India can pursue independent foreign policy
by T. P. Sreenivasan

An assertion heard in the context of the foreign policy of the first Manmohan Singh Government was that it abandoned India’s independent foreign policy, or was in the process of abandoning it, had it not been for the pressures of its leftist partners. Now that Winston Churchill’s “little man walking into the little booth with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper” has rejected that assertion, at least in the sense that his little cross has led to the advent of a second Manmohan Singh Government, time has come to examine how independent or otherwise was the foreign policy of India in the last five years. The critics of that policy have not been vindicated, though they will say that foreign policy was not an issue at the elections.

Foreign policy, by its very definition, has to relate to the world realities and it has to be reshaped constantly on the basis of the response it gets from its “consumers”, who are the foreign countries, whose actions we aim to influence by our foreign policy moves. An independent foreign policy, in that sense, is a myth. It must have, as its basis, a solid sense of the world around us and must be adjusted to derive the most from it.

The other question is who should foreign policy be independent of? Once it is established that we should hear every one in the process of formulating and implementing foreign policy, the argument that policy should be independent of external influences does not hold. The only consideration has to be whether or not the foreign policy benefits India. The impression created during the first Manmohan Singh Government was that somehow the government could not be trusted to have a sound judgment about India’s interests. Or worse, there could be ulterior motives in pursuing a particular policy. The net result was the creation of a veil of suspicion and an atmosphere of pressure, making it difficult for the government to act decisively. The world watched in consternation when other countries had to deal not with one Government of India, but also with its different factions. The government, it looked, lacked independence to pursue a foreign policy. When the government was being criticised inside the country for lacking an independent foreign policy, it was being perceived abroad as being unable to be independent enough to keep its commitments.

The independence of Indian foreign policy has been questioned before both internally and externally. Freedom of thought and independence of action were at the heart of the nonaligned movement, but the movement itself was seen as a natural ally of one of the power blocs. While India took its decisions independently, on the basis of its own judgment, it was seen as tilting to the Soviet Union, more so after the Indo-Soviet Treaty of 1971 and the Bangladesh war. History will testify that India did not succumb to pressure from the Soviet Union on issues such as Asian Collective Security and some of the other strategic moves of the Soviet Union. India proved that it was too big and too independent a country to be subservient to any other country.

The events of 2004 to 2009 did not make India any less independent, just as the events of 1970 to 1977 did not make it any more dependent on any foreign power. In 2004, the UPA Government inherited the shattered theory of “India Shining”, shattered not by the rest of the world, but by the Indian electorate itself. The rest of the world was dazzled by India’s growth, the nuclear tests and the way India coped with their aftermath. They had abandoned their attempts at isolating India and had come round to working with a nuclear India despite apprehensions about India’s nuclear posture. The most remarkable achievement of the UPA Government was the way it went about bringing India into the nuclear mainstream, an effort, which was seen as surrendering our independence. Suffice it to say here that the much criticised shift in policy took place in Washington than in New Delhi. The NDA Government left off the talks with the United States, accepting four of the five benchmarks the US set for normalising relations. The fifth, strategic restraint, a euphemism for restricting India’s nuclear arsenal, was as unacceptable to UPA as it was to NDA. It was the change of heart in Washington that it could work with the other bench marks that led to the nuclear deal. In achieving it, there was give and take, but those decisions were taken with India’s interests kept intact. Even if the elections were not fought on this issue, Dr Manmohan Singh, identified as he was with the deal, would not have become Prime Minister again without wide acceptance of his stand on this issue.

India’s Pakistan policy is another matter in which the charge of dependence was made. It was alleged that Washington had its hold on our responses to Pakistan. The truth is that India has been ferociously independent in conducting our relations with Pakistan. The most innovative ideas reported to have been put forward in the back channel negotiations on Kashmir were not conjured up outside India. The sketchy details that have emerged have been received well in the West, but no one outside could claim any credit for them. For the rest, India was basically watching the chaos in Pakistan and encouraging the advent of democracy. We did not need anyone’s advice to respond to President Zardari’s overtures. The Bush Administration, mercifully, took no interest in Kashmir at any time. The charge of external influence came up in the post 26/11 situation due to American activism. But today, there is recognition that the Indian response was prudent, logical and inevitable. The rest of the world may have wished that there would be no conflagration, but our decision not to take that route was dictated only by our judgment.

Our vote on Iran at the IAEA is another issue on which there were charges of external pressure. But long before the Iranian situation became a contentious issue, India had taken the position that Iran should abide by its commitments under the treaties that it had signed and that should remove the fears of the international community by answering the questions raised by the IAEA. We had a sense, right from the beginning, that Iran had something to hide and that it was important to have a full disclosure of their peaceful intentions.

On neighbourhood policy, the charges were not about independence, but about ineffectiveness of our policy to turn things around in our favour. Some have the perception that we have unlimited influence on our neighbours and if we do not have it, we should force our way there. Some feel that it is India’s duty to solve all the problems of our neighbours. The test of a good neighbourhood policy is whether it protects our political and economic interests in the neighbourhood. Goodwill from small nations towards their big neighbours is limited and any evidence of interference will be resented. Neither unilateral concessions nor strong arm tactics will help us to deal with our neighbours. In Sri Lanka, the eventual outcome has suited us, while in Nepal, we would have desired a different outcome. But our policies of restraint and helpful posturing have enabled us to retain our influence and to be able to play a role in the eventual dispensation.

Our links with China, Russia, Japan and the European Union have also won approbation of the public in India, though none of these was smooth sailing or without hazards. Our nonaligned links were preserved and nurtured and new partnerships with Brazil and South Africa have prospered. We are no nearer to becoming a permanent member of the Security Council and the chances are bleak not because we have not tried, but because the world is not ready for it yet. We should appear unattached on this issue as permanent membership without veto will be a liability rather than an asset. We should remain ready and willing, but we should not do any deals for it or make our bilateral relations hostage to the support we get on this issue.

No one will claim that the election results are a vindication of India’s foreign policy in the last five years. But the truth is that foreign policy was thoroughly examined in an unprecedented manner and it found favour with a majority of the people. We should not forget that it was on foreign policy issues that Dr. Manmohan Singh staked the very existence of his Government. He is now fully equipped to follow a foreign policy free of extraneous factors and his enhanced prestige around the world will be good for the nation.

The writer, a former Indian Ambassador, is a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington.

June 17, 2009

'Pakistan will project it as a diplomatic victory'

I saw several smiling faces in Washington as news came from far away
Yekaterinburg (till 1991 Sverdlovsk, named after the Bolshevik leader,
Yakov Sverdlov) the city over which Gary Powers' U2 spy plane was shot
down, that India had agreed to resume the dialogue with Pakistan.

