paradise was plagued by the first military coup in the South Pacific in 1987. The first thing that Sitiveni Rabuka, the coup leader did was to cut the telephone and teleprinter links with the rest of the world, a standard practice for coup leaders. For three days, I had no contact with Delhi and all I did was entirely on my own. But the British High Commissioner told us that his fax line was not cut as the authorities were not aware of its existence. We learnt our lesson and our High Commission in Fiji became our first mission abroad to be equipped with a fax machine. Today the fax machine has become too antiquated. No military dictator can ever cut communications in the cyber era and no ambassador can claim that he had no way of seeking instructions from home.
The way we report from abroad has also changed dramatically. Till the advent of the fax machine, diplomats used to read newspapers and magazines in their countries of accreditation, absorb them, analyze them and send only the most relevant portions with their considered comments and recommendations to the headquarters. With the introduction of fax machines, we began transmitting texts of everything important, shifting the burden of reading to headquarters. Today, with the world press at the finger tips of decision makers at home, diplomatic reporting is relevant only if it contains instant analysis of a confidential nature. Of course, the confidentiality of diplomatic correspondence, considered sacrosanct has also been violated by Wikileaks, a fall out of technology. When messages were coded and decoded by human hands and transmitted by telegrams, it was possible to share frank assessments without fear of compromise and embarrassment. Not anymore. Wikileaks must have changed the way ambassadors, at least American ambassadors, report.
Today, the Public Diplomacy Division of the Ministry of External Affairs has not only an interactive website, but also facebook and twitter accounts. How times have changed!
IT has brought speed and efficiency and transparency in Governments, it reduces corruption and error of human judgment, but at the same time, opens out possibilities of hacking, manipulation of data and total loss of valuable material. The overarching danger of cyber warfare looms over the horizon. But one thing is certain. No Government, no profession can stem the tide of IT and even if we can, it would be unwise to attempt it. There may be paperless Governments and phoneless conversations, but there can never be Governments without the human touch. Compassion and consideration must remain as important ingredients of Governments. E-governance, however efficient, cannot serve the people without the human touch.
Although India takes pride in being the software super power of the world, we are not even one of the 50 countries in the world, which have e-government ready status. So we have to go a long way in terms of connectivity, adaptation, innovation and creativity before e-governance becomes a reality.
Turning to Kerala itself, I recently had a glimpse of the achievements in this field as a member of the jury which chose products and processes for the e-governance awards. From imaginative websites to user friendly services, there was an array of innovative measures adopted by different departments of the Government. Among them were innovative citizen services of the Kozhikode Collectorate, digital base of doctoral theses of Mahatma Gandhi University and the selection process of engineering and medical students online. These are major accomplishments, but they also show that we have to travel much before we reach anywhere near e-governance becoming a reality. More than anything else, a change in the mindset and attitude is absolutely essential.
I have no doubt that this conference has contributed to the development of IT in Kerala, including the development of our e-governance skills.
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
‘First Draft’ by B.G.Verghese
A conversation with the author after the release of the book
Justice V.R.Krishna Iyer released the autobiography of Shri. B.G.Verghese today in Kochi under the auspices of Kerala Press Academy. I was invited to receive the book and to have a book chat with the author. My remarks and the questions are below. The lines of his replies are indicated, but not full answers.
If I was asked to speak of B.G.Verghese ten days ago, I would have described him as a journalist, who has become a legend in his own lifetime. His outstanding work at the ‘Times of India’, the ‘Hindustan Times’ and the ‘Indian Express’ is the stuff that legends are made of. But today, having read his ‘First Draft’, I would describe him as one of the builders of modern India. As an editor, he has been a sentinel of personal and press freedoms, as an adviser to the Prime Minister he has been the architect of domestic and foreign policy and, as an activist, he continues to provide policy options on intractable issues ranging from human rights, environment, water resource and terrorism to Naxalism. ‘First Draft’ is testimony to the way he has helped shape modern India.
Verghese is a nationalist and an internationalist, having been born in Burma and educated at the Doon School, St Stephen’s and Cambridge and lived in different places in India, with short spells in Kerala. His story is also the story of modern India from the last days of the Raj to this day. In this narrative, the hero often fades into the background and his country comes to the forefront. But his portrayal of history is very personal, given his deep involvement as an influential commentator. As adviser to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, he did not confine himself to public relations and made policy recommendations on domestic and foreign policy. His disillusionment with the emergency and his passion for freedom landed him in the Janata camp, leading to his defeat in his only foray into electoral politics in Mavelikara. He was also a consultant to Defence Minister Jaswant Singh.
Today, he has the status of an elder statesman, with involvement in many causes, a highly respected voice of the conscience of India. We are fortunate to have him with us to present his memoirs to us and also to answer some of the questions arising from it.
1. Allow me, Sir, to drag you directly to the raging controversy about journalism today. Your book gives the impression that as a senior editor, you not only reported history, but also shaped it. You say in the book, “Indeed it was a routine ploy for us at the TOI to ring up party contacts and drop a hint about rumours of a possible Cabinet reshuffle to get the man salivating and ready to share insider knowledge about political goings-on.” In other places, there are hints of your getting politicians together to resolve one issue or another. Do you think Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi went beyond such legitimate activities and brought discredit to journalism?
(BGV said that there was a fine line between contacts for the sake of gathering news and journalists getting close to lobbyists of corporations. Transgressions should not take place, but, happily, in the instant cases, there was no evidence of corruption. They themselves had admitted misjudgment.)
2. You were on the frontline in 1962 to witness what you call the psychological defeat, which was more than the military debacle at the hands of China. You deplore the “imbecility and paralysis that had come to characterize Delhi” at that time. In the last chapter of the book, you list the problems with China. But you say that “it is unlikely that 1962 can ever be repeated” because of China’s own vulnerabilities. But don’t you think China may decide to teach India a lesson again?
(BGV said that relations with China would remain complex. China had become assertive and there were instances of provocation from their side. But China would not embark on any adventure because of its position in the world and its own inherent weaknesses. But India should remain vigilant and also have a pragmatic relationship.)
3. During your stint with Indira Gandhi, you found policy making generally unsatisfactory with last minute changes in speeches and acceptance of ideas on the spot etc. You are specific about little integration between foreign policy and defence. “We did not have a clear world view or security doctrine”, you say. Do you think the situation has changed?
(BGV said that things had improved, but there were some problems. He quoted the response to 26/11 as an example of lack of coordination and cohesion in dealing with issues.)
4. Sir, let me take you back to your campaign in Mavelikara with the support of the non-Congress Parties including the Communists. Why was it that the anti-Congress wave was absent in Kerala? Why was it that your personality and passion for freedom did not get you votes?
(BGV explained the circumstances in which he entered the fray. Unlike in the rest of India, Congress did well in Kerala. He felt that though he did not get elected, his cause had won in 1977.)
5. You have dealt with relations with Pakistan at some length in your book. Do you think that the back channel solution on Kashmir will ever be accepted by the people of the two countries? As an expert on water, do you think that we can use the Indus Water Treaty as a pressure point on Pakistan?
(BVG explained the history of the Indus Water Treaty. It was the expectation that the deficiencies in the Treaty would be rectified when the relations improved. If the proposal to make the borders irrelevant were to succeed, it would be possible for both the countries to make optimum use of water.)
6. You speak in the book on the reasons for the Naxal violence. Obviously, you have considerable sympathy for the tribal people and you think that the Government’s plan for socio-economic development will not work. Do you think the Maoists are “Gandhis with guns”? What is your solution to the Maoist menace?
(BVG explained the reason for disaffection among the tribals, who revolted against injustice. The Maoists exploited the situation, leading to the present serious situation. Law and order should be preserved, but the grievances of the tribals should also be addressed. He did not agree that they could be called Gandhis with guns. Arundhati Roy, he said, was a good writer, but she should not overdramatize issues as she did in the case of Kashmir. He felt that she should not have been charged.)
In reply to questions from the audience, BGV said that the media made it out as though everybody was corrupt. He blamed the media for spelling disaster. Much was being said and written for the sake of breaking news. He was optimistic that, after the churning, which would bring up some scum, there would be a cleansing and India would emerge stronger.
A conversation with the author after the release of the book
Justice V.R.Krishna Iyer released the autobiography of Shri. B.G.Verghese today in Kochi under the auspices of Kerala Press Academy. I was invited to receive the book and to have a book chat with the author. My remarks and the questions are below. The lines of his replies are indicated, but not full answers.
If I was asked to speak of B.G.Verghese ten days ago, I would have described him as a journalist, who has become a legend in his own lifetime. His outstanding work at the ‘Times of India’, the ‘Hindustan Times’ and the ‘Indian Express’ is the stuff that legends are made of. But today, having read his ‘First Draft’, I would describe him as one of the builders of modern India. As an editor, he has been a sentinel of personal and press freedoms, as an adviser to the Prime Minister he has been the architect of domestic and foreign policy and, as an activist, he continues to provide policy options on intractable issues ranging from human rights, environment, water resource and terrorism to Naxalism. ‘First Draft’ is testimony to the way he has helped shape modern India.