Several of them, think tankers, had advocated resumption of the
dialogue between India and Pakistan as an important ingredient in
President Obama's [ Images ] Afpak policy.

It did not matter if India insisted only on discussing terrorism or if
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [ Images ] reprimanded President Zardari
in front of the cameras. Resumption of dialogue it was for the US
State Department and Pakistan, a gain after the dialogue had derailed
following the Mumbai [ Images ] attacks. They did not want any credit
for the new development, but they clearly relished it.

"How can Pakistan accept the fact that the dialogue was only about
terrorism against India?" I asked one of them.

"That is not a problem. Pakistan will claim that the dialogue is on
Kashmir because terrorism is an issue related to Kashmir. They can
advance the argument that they are simply supporting the liberation
struggle in Kashmir. As far as they are concerned, the resumption of
dialogue lets them off the hook as far as Mumbai is concerned.
Pakistan will project it as a diplomatic victory," he said.

That is precisely what Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi
did in his statement to the press:

'The two foreign secretaries will meet at mutually convenient dates to
discuss the steps taken on either side to deal with extremism and
terrorism. From those discussions, the political leadership will
re-engage at Sharm-el-Sheikh (the Egypt [ Images ] town where the next
Non Aligned Summit will be held).'

He went on to talk about India and Pakistan being victims of terrorism
and about the joint anti-terror mechanism that was set up in Havana,
ironically, at another Non Aligned Summit venue. He did not give in
even on the question of the release of the terrorist, who masterminded
the Mumbai attacks.

'We could not interfere in the lawful release of Jamaaut Dawa chief
Hafeez Mohammed Saeed. The provincial government is contemplating
appealing the court decision,' was his comment.

In other words, the highly sophisticated construction that Foreign
Secretary Menon placed on the decision to talk about terrorism without
resuming the dialogue was deliberately drowned out by Pakistan and the
United States. Under Secretary William Burns must have reported
'Mission accomplished!' within days after his recent visit.

He had openly advocated resumption of the dialogue and Pakistan too
had echoed it. It is also a moment of minor victory for Richard
Holbrooke. After all, disengaging Pakistan from the Indian border and
committing its might to combat Taliban [ Images ] forces is part of
his strategy and it is important for him to relax the stand-off
between India and Pakistan. He would like to put Mumbai behind him and
move ahead.

The beginning of the dialogue, the terms, the scope and objectives of
which were left to India and Pakistan to decide on, was also necessary
for the United States to push India and Pakistan gently to move
towards the formula reported to have been identified in the back
channel talks.

An old Kashmir hand, Ambassador [ Images ] Howard Schaffer, has just
published a book entitled Limits of Influence, tracing the history of
US efforts to solve the Kashmir issue. Although the title reflects
American exasperation over the limits of its influence on the issue,
Schaffer says in the introduction to the book that the time has, in
fact, come for a more active role for the US in Kashmir.

He argues that the improved relations between India and the United
States and the progress made in back channel talks make it the right
moment to push for a solution. No wonder William Burns pulled out the
old formula of a solution acceptable to the Kashmiri people.

We had heard this before, as Foreign Secretary Menon notes, but part
of the reason for improvement in India-US relations was the fact that
President Bush and his men did not use the K word. He would not even
buy a cashmere shawl for his wife for fear of irritating his Indian
friends, according to Washington sources.

Indian diplomats have made sure in the Yekaterinburg deal that all of
India's concerns were taken care of. But Pakistan and the United
States will claim a minor victory while India highlights the small
print with luminous markers.

The test, of course, is whether Pakistan will do more to punish the
guilty men of Mumbai before the peace process really commences.
Pakistan is in no position to take decisions of substance for some
more time to come and there is no reason why we should give comfort to
anyone that, as on previous occasions, India will engage in the peace
process, regardless of the heinous terrorist attacks against India.

T P Sreenivasan, a former Indian diplomat, is presently a Visiting
Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC.

A Five Day Rip Van Winkle
By T.P.Sreenivasan
A cruise is an expensive way of doing nothing. It also is imprisonment with constant fear of drowning. And yet, people of all hues, shapes and sizes spend their or their children’s hard earned money on the cruises that go nowhere. In my own case, the trip was to Bermuda, a bit of the last vestige of British imperialism and right back to New Jersey. For lack of anything better to do, we participated in various activities, ranging from mini golf to rock climbing. But eating and drinking were the main activities.
For me, a five day vacation, after many years, from the newspaper, the internet, the phone and the fax was an experiment in itself. The world, I knew, would take care of itself without my being a participant in its affairs. And it did. But I was bewildered by all that happened in the five days, during which I just watched the sea go by, most of the time deceptively placidly, but occasionally shaking the massive metallic marvel and carrying us off our feet. I felt like Rip Van Winkle, who could not recognise the world he had woken up into.
The making of a brand new Indian cabinet was perhaps the most interesting event of the week. As we sailed off, some Minsters were already sworn in, but Delhi appeared like a huge bazaar, where newly elected representatives of the people were haggling for the best deals for themselves. People must have been on live television, visiting 10, Jan Path and 7, Race Course Road to make their claims. Even with a massive mandate, the Prime Minister was not able to resist the pressure of his allies. Karunanidhi had withdrawn to his den in Chennai, threatening not to join the cabinet, unless his son, daughter, nephew and other cronies were taken in. The Prime Minister could not get rid of even masters of corruption in his old cabinet, I discovered. Politics is the art of the impossible, we should say.
The biggest surprise was the allocation of External Affairs to SMKrishna, though his name was on many lips even before Prnab Mukherjee was appointed Minister of External Affairs (EAM). The appointment was reminiscent of the appointment of PVNarasimha Rao as External Affairs Minister in 1980. Rao himself could not find the logic and he shared his surprise with GKReddy, the veteran journalist. He would have preferred an economic Ministry, Rao said to Reddy. Reddy was ready with his advice. He said that Rao should not ask for a change, because Indira Gandhi would immediately conclude that Rao was out to make money! Rao took the advice and did not ask for a change. The rest is history. But a similar experiment with Madhav Sinh Solanki was an unmitigated disaster. The “scholarly” Minister had not heard of the NPT when he took over as the External Affairs Minister of India! Krishna is sure to be a success with his US education and flair for public speaking and zest for life even at 77. His tennis prowess is known, but many may not know that one of his hobbies is designing of clothes. I remember discussing this hobby with him when he came to the UN as a delegate in the eighties. He may well turn out to be the best dressed External Affairs Minister we ever had.
Shashi Tharoor as one of the junior Ministers in the Foreign Office was logical, but for that very reason, there were doubts whether it would happen. Neither Natwar Singh nor KRNarayanan was given the External Affairs portfolio when they first became Ministers. One was in Chemicals and the other in Science and Technology before they eventually moved into External Affairs. For Tharoor, it will be a new experience as he was never part of the Indian establishment before. But his experience of dealing with conflicting interests and finding a consensus at the UN will stand him in good stead when he deals with policy. Ministers of State in the External Affairs Ministry end up doing protocol duties and undertaking goodwill visits, while policy is made elsewhere. Tharoor should be an exception because of his special skills. The IFS tends to gravitate towards the EAM because postings and promotions are with the Foreign Secretary and the EAM.
Another nuclear test by North Korea did not surprise me. They have been testing the waters ever since President Obama took charge. He was by no means soft with words when North Korea carried out a missile test, but there was nothing in his reaction which indicated zero tolerance. Another resolution from the Security Council, duly moderated by China, was not going to deter North Korea. The day is not far when Japan and South Korea break their nuclear virginity. For India, the North Korean test is a direct threat because of its linkages to Pakistan and China. We have been treating the North Korean case as a distant phenomenon, leaving it to the Americans and others to deal with North Korea. I remember asking Bob Einhorn, the US disarmament wizard back in 1998 why the US came down on India like a ton of bricks and rushed to North Korea with incentive packages. He said each case was different, but did not elaborate. We abstained on the North Korea issue at the IAEA on the ground that we were not members of the NPT and it was not for us to sit in judgment over NPT violations. Now that we are in the mainstream in the IAEA, time has come for us to take a more aggressive stand on North Korea.
President Obama made two significant appointments while I was at sea. Sonia Sotomayor is no stranger to the judicial system in the US and she has enjoyed bipartisan support in the past. But there is suspicion that the President Obama is overplaying the minority card in choosing the first Hispanic to serve on the Supreme Court. Obviously, President Obama anticipates trouble in her confirmation and hence the emphasis on her humble background and stellar reputation. Some utterances by her of the role of the judiciary have been dug out to bury her in the confirmation process. But President Obama has high stakes in her confirmation and he will do what he can to get the nomination through in the Senate.
The appointment of Congressman Tim Roamer of Indiana as the next ambassador to India was a surprise when it was first reported. President Obama could well have chosen an old India hand, who is universally respected in India, Karl Inderfurth. Perhaps Roamer got the job because he supported Obama in the early stages against Hillary Clinton, while Inderfurth was seen as a Clinton protégé. Old wounds seem to remain open even after the grand reconciliation. But Inderfurth is too good a diplomat to remain a Professor at George Washington.
I am glad I am back in the world of Twitter and Facebook, because, without them, one remains lonely in the most crowded of places. Social interaction is no more confined to cocktail parties and dinners, certainly not on cruises at this time of recession. But I must say there was no sign of recession on the ‘Explorer of the Seas’. All the available 3500 seats were taken and there was no dearth of food or wine. People readily signed up for expensive activities and indulged in luxuries without looking at the stock market. And as we stepped out, there were more signs of recovery, at least in India.