Verghese is a nationalist and an internationalist, having been born in Burma and educated at the Doon School, St Stephen’s and Cambridge and lived in different places in India, with short spells in Kerala. His story is also the story of modern India from the last days of the Raj to this day. In this narrative, the hero often fades into the background and his country comes to the forefront. But his portrayal of history is very personal, given his deep involvement as an influential commentator. As adviser to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, he did not confine himself to public relations and made policy recommendations on domestic and foreign policy. His disillusionment with the emergency and his passion for freedom landed him in the Janata camp, leading to his defeat in his only foray into electoral politics in Mavelikara. He was also a consultant to Defence Minister Jaswant Singh.
Today, he has the status of an elder statesman, with involvement in many causes, a highly respected voice of the conscience of India. We are fortunate to have him with us to present his memoirs to us and also to answer some of the questions arising from it.
1. Allow me, Sir, to drag you directly to the raging controversy about journalism today. Your book gives the impression that as a senior editor, you not only reported history, but also shaped it. You say in the book, “Indeed it was a routine ploy for us at the TOI to ring up party contacts and drop a hint about rumours of a possible Cabinet reshuffle to get the man salivating and ready to share insider knowledge about political goings-on.” In other places, there are hints of your getting politicians together to resolve one issue or another. Do you think Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi went beyond such legitimate activities and brought discredit to journalism?
(BGV said that there was a fine line between contacts for the sake of gathering news and journalists getting close to lobbyists of corporations. Transgressions should not take place, but, happily, in the instant cases, there was no evidence of corruption. They themselves had admitted misjudgment.)
2. You were on the frontline in 1962 to witness what you call the psychological defeat, which was more than the military debacle at the hands of China. You deplore the “imbecility and paralysis that had come to characterize Delhi” at that time. In the last chapter of the book, you list the problems with China. But you say that “it is unlikely that 1962 can ever be repeated” because of China’s own vulnerabilities. But don’t you think China may decide to teach India a lesson again?
(BGV said that relations with China would remain complex. China had become assertive and there were instances of provocation from their side. But China would not embark on any adventure because of its position in the world and its own inherent weaknesses. But India should remain vigilant and also have a pragmatic relationship.)
3. During your stint with Indira Gandhi, you found policy making generally unsatisfactory with last minute changes in speeches and acceptance of ideas on the spot etc. You are specific about little integration between foreign policy and defence. “We did not have a clear world view or security doctrine”, you say. Do you think the situation has changed?
(BGV said that things had improved, but there were some problems. He quoted the response to 26/11 as an example of lack of coordination and cohesion in dealing with issues.)
4. Sir, let me take you back to your campaign in Mavelikara with the support of the non-Congress Parties including the Communists. Why was it that the anti-Congress wave was absent in Kerala? Why was it that your personality and passion for freedom did not get you votes?
(BGV explained the circumstances in which he entered the fray. Unlike in the rest of India, Congress did well in Kerala. He felt that though he did not get elected, his cause had won in 1977.)
5. You have dealt with relations with Pakistan at some length in your book. Do you think that the back channel solution on Kashmir will ever be accepted by the people of the two countries? As an expert on water, do you think that we can use the Indus Water Treaty as a pressure point on Pakistan?
(BVG explained the history of the Indus Water Treaty. It was the expectation that the deficiencies in the Treaty would be rectified when the relations improved. If the proposal to make the borders irrelevant were to succeed, it would be possible for both the countries to make optimum use of water.)
6. You speak in the book on the reasons for the Naxal violence. Obviously, you have considerable sympathy for the tribal people and you think that the Government’s plan for socio-economic development will not work. Do you think the Maoists are “Gandhis with guns”? What is your solution to the Maoist menace?
(BVG explained the reason for disaffection among the tribals, who revolted against injustice. The Maoists exploited the situation, leading to the present serious situation. Law and order should be preserved, but the grievances of the tribals should also be addressed. He did not agree that they could be called Gandhis with guns. Arundhati Roy, he said, was a good writer, but she should not overdramatize issues as she did in the case of Kashmir. He felt that she should not have been charged.)
In reply to questions from the audience, BGV said that the media made it out as though everybody was corrupt. He blamed the media for spelling disaster. Much was being said and written for the sake of breaking news. He was optimistic that, after the churning, which would bring up some scum, there would be a cleansing and India would emerge stronger.
‘First Draft’ by B.G.Verghese
A conversation with the author after the release of the book
Justice V.R.Krishna Iyer released the autobiography of Shri. B.G.Verghese today in Kochi under the auspices of Kerala Press Academy. I was invited to receive the book and to have a book chat with the author. My remarks and the questions are below. The lines of his replies are indicated, but not full answers.
If I was asked to speak of B.G.Verghese ten days ago, I would have described him as a journalist, who has become a legend in his own lifetime. His outstanding work at the ‘Times of India’, the ‘Hindustan Times’ and the ‘Indian Express’ is the stuff that legends are made of. But today, having read his ‘First Draft’, I would describe him as one of the builders of modern India. As an editor, he has been a sentinel of personal and press freedoms, as an adviser to the Prime Minister he has been the architect of domestic and foreign policy and, as an activist, he continues to provide policy options on intractable issues ranging from human rights, environment, water resource and terrorism to Naxalism. ‘First Draft’ is testimony to the way he has helped shape modern India.
Verghese is a nationalist and an internationalist, having been born in Burma and educated at the Doon School, St Stephen’s and Cambridge and lived in different places in India, with short spells in Kerala. His story is also the story of modern India from the last days of the Raj to this day. In this narrative, the hero often fades into the background and his country comes to the forefront. But his portrayal of history is very personal, given his deep involvement as an influential commentator. As adviser to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, he did not confine himself to public relations and made policy recommendations on domestic and foreign policy. His disillusionment with the emergency and his passion for freedom landed him in the Janata camp, leading to his defeat in his only foray into electoral politics in Mavelikara. He was also a consultant to Defence Minister Jaswant Singh.
Today, he has the status of an elder statesman, with involvement in many causes, a highly respected voice of the conscience of India. We are fortunate to have him with us to present his memoirs to us and also to answer some of the questions arising from it.
1. Allow me, Sir, to drag you directly to the raging controversy about journalism today. Your book gives the impression that as a senior editor, you not only reported history, but also shaped it. You say in the book, “Indeed it was a routine ploy for us at the TOI to ring up party contacts and drop a hint about rumours of a possible Cabinet reshuffle to get the man salivating and ready to share insider knowledge about political goings-on.” In other places, there are hints of your getting politicians together to resolve one issue or another. Do you think Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi went beyond such legitimate activities and brought discredit to journalism?
(BGV said that there was a fine line between contacts for the sake of gathering news and journalists getting close to lobbyists of corporations. Transgressions should not take place, but, happily, in the instant cases, there was no evidence of corruption. They themselves had admitted misjudgment.)
2. You were on the frontline in 1962 to witness what you call the psychological defeat, which was more than the military debacle at the hands of China. You deplore the “imbecility and paralysis that had come to characterize Delhi” at that time. In the last chapter of the book, you list the problems with China. But you say that “it is unlikely that 1962 can ever be repeated” because of China’s own vulnerabilities. But don’t you think China may decide to teach India a lesson again?
(BGV said that relations with China would remain complex. China had become assertive and there were instances of provocation from their side. But China would not embark on any adventure because of its position in the world and its own inherent weaknesses. But India should remain vigilant and also have a pragmatic relationship.)
3. During your stint with Indira Gandhi, you found policy making generally unsatisfactory with last minute changes in speeches and acceptance of ideas on the spot etc. You are specific about little integration between foreign policy and defence. “We did not have a clear world view or security doctrine”, you say. Do you think the situation has changed?
(BGV said that things had improved, but there were some problems. He quoted the response to 26/11 as an example of lack of coordination and cohesion in dealing with issues.)
4. Sir, let me take you back to your campaign in Mavelikara with the support of the non-Congress Parties including the Communists. Why was it that the anti-Congress wave was absent in Kerala? Why was it that your personality and passion for freedom did not get you votes?
(BGV explained the circumstances in which he entered the fray. Unlike in the rest of India, Congress did well in Kerala. He felt that though he did not get elected, his cause had won in 1977.)
5. You have dealt with relations with Pakistan at some length in your book. Do you think that the back channel solution on Kashmir will ever be accepted by the people of the two countries? As an expert on water, do you think that we can use the Indus Water Treaty as a pressure point on Pakistan?
(BVG explained the history of the Indus Water Treaty. It was the expectation that the deficiencies in the Treaty would be rectified when the relations improved. If the proposal to make the borders irrelevant were to succeed, it would be possible for both the countries to make optimum use of water.)