If only a fine speech could help!

After listening to President Obama's [ Images ] Cairo speech, I turned
to twitter (www.twitter.com/sreeniv) and tweeted, 'If only speeches,
good speeches, could resolve the problems of the world!'

My next tweet was an after thought, 'Obama and Osama have spoken at
the same time.'

I think I have said it all.

As is expected of a president who spoke his way to the White House, he
made a speech, which any speech writer would be proud of. I am sure
there are many in Washington who will claim paternity of one turn of
phrase or one quotation in it. And it was delivered with perfection
and a masterly use of the teleprompter.

But felicity of expression or even well intentioned articulation does
not suffice, particularly if the effort is to change a centuries old
mindset, marked by fear and mistrust. But as every commentator, Jew or
Muslim, black or white, American or Arab, has said, it is a welcome
first step.

At least, President Obama has made his position clear and there is
nothing in his speech, which is offensive or unacceptable. If policies
follow principles, we are in for exciting times.

Here at the Brookings Institution, which houses a special centre for
the Middle East, the Obama speech has been a matter of speculation
long before it was delivered. And now it is a matter of analysis by
experts, who may have contributed ideas. But one need not be an expert
to see that Obama has stated the American position in the best
possible light.

Uncharacteristically, the theme of the speech was not change, but
continuity, not blaming the past, but taking of responsibility.

Why was Egypt [ Images ] chosen as the venue for this historic speech?
President Obama stopped in Saudi Arabia and probably gave a copy of
the speech in Arabic to his host, but he did not deliver it there.

The reasons are not far to seek. Relations with Egypt are valued
highly in the United States as a model, which should be replicated in
other Islamic States. Perhaps, that is the model that President Obama
is contemplating for Pakistan and Afghanistan.

When he mentioned the billions that the US is pouring into Pakistan
and Afghanistan, he had precisely the Egyptian model in mind, by which
friendship is bought by massive assistance and stability is provided
by a leader, whose faith in democracy is not absolute.

After all, it was the Camp David accords that set in motion the long
process of the recognition of Israel by the Arab states.

The new beginning that President Obama has sought, he claims, is
rooted in history and traditions, strengthened by his own Islamic
experience. The idea is to trash the conflict between the US and Islam
in the modern era as the result of colonialism and Cold War.

He wants to remove the negative stereotypes that each has created for
the other and move back to religious tolerance and racial equality,
stressed by the Western and Islamic civilisations alike.

In principle, there is nothing questionable in this approach, but
there is nothing in the speech that holds the key to open that door.
Every leader in the world has said some time or another that we should
follow our traditions, but we should not be prisoners of the past.

The problem lies in the interpretation of what tradition should entail
and what it expects the faithful to do. If self sacrifice for the sake
of that tradition gets currency, violence becomes legal tender.

Among specific issues, Afghanistan and Pakistan and Iraq come before
Israel and Palestine. No US president would have followed that
sequence a couple of years ago. For President Obama, the priorities
are clear. As he says, his first duty as president is to protect
theAmerican people, which include the soldiers in Afghanistan and
Iraq.

Moreover, the fountains of terrorism are in the Afpak region. The
troops cannot remain in Afghanistan and power alone will not do. The
battle in Afghanistan is legitimate, but there are doubts as to
whether war was the most effective way to deal with Iraq.

His defence of the war in Iraq is only that 9/11 led the US to act
contrary to its traditions and ideals and that the people of Iraq are
better off without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein [ Images ]. By
reiterating his schedule of withdrawal from Iraq, he seeks to remove
the dark Iraq blot from the face of America.

Anyone who looks for clues of what President Obama proposes to do in
the Middle East will be sorely disappointed with the speech. In the
scale of support to Israel and Palestine, it is obvious that blood is
thicker than water. It is one thing to say that the strong bonds with
Israel are unbreakable and it is another thing to say America will not
turn its back on Palestinian aspiration for dignity and opportunity.