6. You speak in the book on the reasons for the Naxal violence. Obviously, you have considerable sympathy for the tribal people and you think that the Government’s plan for socio-economic development will not work. Do you think the Maoists are “Gandhis with guns”? What is your solution to the Maoist menace?
(BVG explained the reason for disaffection among the tribals, who revolted against injustice. The Maoists exploited the situation, leading to the present serious situation. Law and order should be preserved, but the grievances of the tribals should also be addressed. He did not agree that they could be called Gandhis with guns. Arundhati Roy, he said, was a good writer, but she should not overdramatize issues as she did in the case of Kashmir. He felt that she should not have been charged.)
In reply to questions from the audience, BGV said that the media made it out as though everybody was corrupt. He blamed the media for spelling disaster. Much was being said and written for the sake of breaking news. He was optimistic that, after the churning, which would bring up some scum, there would be a cleansing and India would emerge stronger.
A conversation with the author after the release of the book
Justice V.R.Krishna Iyer released the autobiography of Shri. B.G.Verghese today in Kochi under the auspices of Kerala Press Academy. I was invited to receive the book and to have a book chat with the author. My remarks and the questions are below. The lines of his replies are indicated, but not full answers.
If I was asked to speak of B.G.Verghese ten days ago, I would have described him as a journalist, who has become a legend in his own lifetime. His outstanding work at the ‘Times of India’, the ‘Hindustan Times’ and the ‘Indian Express’ is the stuff that legends are made of. But today, having read his ‘First Draft’, I would describe him as one of the builders of modern India. As an editor, he has been a sentinel of personal and press freedoms, as an adviser to the Prime Minister he has been the architect of domestic and foreign policy and, as an activist, he continues to provide policy options on intractable issues ranging from human rights, environment, water resource and terrorism to Naxalism. ‘First Draft’ is testimony to the way he has helped shape modern India.
Verghese is a nationalist and an internationalist, having been born in Burma and educated at the Doon School, St Stephen’s and Cambridge and lived in different places in India, with short spells in Kerala. His story is also the story of modern India from the last days of the Raj to this day. In this narrative, the hero often fades into the background and his country comes to the forefront. But his portrayal of history is very personal, given his deep involvement as an influential commentator. As adviser to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, he did not confine himself to public relations and made policy recommendations on domestic and foreign policy. His disillusionment with the emergency and his passion for freedom landed him in the Janata camp, leading to his defeat in his only foray into electoral politics in Mavelikara. He was also a consultant to Defence Minister Jaswant Singh.
Today, he has the status of an elder statesman, with involvement in many causes, a highly respected voice of the conscience of India. We are fortunate to have him with us to present his memoirs to us and also to answer some of the questions arising from it.
1. Allow me, Sir, to drag you directly to the raging controversy about journalism today. Your book gives the impression that as a senior editor, you not only reported history, but also shaped it. You say in the book, “Indeed it was a routine ploy for us at the TOI to ring up party contacts and drop a hint about rumours of a possible Cabinet reshuffle to get the man salivating and ready to share insider knowledge about political goings-on.” In other places, there are hints of your getting politicians together to resolve one issue or another. Do you think Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi went beyond such legitimate activities and brought discredit to journalism?
(BGV said that there was a fine line between contacts for the sake of gathering news and journalists getting close to lobbyists of corporations. Transgressions should not take place, but, happily, in the instant cases, there was no evidence of corruption. They themselves had admitted misjudgment.)
2. You were on the frontline in 1962 to witness what you call the psychological defeat, which was more than the military debacle at the hands of China. You deplore the “imbecility and paralysis that had come to characterize Delhi” at that time. In the last chapter of the book, you list the problems with China. But you say that “it is unlikely that 1962 can ever be repeated” because of China’s own vulnerabilities. But don’t you think China may decide to teach India a lesson again?
(BGV said that relations with China would remain complex. China had become assertive and there were instances of provocation from their side. But China would not embark on any adventure because of its position in the world and its own inherent weaknesses. But India should remain vigilant and also have a pragmatic relationship.)
3. During your stint with Indira Gandhi, you found policy making generally unsatisfactory with last minute changes in speeches and acceptance of ideas on the spot etc. You are specific about little integration between foreign policy and defence. “We did not have a clear world view or security doctrine”, you say. Do you think the situation has changed?
(BGV said that things had improved, but there were some problems. He quoted the response to 26/11 as an example of lack of coordination and cohesion in dealing with issues.)
4. Sir, let me take you back to your campaign in Mavelikara with the support of the non-Congress Parties including the Communists. Why was it that the anti-Congress wave was absent in Kerala? Why was it that your personality and passion for freedom did not get you votes?
(BGV explained the circumstances in which he entered the fray. Unlike in the rest of India, Congress did well in Kerala. He felt that though he did not get elected, his cause had won in 1977.)
5. You have dealt with relations with Pakistan at some length in your book. Do you think that the back channel solution on Kashmir will ever be accepted by the people of the two countries? As an expert on water, do you think that we can use the Indus Water Treaty as a pressure point on Pakistan?
(BVG explained the history of the Indus Water Treaty. It was the expectation that the deficiencies in the Treaty would be rectified when the relations improved. If the proposal to make the borders irrelevant were to succeed, it would be possible for both the countries to make optimum use of water.)
6. You speak in the book on the reasons for the Naxal violence. Obviously, you have considerable sympathy for the tribal people and you think that the Government’s plan for socio-economic development will not work. Do you think the Maoists are “Gandhis with guns”? What is your solution to the Maoist menace?
(BVG explained the reason for disaffection among the tribals, who revolted against injustice. The Maoists exploited the situation, leading to the present serious situation. Law and order should be preserved, but the grievances of the tribals should also be addressed. He did not agree that they could be called Gandhis with guns. Arundhati Roy, he said, was a good writer, but she should not overdramatize issues as she did in the case of Kashmir. He felt that she should not have been charged.)
In reply to questions from the audience, BGV said that the media made it out as though everybody was corrupt. He blamed the media for spelling disaster. Much was being said and written for the sake of breaking news. He was optimistic that, after the churning, which would bring up some scum, there would be a cleansing and India would emerge stronger.
Friday, December 03, 2010
WIKILEAKS--THE MIDNIGHT SUN
By T.P.Sreenivasan
A dreaded thought for many is the possibility of the sun rising at midnight without warning. People will be caught in the wrong places doing the wrong things. The embarrassment will be not that these things happen, but that these come unexpectedly to public view. At the time of the normal break of day, they will be prim and proper. To change the image, no one wants to be seen in the green room of a play, when the actors are putting on make up or having a drink, even when dressed up as Mahatma Gandhi. Once the curtains are up, they will play their roles perfectly and receive approbation. The embarrassment of the US today is that of people caught in the midnight sun, actors caught in the green room.
The world of diplomacy is an elegant and beautiful world. Diplomats dress well, say the right things at the right time, respect other people's views and even appear to change their positions for the good of the world. They are totally rational and reasonable and there are no harsh words. But that does not mean there is no struggle, no rancor, no arm twisting, no name calling, no plain speaking behind the scenes. It is in the strong rooms of the chanceries that honest opinions are aired, cold calculations are made and strategies and tactics are shaped to subdue the enemy and to put the friend to the best use. Deals are made, concessions are given and the IOUs are counted. This is not the preserve of the big powers and all nations play the game by their own rules before everything is formalized in accordance with the provisions of the Vienna and Geneva conventions. In fact, it is the struggle behind the scenes that leads to the photo opportunities and signature ceremonies with flowers and smiles all around.
The unwritten rules for protection and promotion of national interests are as important as the code of conduct of diplomats ranging from sartorial propriety to acting for the common good. Confidentiality of communications within an individual Government should be sacrosanct at least for a reasonable period so that the diplomats can be brutally frank in their assessments. These assessments enable the Governments concerned to understand each other and according to their best interests. Such frank assessments and forthright predictions contribute to peace and stability in the world. Indeed, it is the "cables" that make the diplomatic world go round.
We should not rejoice over the loss of face that the US has suffered on account of the leakage of its cable traffic. This can happen to any country, even though some countries are more discreet than others and maintain a certain decorum in even confidential communications. But if diplomatic cables leak even in India, there will be many red faces. What we write in these cables cannot but offend the people whose conduct or conversations are reported in what we call "telegrams". Unless the confidentiality of these communications are assured, the very functioning of our missions will be in jeopardy.
The Wikileaks have, however, come as a bonanza for US watchers as they give a rare glimpse of the workings of US diplomacy and the private views of US diplomats expressed in privileged communications to their Government. Such leaks may even have a beneficial effect if the US Government takes corrective measures to remove the irritants that may be generated by the leaks.