Asking Palestinians to abjure violence at any cost and simply
restating that there is no legitimacy to settlements is not an even
handed approach. The basis of the final settlement is still the Road
Map and nothing else.

If President Obama's claim that he will, from now on, say publicly,
what he says in private is true, he could not have anything new to
tell Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu or King Abdullah of
Saudi Arabia. No statesman can ever practice the Obama formula that he
will be conscious of God and speak always the truth, as dictated by
the Koran.

If he has nothing to offer beyond what he has said in Cairo on the
Palestine issue, making peace with Islam will remain a distant dream.
I very much hope that he has something else up his sleeve.

On Iran, President Obama has broken new ground by scaling down the
rhetoric and affirming that the US is willing to talk without
preconditions and by conceding that Iran can develop nuclear energy
for peaceful purposes under the provisions of the NPT.

Enrichment of uranium is not prohibited under the NPT and it was
demanded only as a confidence building measure. It is unfair to ask
Iran to abide by the NPT and also say in the next breath that
enrichment should be halted to generate confidence in the West.

Sincerity of purpose is evident in seeking an accommodation with Iran
in the larger context of seeking peace with Islam. It is here that the
speech seems to have the potential to open new doors. Iran, after all,
has a very important place in the Islamic world and the US cannot make
up with Islam, while threatening to go to war with Iran.

Long sections of the speech on democracy (not necessary to insist on
the Western style), women's rights, development and tradition, science
and technology are there to establish that the West and Islam have
much in common and the diversity can be an asset rather than a
liability.

They match with the initial sections of the speech in which the
President seeks to identify harmony rather than predict a clash of
civilizations. Here he seeks to reassure the Islamic world of a
certain flexibility of ideology, which should be welcome to the Muslim
world.

It may have been no accident that yet another audio tape of Osama bin
Laden [ Images ] has emerged on the eve of the Cairo speech. The time
and context of the tape and its authenticity have not been determined,
but it anticipates the conciliatory approach in the Cairo speech and
dismisses it as of no consequence.

But the purpose of President Obama's diplomacy is to move away from
extremist fringes on both sides and prepare for an eventual meeting of
minds. But, as he asserts, no single speech can change much and all
questions cannot be answered on one occasion.

President Obama has struck the right note both in Ankara and Cairo and
set the Islamic world thinking about a world in which the US and Islam
can coexist.

What he expects in return is a scaling down of the terrorist threat to
the United States. Palestine is at the centre of any improvement in
relations, but the President has brought up a number of other issues
to establish certain complementarities between civilisations.

As the speech resonates well in the corners of the globe, the current
scepticism about any American pronouncement may well give way to hope
and optimism.

Former Indian diplomat T P Sreenivasan is currently a Visiting Fellow
at the Brookings Institution, Washington, working on a book on
India-US nuclear cooperation.

India-US : Hazardous Days Ahead from Rediff.com May 28,2009


A strange polarisation is taking place in India. Whenever President Obama [ Images ] says or does something prejudicial to India's interests, the anti-US lobby attacks the UPA government for misreading the Americans.

Instead of giving Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [ Images ] credit for gaining ground for India by skillful diplomacy during the Bush administration, they blame him for not anticipating the reversal of trends during the next presidency.

This happened when a State Department official restated the position that India should sign the NPT and when President Obama opposed outsourcing. Why did India reach agreements with the US when it was possible that a future government in the US would disown them?

If this is indeed the case, no agreements should be reached with any country. In the case of the US, the new administration is now constrained to work around the existing agreements even if it has to distance itself from the commitments made by President Bush.

The fact is that President Obama himself was taken by surprise by the kind of issues he faced in his first hundred days. 'Keep your hands washed; cover your mouth when you cough!' President Obama would never have thought that he would have to utter these words at his press conference to mark his first hundred days in office.

Nothing would surprise him any more as he has seen many issues he had not thought of coming to him all at once. He has also learnt not only that change in Washington comes slowly, but also that posturing is par for the course there. He has not taken long to know that the state is an ocean liner and not a speed boat and it cannot change course in a desperate hurry. His responses in this bewildering situation has to be necessarily tentative and subject to adjustments in the future.

The world misunderstood President Obama when he promised change. He has begun to say since his inauguration that many things that he wants to change cannot be done in a single term, a single presidency or in a single lifetime.

The time horizon he has in mind is much longer than the rest of the world had imagined. He can only start the journey and it may end only with a different president or a different generation. Continuity is part of the change.

The global economic crisis played a role in Obama's election, but he had not anticipated it when he initially offered his candidature. Iraq was the issue then and the economy had appeared robust. But he found that the economy was built on shifting sand. He lost no time in taking the bull by the horns, but the surprise was that he did not get bipartisan support, which was expected at a time of national and global crisis.

The world was aghast that business was as usual on the Hill when the stimulus package was being piloted there. President Obama is proud of his accomplishments in the economy, but not content.

In foreign policy, the shift from Iraq to Afghanistan and then to Pakistan was warranted by the threat from Taliban [ Images ], which diminished even the importance of capturing Osama bin Laden [ Images ]. The war on terror returned to the theatre of terror, but a weakened and resource starved civilian government in Pakistan did not seem willing even to provide a front line for the war.

President Zardari had no qualms about signing an agreement with the Taliban to introduce Shariat law in Swat. Though the Taliban was nothing but a foreign force, the Pakistan army [ Images ] had to be forced into action by the United States. The very creation of an Afpak region for special attention and the designation of Richard Holbrooke as the special representative signaled the importance in US policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The likelihood of a takeover by the Taliban and fall of Pakistan nuclear weapons in the hands of the militants was used as a cover to enhance assistance to Pakistan.

President Obama has, at the same time, allayed fears about Pakistan's nuclear assets by saying that the military to military cooperation between the two countries will guarantee the protection of nuclear command and control mechanism. He has indirectly confirmed that the United States has a say in the management of Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

This was instituted when the A Q Khan scandal broke out and it came to be known that Khan had hurt non-proliferation more than Saddam Hussein [ Images ] had done. If A Q Khan and Pakistan had to be let off, they had to pay a price.

President Obama has not been very innovative in his Afpak policy. The three way summit in Washington was an instant success in the sense that Prime Minister Gilani declared an all out war on the Taliban even before the summit ended. President Zardari was handsomely rewarded with an aid package, which should convey a message that he still has the support of the Americans.

India was an unseen presence at the summit as Pakistan's world view could not be divorced from its paranoia with India.

Depending on Pakistani rulers and the army and pandering to their military and financial needs is an old American habit. If Pakistan has to fight the Taliban, it needs training in guerrilla warfare, not F-16s and warships. But the US Congress is again on the old track of handing over cash to Pakistan.

President Obama has thrown in an assertion that Pakistans obsession with India as the mortal threat to Pakistan is misguided. But there is no insistence that no assistance that could be used against India would be supplied to Pakistan.