One point to remember is that diplomatic "cables" or "telegrams"have undergone many changes over the years. From a situation where each word or each letter was painstakingly coded by hand, we have reached a stage when words keyed into a computer automatically get coded and then get decoded for the recipients. Neither the sender nor the recipient needs to worry about any unauthorized person reading the messages. Without that comfort and confidence, no one will convey his frank opinions and assessments.
Diplomats are generally the worst critics of their host countries because they watch and learn about their hosts on a day to day basis. They also experience culture shocks each time they change their assignments. The excellent relations the countries may have do not prevent them from expressing their views among themselves. The hosts will not be too pleased to hear these views. Such conversations take place in diplomatic circles in every capital.
The US Government had already warned several countries, including India. about the likelihood of irritants emerging on account of the leaks. We do not know the nature and extent of the damage that is likely to result when the thousands of pages, which have been leaked, are published and analyzed. The early revelation about India's aspirations for permanent membership of the UN Security Council had no real surprise in it. We knew for a fact that the US had not yet arrived at a formula for the expansion of the Security Council, which it can expect to accomplish. It had "enthusiastically" supported Japan and Germany in the past, but could not succeed in promoting them. The hope to see India as a permanent member may be genuine, but the hope can be fulfilled only if there is a workable formula, involving the nature and size of the expansion. The US is still searching for such a formula.
Hillary's instructions in the leaked document reveals that the US mission in New York would go to the extent of spying on the concerned countries to learn about their moves in this connection. The issues to be followed are listed in these words:
"B. Key Continuing Issues
1) UN Security Council Reform (FPOL-1).
-- Positions, attitudes, and divisions among member states on
UN Security Council (UNSC) reform.
-- Views, plans and intentions of Perm 5 and other member
states on the issue of UNSC enlargement, revision of UNSC
procedures or limitation of Perm 5 privileges.
-- International deliberations regarding UNSC expansion among
key groups of countries: self-appointed front runners for
permanent UNSC membership Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan
(the Group of Four or G-4); the Uniting for Consensus group
(especially Mexico, Italy, and Pakistan) that opposes
additional permanent UNSC seats; the African Group; and the
EU, as well as key UN officials within the Secretariat and
the UN General Assembly (UNGA) Presidency.
-- Willingness of member states to implement proposed reforms.
-- Reactions of UN senior leadership towards member
recommendations for UNSC reform."
The objection is to the description of "a key group of countries", India, Brazil, Japan and Germany, as "self-appointed front runners". This description need not be seen as derogatory because they are seen as front runners, but not recognized formally by anyone else. India is of the view that it has substantial support, but this is not a matter of public record. The other criticism is that Obama's statement of support for India voiced in the Indian Parliament is proved hollow by the statement of the US state secretary that India is nothing but a self appointed front runner. Here, it is a matter of interpretation of the intent of the US President. What he expressed was the consensus view in New York that if and when the Security Council is expanded, India should have a place in it as a permanent member. This is indeed a significant shift in the US position as no US leader had expressed this sentiment so far. But too much should not be read into it. Our dream may be a little nearer to reality now than before, but not enough.
There may still be worse revelations in the coming weeks when more documents get published. As long as they are seen in their right perspective, no serious damage will be done to India-US relations. Some of them may even help clarify some of the mysteries of US behaviour around the world.
By T.P.Sreenivasan
A dreaded thought for many is the possibility of the sun rising at midnight without warning. People will be caught in the wrong places doing the wrong things. The embarrassment will be not that these things happen, but that these come unexpectedly to public view. At the time of the normal break of day, they will be prim and proper. To change the image, no one wants to be seen in the green room of a play, when the actors are putting on make up or having a drink, even when dressed up as Mahatma Gandhi. Once the curtains are up, they will play their roles perfectly and receive approbation. The embarrassment of the US today is that of people caught in the midnight sun, actors caught in the green room.
The world of diplomacy is an elegant and beautiful world. Diplomats dress well, say the right things at the right time, respect other people's views and even appear to change their positions for the good of the world. They are totally rational and reasonable and there are no harsh words. But that does not mean there is no struggle, no rancor, no arm twisting, no name calling, no plain speaking behind the scenes. It is in the strong rooms of the chanceries that honest opinions are aired, cold calculations are made and strategies and tactics are shaped to subdue the enemy and to put the friend to the best use. Deals are made, concessions are given and the IOUs are counted. This is not the preserve of the big powers and all nations play the game by their own rules before everything is formalized in accordance with the provisions of the Vienna and Geneva conventions. In fact, it is the struggle behind the scenes that leads to the photo opportunities and signature ceremonies with flowers and smiles all around.