Even excluding India from Holbrooke's mandate was only to accommodate Indian sensitivity. Holbrooke routinely halts in Delhi [ Images ] and gives gentle hints to India. India was conspicuously absent from Hillary Clinton's [ Images ] Asian itinerary. President Obama thinks that India can be satisfied by pious warm words about India and its prime minister.

The Prague speech outlined President Obama's new vision on nuclear disarmament, but there was hardly any change there. The commitment to move towards nuclear disarmament is nothing but a reaffirmation of the grand bargain in the NPT and the further steps he has suggested are old wine in new bottle.

He has no quarrel with the India-US nuclear deal, but he is in no mood to make it a part of the new dispensation. By treating the deal as a one time exception will not guarantee its faithful implementation. The appointment of the new czar of nonproliferation in the State Department does not augur well for the deal.

As far as India is concerned, the nuclear deal has already had its benefits in terms of the NSG exemption, leading to the agreements with France [ Images ] and Russia [ Images ].

China, rather than India is President Obama's focus in Asia. The old Bush view of India as a balancing factor in Asia is a thing of the past. The talk of a G-2 to run the world is getting more frequent in the light of the economic crisis. This is a gigantic mistake the US is making.

The US and China cannot partition the world between themselves as the victors of the World War II did in 1945. President Obama appears oblivious of Chinese perfidy and ambition to dominate the world. Walking into a Chinese embrace will endanger the US itself in the long term.

Say no to Bangalore, yes to Buffalo is the new slogan President Obama has coined in the context of outsourcing. He must know that business will go wherever there is profit and there is little that the government can do except in terms of denying tax benefits.

The president has to create jobs in Buffalo, but to suggest that Bangalore is taboo is to hurt globalisation, which has brought immense benefits to the United States.

President Obama has reappointed veteran negotiator, George Mitchell, for the Middle East, but he is yet to make his agenda clear. If he allows domestic politics and Israeli influence determine his Middle East policy, justice will be denied to Palestine again.

Getting close to Turkey may be a great idea, but the key to winning the hearts of the Muslim world lies in establishing the Palestine state and insisting that Israel should abide by international law.

In the rest of his foreign policy postures and pronouncements, President Obama has demonstrated candour and vision. Gestures to Iran and Cuba, new signals to Russia and Europe and a smile and hand shake for Venezuelas Hugo Chavez mark a change in style, if not substance.

He has neither overreacted nor made concessions to DPRK's nuclear and missile antics. It may be true that he has not yet moved from campaign mode to governing mode, but the directions are clear and consistent with his promise of change.

India has much to be apprehensive about President Obama's Afpak policy, nuclear agenda and outsourcing. Part of the reason for this could be the feeling in the new Administration that India got away with too many diplomatic victories during the Bush era.

India's diplomatic efforts should be directed towards getting those victories consolidated in the days to come. We should build on our accomplishments rather than undermine the gains of the last five years. The hazards ahead are formidable, but not insurmountable.

Visiting Fellow at Brookings Institution

I joined the Brookings Institution as a Visiting Fellow on May 21,2009. In a welcome message, Mr. Strobe Talbott,President of Brookings said: "Your tenure here reflects Brookings serious commitment to work on South Asia.....We greatly value your association with Brookings." I expect to do research for my book on the India-US Nuclear Agreement and other nuclear matters till end July.

I have an office at the Brookings (Room 524) a telephone (202-797-6294)and an email ID (tsreenivasan@brookings.edu)

I shall be working with Mr. Carlos Pascaul, Director of Foreign Policy and Prof. Stephen Cohen, Senior Fellow.

The Fellowship has been made possible by generous contributions made to Brookings by Mr. Sreedhar Menon and Mr.Tushar Kothari.

Slumdog: Exploiting India

Slumdog Millionaire? I hate that film!" said a much decorated, liberal and well-travelled former submariner.

"It is poverty porn at its worst. The Mumbai [Images] marauders are supposed to have done their deed to hurt India, to challenge its success, to expose its soft underbelly. But this movie has done the job better"

He did not say it, but suggested that the movie was cinematic terror against India. But he had not seen the movie or read the novel. "What kind of diplomat is he, who does the job of a drain inspector? Isn't he supposed to project India in a positive light?" he said of my former colleague, Vikas Swarup.

I teased my friend, "You are like the Soviet citizens of yore, who used to say they hated Dr Zhivago though they had never read the novel." We were both in Moscow [Images] in the seventies.

I too had not seen the movie or read the novel, Q&A, now christened Slumdog Millionaire [Images] with an eye on the bestseller list, and I too had heard horrible things about the shit pit, the blinding of children with acid and such other horrors of Dharavi slum that the movie presents graphically.

I had also heard that the movie was nominated for the Oscars and A R Rahman had already won the Golden Globe [Images]. But I said I would read the novel, see the movie and judge whether the artistic excellence of the film absolves it of its obscenity.

Having read the novel and seen the film, I cannot say that it has done more good than harm to India. This is not a matter of my wanting to shove the reality under the carpet. Vikas Swarup, or any other diplomat, cannot lie abroad for his country anymore.

But the film is exploitation of the novel, of Dharavi, of poverty, of Rahman, of India itself to titillate foreign audiences. It is the exploitation of the new curiosity about India's success. The curiosity today is not about maharajas and snake charmers, magic or rope trick, but about the market and the malls, the computers and the cell phones.

The question is whether India is a boom or a bubble. It seeks to reassure the world, as Jamal says to an American tourist couple, when he rolls on the ground after a brutal beating by the police, 'You want to see the real India? Here it is!'

Vikas Swarup can explain his novel away, as he has done, by saying that he merely held up a mirror to nature and made a hero of a boy from the slums in celebration of his keen eye and keener brain. Even the word 'slumdog' was not his creation. He found a clever story line and wrote a readable novel, though replete with horrible scenes and unpalatable descriptions of his country.

His book would have raised some eyebrows, but passed to obscurity, like some other creations of diplomatic wordsmiths. But he walked into a trap and sold his rights, without caring to insist that the movie should at least be faithful to his novel. The screenplay has very little to do with the novel itself, except the theme of a millionaire rising from a slum to win a fortune by sheer luck.

Even the questions in the book are different from those in the movie. So are the events that helped Jamal (not Ram Mohammad Thomas) to win his millions. Vikas Swarup, the Indian diplomat, became a willing instrument in the hands of his exploiters. 'I am not a millionaire as yet,' lamented Swarup in an interview!

Take the opening scenes of torture. An idiotic policeman carries out the orders of his cleverer and sympathetic boss in the expectation that Jamal would confess to even graver crimes at the end of it. But Jamal did not cheat. The reason he won was that 'it was written.'

Torture is internationally banned and the director of the film knew that India had not joined the global consensus against torture. He also knew that India is obsessed with Amnesty International raising issues of human rights when they hear about torture. The police officer mentions Amnesty as the disaster, not the possible death of the victim of torture. The police man appears to enjoy torturing and even insulting the victim. He provokes Jamal by referring to Latika as the 'bitch of the slum.' The torture scenes do not add much to the story, but denigrates India even more than the slums do.

As though the depiction of squalor, crime and cruelty is not enough, the film challenges India's success. In a relatively harmless scene, in which Jamal and Salim look with pride at the skyscrapers, which had come up where their slums flourished during their younger days, Salim says: 'Today India is in the centre of the world.'

As I heave a sigh of relief that there is at least one line in praise of India, he goes on to say: 'And I am in the centre of it.' He then goes on to say that he is with a gangster. Well, the movie was taken before the revelations about Satyam [Get Quote]. Who then are the gangsters in the centre of India as it emerges as the centre of the world?

Consider a question that Jamal could not answer. The quiz master asks what is written below the Ashoka lions on the Indian national crest. Is it truth alone triumphs or lies alone triumph? You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that this is an insult, particularly as Jamal does not seem to know the answer.

The champions of the film, including my own sons, one, a journalism professor at Columbia University in New York and the other, a young manager and a music and movie enthusiast, say that Slumdog is a cinematographic wonder with excellent acting, soulful music, perfect direction and amazing photography.

'Exuberant, exciting, gaudy, and gritty in a way that can only be called Dickensian, Slumdog Millionaire brings contemporary Mumbai to life from the seamy side up, and it does so with compassion and all-around cinematic excellence,' exults Shashi Tharoor.

Many say that the film will do India proud if Rahman picks up three Oscars. In fact, the music is a redeeming feature of the movie. Even the redlight district scene comes to life with the melody of the anklets on dancing feet. But the celebrated song at the end of the movie sounds like a parody of the national anthem with the use of the phrase, Jai ho!

It was not necessary to rake up the dirt in India to create a film to bring Oscars to India. India rejoiced at the Gandhi Oscars, but Slumdog Oscars, if any, will only highlight how India became a victim of exploitation.

Eminent writer Chitra Banerjee Divakurni claims that the movie is, after all, fiction and it should not hurt anyone. Could this not be dealt with by an inscription that any similarity with reality is pure coincidence? But the makers of the film took special care to shoot on location and document every detail. The purpose was obviously to make the movie as authentic as possible and make an impact. The adverse reaction to the movie in India is precisely because of its authenticity.

The fact remains, however, that the novelist and the makers of the movie have brought to light the horrors of Dharavi. If the passion it has aroused could be directed towards a mass movement to combat the evils of the slum and to eliminate the slums altogether in stages, that would be an appropriate response to the movie.

If those involved in the movie would offer their profits from the film to that movement, they would elevate themselves from exploiters to benefactors.

T P Sreenivasan is a former ambassador of India to the United Nations, Vienna [Images], and a former Governor for India at the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna. He is currently the Director General, Kerala [Images] International Centre, Thiruvananthapuram and a Member of the National Security Advisory Board.

Shashi Tharoor creates history

Shashi Tharoor has created history by winning the Lok Sabha seat from the Kerala capital, Thiruvanathapuram, by an unprecedented margin. Never before has any one not born in Kerala or not educated here or not proficient in Malayalam registered an electoral victory in the state.

V K Krishna Menon and K R Narayanan claimed victories on the basis of their accomplishments abroad, but they had their places of birth and educational institutions in Kerala to speak of and they spoke reasonable Malayalam.

More significantly, Tharoor has never worked for India or represented India at any international forum. He came, he saw, he conquered.

I was not surprised when Shashi told me more than a year ago that he intended to seek the Congress ticket for Thiruvanathapuram. I knew from his various moves since his leaving the United Nations that he would seek political fortunes in India in one way or another.

He visited Kerala many times, held meetings with political leaders, set up an academy of communications and was generally seen and heard. He had said long ago that India always mattered to him and that he hoped that one day he would matter to India.

But I had many doubts as to whether his quest for a political role would be successful. I told him that he had to overcome several hurdles, which had been built by vested interests in the political system to prevent new entrants.

Dynasty, party hierarchy and money power were powerful deterrents, I said. I told him that it would be an uphill task even to get nominated by the Congress party and the fact remained also that no Congress candidate had won in Thiruvanathapuram for several years.

Shashi had no ready answers, but he seemed well aware of those challenges and determined to meet them as they came. He had a sense of mission and nothing would stop him.

In the days that followed, I saw closely how he tackled each issue and overcame his many opponents. Several Congress leaders were sceptical about his chances of success on account of his lack of experience and past record of disapproval of Congress icons.

Efforts were made to get him to contest in a Communist stronghold, Palakkad, which eventually went to the Left Front. At one stage, Shashi himself seemed to be reconciled to contesting from his ancestral constituency.

In the end, it was the strong position taken by the Congress high command that clinched the Congress seat for him. Once he got the Congress ticket, his transformation was complete and he became a professional politician with gusto. He dressed himself in the Congress uniform of white khadi, merged into the Congress mainstream and conducted himself as a traditional Congress candidate, including hugging babies and throwing garlands to the crowds.

He followed the directives of the local Congress leadership, even though he was aware of the murmurs of protest among them and went about charming the electorate. Not many knew who he was or what his achievements were, but even in the poorest localities, he was welcomed like a new messiah, untainted by corruption or nepotism.

He turned his lack of proficiency in Malayalam into an advantage by using a few words with electrifying effect. "If you elect me, I shall work for you wholeheartedly. I shall try and turn Thiruvanathapuram into a city of international standards," was his refrain. He did not have to say more and his transparency and sincerity of purpose won him an army of admirers, among them many young people, who were attracted by his pleasing personality.

The Left Front strategy was to discredit Shashi in every possible way rather than counter his message of change in Indian politics and his vision for his constituency and his country.

A former diplomat, currently a leftist commentator on international affairs, was brought in to hatch one theory after another to paint him as pro-US, pro-Israel and anti-Muslim. Shashi's writings over the years were dissected to demolish his image. A 700-word article about Israel, in which Shashi had argued that India could not emulate Israel in dealing with Pakistan, was shown as evidence of his love for Israel.

Of course, the article was not publicised, but its many interpretations were given by ministers and 'intellectuals.' At the same time, Shashi's admiration for M F Husain was projected as anti-Hindu.

Shashi was not shaken by any of these; he simply brought out the facts of his position without disowning what he wrote in the past. He had his record at the United Nations and his many articles on contemporary events to show his objectivity and convictions. His campaign team merely had to invite attention to those to prove the Left Front wrong.