The unwritten rules for protection and promotion of national interests are as important as the code of conduct of diplomats ranging from sartorial propriety to acting for the common good. Confidentiality of communications within an individual Government should be sacrosanct at least for a reasonable period so that the diplomats can be brutally frank in their assessments. These assessments enable the Governments concerned to understand each other and according to their best interests. Such frank assessments and forthright predictions contribute to peace and stability in the world. Indeed, it is the "cables" that make the diplomatic world go round.
We should not rejoice over the loss of face that the US has suffered on account of the leakage of its cable traffic. This can happen to any country, even though some countries are more discreet than others and maintain a certain decorum in even confidential communications. But if diplomatic cables leak even in India, there will be many red faces. What we write in these cables cannot but offend the people whose conduct or conversations are reported in what we call "telegrams". Unless the confidentiality of these communications are assured, the very functioning of our missions will be in jeopardy.
The Wikileaks have, however, come as a bonanza for US watchers as they give a rare glimpse of the workings of US diplomacy and the private views of US diplomats expressed in privileged communications to their Government. Such leaks may even have a beneficial effect if the US Government takes corrective measures to remove the irritants that may be generated by the leaks.
One point to remember is that diplomatic "cables" or "telegrams"have undergone many changes over the years. From a situation where each word or each letter was painstakingly coded by hand, we have reached a stage when words keyed into a computer automatically get coded and then get decoded for the recipients. Neither the sender nor the recipient needs to worry about any unauthorized person reading the messages. Without that comfort and confidence, no one will convey his frank opinions and assessments.
Diplomats are generally the worst critics of their host countries because they watch and learn about their hosts on a day to day basis. They also experience culture shocks each time they change their assignments. The excellent relations the countries may have do not prevent them from expressing their views among themselves. The hosts will not be too pleased to hear these views. Such conversations take place in diplomatic circles in every capital.
The US Government had already warned several countries, including India. about the likelihood of irritants emerging on account of the leaks. We do not know the nature and extent of the damage that is likely to result when the thousands of pages, which have been leaked, are published and analyzed. The early revelation about India's aspirations for permanent membership of the UN Security Council had no real surprise in it. We knew for a fact that the US had not yet arrived at a formula for the expansion of the Security Council, which it can expect to accomplish. It had "enthusiastically" supported Japan and Germany in the past, but could not succeed in promoting them. The hope to see India as a permanent member may be genuine, but the hope can be fulfilled only if there is a workable formula, involving the nature and size of the expansion. The US is still searching for such a formula.
Hillary's instructions in the leaked document reveals that the US mission in New York would go to the extent of spying on the concerned countries to learn about their moves in this connection. The issues to be followed are listed in these words:
"B. Key Continuing Issues
1) UN Security Council Reform (FPOL-1).
-- Positions, attitudes, and divisions among member states on
UN Security Council (UNSC) reform.
-- Views, plans and intentions of Perm 5 and other member
states on the issue of UNSC enlargement, revision of UNSC
procedures or limitation of Perm 5 privileges.
-- International deliberations regarding UNSC expansion among
key groups of countries: self-appointed front runners for
permanent UNSC membership Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan
(the Group of Four or G-4); the Uniting for Consensus group
(especially Mexico, Italy, and Pakistan) that opposes
additional permanent UNSC seats; the African Group; and the
EU, as well as key UN officials within the Secretariat and
the UN General Assembly (UNGA) Presidency.
-- Willingness of member states to implement proposed reforms.
-- Reactions of UN senior leadership towards member
recommendations for UNSC reform."
The objection is to the description of "a key group of countries", India, Brazil, Japan and Germany, as "self-appointed front runners". This description need not be seen as derogatory because they are seen as front runners, but not recognized formally by anyone else. India is of the view that it has substantial support, but this is not a matter of public record. The other criticism is that Obama's statement of support for India voiced in the Indian Parliament is proved hollow by the statement of the US state secretary that India is nothing but a self appointed front runner. Here, it is a matter of interpretation of the intent of the US President. What he expressed was the consensus view in New York that if and when the Security Council is expanded, India should have a place in it as a permanent member. This is indeed a significant shift in the US position as no US leader had expressed this sentiment so far. But too much should not be read into it. Our dream may be a little nearer to reality now than before, but not enough.
There may still be worse revelations in the coming weeks when more documents get published. As long as they are seen in their right perspective, no serious damage will be done to India-US relations. Some of them may even help clarify some of the mysteries of US behaviour around the world.
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