Perhaps, Thiruvanathapuram was the only constituency in India where the nuclear deal and policy towards the US were made into election issues. I was amused that I had to debate foreign policy with a former colleague on a Thiruvanathapuram beach with bewildered fishermen watching us!

Shashi, having declared his wealth, did not seek campaign contributions from the public and found the money for the campaign himself. This made a remarkable impression on the public mind and assured them that he will not serve the rich campaign contributors. He had his supporters around the globe, some of whom camped in Kerala to work quietly for him. They kept away from the party campaign, but worked away on their laptops through night and day to spread the word around in favour of Shashi Tharoor.

The NRI excitement over Shashi's candidature resulted in their relatives back home extending support to him. The cyber space was agog with campaign slogans. Facebook, Orkut, Twitter and other modern means of communications among young people must have helped him in various ways.

Shashi Tharoor and the Congress party coming together was a recipe for success. If Shashi had chosen to contest on his own on the basis of his personal accomplishments, he could have presented an agenda for change and made a splash, but like some of the other Independent stars, he would have made a point, but not gone any further.

But once he made the necessary changes in his perspectives to come to terms with the Congress ideology, the way was clear for him to claim victory. In the ultimate analysis, he can take the credit for taking the right decisions at the right moments in the last few months.

No one has played a more decisive role in his victory than himself.

In giving a massive mandate to Shashi, Thiruvanathapuram has not only elected a Member of Parliament, but also a minister. There is a clear expectation that his talents in foreign affairs and his contacts around the globe will be put to productive use by the prime minister.

The fact that the Congress will not have too many pressures on Cabinet formation in the present scenario has raised these hopes further. But whether this happens or not, Shashi is sure to make an impact in New Delhi.

Shashi did not overplay the 'change' card as Barrack Obama did, because he was seeking to get elected on the ticket of the grand old party of India. But he does represent the urge for change -- change from an old generation to the new, from corruption to cleanliness in politics and from inefficiency to effective action.

He has already created history; he should now proceed to prove that change is possible.

India Abroad April 25, 2008

INSIGHT

Community doubts the India story

By T.P.Sreenivasan

Parag Khanna´s thesis in his new book, `The Second World´ is different
from the generally accepted notion that India, Russia and Japan,
together with China, the European Union and the United States will
form the power centres in the new global order. He does not believe
that China and India will lead the world in the second half of the
twenty-first century. Khanna asserts: "The United States, the European
Union and China already possess most of the total power in the
world—and will do their best to prevent all others from gaining ground
on them. Russia, Japan and India cannot assert themselves globally,
militarily or otherwise; they are not super powers; but rather
balancers whose support (or lack thereof) can buttress or retard the
dominance of the three super powers without preventing it outright. In
fact, they are being outmaneuvered by the United States, the EU and
China in their own regions."

It took Khanna a number of trips to a hundred countries and 466 pages
of writing to put forward his theory, but for the first generation of
Indian Americans in New York, it is pure instinct to conclude that
India will miss the opportunities of the twenty-first century. Their
occasional visits to India only reinforce their impression and they
are not averse to proclaiming it. The cover stories of reputed
newspapers and magazines about the Indian miracle leave them
unimpressed. Not one in a group of twenty Indian professionals in a
recent gathering in New Jersey shared the view that India is on the
threshold of being a major world power.

I began with the growth rate. But is not the inflation rate also of
the same magnitude? An Indian American retorted. I then talked about
the success of IT. What percentage of the IT industry in the world is
in India? Have we invented anything new in the industry? Is doing
slave labour for foreign companies for one tenth of the price they pay
in their own countries IT revolution? Look at the letters that the
Government of India sends out. They are still badly typed on brown
paper. I talked about twenty different models of cars available in
India as against the three models we had in the past. O those horrible
roads, they lamented. India should have built roads first before they
allowed foreign cars to come in. I said that these cars are mostly
made in India. And look at the Jaguars and the Land Rovers being owned
by Indians, I said. The Tatas were rich even when we were there; what
is new about them getting richer? Then I talked about Mittal, Narayana
Murthy and Azim Premji. They just yawned. They had heard about these
miracles before, but they thought they were isolated success stories.

I talked about the revolution in the banking industry. Checks can be
cashed in any city in India at par, credit cards are common and most
trade establishments accept debit cards. Nonsense, someone said. He
went two months ago to Calicut, now the harder to pronounce
`Kozhikode`, and wanted to cash a traveler's cheque. No bank would
entertain him. Finally he went to a particular branch of the State
Bank of India, which was authorized to handle foreign exchange. He had
to fill in many forms and wait for the supervisor only to be told that
his signatures did not match. Once that hurdle was over, the cashier
told him that they simply did not have enough cash to pay him. Would
he come in the afternoon, please? He could not care less that an
average Indian did not go around cashing traveler's cheques every day.

I mentioned the construction boom and the posh apartments coming up in
every city. But the lack of cleanliness in posh areas in major cities
left them unimpressed. You have to step around filth, stray dogs and
cows before we enter those palaces, they said. And then they talked
about corruption and gave examples of petty corruption they
encountered even a few months ago. My argument that corruption was a
global phenomenon and no country was free from it made no impact. The
resurgent India did not seem to beckon them at all.

I changed the subject and mentioned the nuclear deal and all hell
broke loose. India has bungled, they all said in unison. Not a single
one accepted that as a democracy, India had to respect the views of
the parties that supported the Government. Who is this Prakash Karat,
who is determining the future of the country? I, a firm supporter of
the nuclear deal, ended up defending the leftists. I said that the
history of American behaviour towards India in the past had not
generated confidence that it would honour its obligations in the
future. I recalled the Tarapore episode in which the US violated a
bilateral agreement on the ground that it militated against an
international understanding. There were also apprehensions about the
Hyde Act, I said. The mention of the Hyde Act infuriated them further.
The Indian Embassy asked us to campaign for the Hyde Act, they said.
We went to our Congressmen and Senators and got them to sign it and
then we were told that the Hyde Act was the obstacle. Where were the
experts when we were asked to use our clout to promote the Hyde Act?
Do they not know that we can buy fuel and technology from France and
Russia once the exemption is given and thus bypass the Hyde Act
altogether? I had to give up the role of the devil's advocate and join
them in saying that the Government underestimated the fury of the
left. Since the Government did not want to face an election, the deal
had to be put on the back burner. Then came a harangue about the
thoughtlessness of the Government and how the Democrats would take
India to the cleaners, come 2009!

These were the same Indian Americans, who passionately campaigned
against the Burton Amendment, built up the India caucus in the
Congress to foil the machinations of the likes of Aulakh on the Hill
and defended the nuclear tests of 1998. Why have we lost them despite
high growth and prosperity, IT cities, better roads, cars and the
construction boom? Has the glare of positive publicity in the western
media blinded us to the need of educating the Indian community?

I pulled out a couple of books to reassure myself that the Indian
Americans, who talked to me, were wrong. Mira Kamdar´s `Planet India`
and Shashi Tharoor´s The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cell Phone` gave
me some solace. After living in Bombay in 1968 in hard conditions,
Kamdar found that her uncle and aunt in Gurgaon now had two
refrigerators, pasteurized milk, flat-screen television, email, cell
phones and a Honda car. "No democracy in history has undergone a
transformation of India's magnitude or velocity", she concludes. But
after just a few pages, she too warns: "Clearly, India faces daunting
challenges that must be overcome-and fast- or the incredible momentum
of Indian resurgence will suffer." Tharoor is even more explicit:
"Whether through elections or quotas, political mobilization in
contemporary India has asserted the power of old identities, habits,
faiths and prejudices. Transcending them will be the challenge for the
Indian polity in the twenty-first century. India must rise above the
past if we are to conquer the future." Old faiths and prejudices seem
to still cloud the vision of our brethren in the United States.

Paper Presented by me at a Seminar on Conflict in Sri Lanka-Road Ahead in Colombo on March 27, 2008

Mr.Chairman,

Sir Arthur Clarke, the most celebrated guest citizen of Sri Lanka passed away without having his three fondest wishes fulfilled. He had wanted to establish contact with extra terrestrial beings, which, he knew, existed; he had wanted to rid humanity of dependence on fossil fuels and he had wished to see lasting peace established in his adopted land. Many of his other dreams came true and these three may well happen, but all the three appear distant at this time. On establishing peace, he observed: “Peace cannot be just wished; it requires a great deal of hard work.” Let us hope that peace comes to Sri Lanka before we see ET and set ourselves free from slavery to black gold.

If seminars, studies and debates could resolve the simmering problems in Sri Lanka, which have taken a huge toll in terms of human lives and property, it would have happened long ago. Much has been said and written by both Sri Lankans and outsiders, many peacemakers have made sincere efforts and every known method of resolving conflicts has been tried. The sum total of our experience in Sri Lanka has shown that only a change in the minds of men can lead to lasting peace in this war ravaged and tension ridden piece of Paradise.

Many of the studies and seminars, particularly by the Centre for Security Analysis, have not been in vain. The fact that they and other think tanks persist with their efforts to look for new insights and alternatives shows that they are sincere and determined to end this conflict. One particular study, “Cost of Conflict in Sri Lanka” by another think-tank confirms our suspicion that the costs of the conflict have been staggering. In every sphere of activity, the economic costs alone are huge, not to speak of loss of lives, the opportunity costs and the environmental costs. Sri Lanka of the sixties was a role model for developing nations. Some analysts have concluded that the cost of the conflict per year is 2 to 3% of the GDP per year. By 1996, the cumulative cost of the war was estimated to be 1.5 times the GDP of Sri Lanka. There are no winners in this conflict, only victims.

Speaking of the international dimensions of the conflict in Sri Lanka, it should be said in fairness to the international community that it has not been insensitive to the problems faced by this nation. Whether it is the neighbouring India or the distant Norway, whether it is the United Nations or the Commonwealth, nations and international organizations have spared no effort to bring this conflict to an end. That those efforts were rebuffed, often with tragic consequences, proved that the problems were deep and extremely complex. But it is unconscionable to abandon peace efforts, as a military solution would not be attainable. Only a negotiated solution, which takes into account the legitimate aspirations of all Sri Lankan citizens, can be durable and the international community has the responsibility to urge and assist such a solution.

The Sri Lankan Ambassador to the US said recently that no other country in the world in a similar situation has given greater access to foreign individuals, nations and international organizations than Sri Lanka has done. This is an acknowledged fact. The successive Governments in Sri Lanka have thrown open the doors of the country to those they thought would be of help, without asserting the point that these are matters of domestic jurisdiction, in which the outside world had no business to get involved. All the parties concerned have traveled long distances in the quest for peace. Even today, though the Government has taken a position that it will not allow stationing of foreigners in the island, it has not closed its doors to foreign ideas and assistance to establish peace. I have no doubt that the Nobel Peace Prize is waiting to be awarded to any one who can find the magic formula which can bring peace to Sri Lanka.

The role of the international community is essentially limited as the conflict is domestic in origin and has to be resolved domestically. As Prof. G.L.Peiris observed at a CSA seminar in Chennai: “We have to remember at all times that this is our problem and there is no question of abdicating responsibility and blaming the international community when things go wrong. That is an irresponsible attitude. Our friends can help us, the solution is in our own hands because this is our problem and as a nation we have to formulate a solution with the assistance of the international community.”

An analysis of the previous efforts at internationalization and direct external intervention, particularly by India in the eighties, shows the validity of Prof Peiris’s assertion. India’s intervention was, in a way, aimed at preventing excessive internationalization of the issue. If the accord of 1987 had succeeded, the history of Sri Lanka would have been different. India paid a heavy price for the failure of the accord and decided not to involve directly in the conflict any more. But it has not tried to prevent other international efforts to facilitate a peace process. The most recent abrogation of the ceasefire agreement has once again demonstrated the limitations of any external role. The external role is further constrained by the fact that many countries see one of the parties as a terrorist group.

But the international community can neither ignore nor remain a silent witness to the conflict in Sri Lanka. At the very least, it has to alleviate the suffering of the people and be ready to rebuild the devastated areas as soon as the situation permits it to do so. The way India went to give medical and other assistance to the tsunami victims in the North-East was much appreciated even by the warring factions.

In a situation where the traditional methods of peace making and peace keeping are not possible by the United Nations, the international community can only urge Sri Lankans to make use of the vast experience it has gained in other areas and to abide by the norms, standards and ground rules set by the United Nations over the years. The concepts that surface again and again in the discussions on the Sri Lankan situation are self-determination, democracy, non –violence, human rights, development, disarmament and terrorism. None of these concepts is either new or unique to Sri Lanka. Their characteristics and scope have been debated in the United Nations either in the abstract or in the context of a particular conflict or another. International consensus or near consensus exists on many of these concepts and the best that the international community can do is to urge the parties in Sri Lanka to abide by these norms. The international community will support the country during and after the conflict if it is confident that the norms have been followed.

Take, for instance, the concept of self-determination. While it is asserted as a right of all peoples, it was clarified in the early days of the UN that it applied only to people under colonial occupation or alien domination. A people exercises self-determination in a particular moment in history and once a sovereign nation is born, sections of that nation has no right to claim the right to self determination. The whole concept of the sovereign state will be undermined by repeated exercises in self-determination. Similarly, the international community has identified the features of a democratic society, even if local variations have developed. The possibility for the entire population to participate in elections and the government is the fundamental feature that cannot be compromised. At the same time, all violence stands condemned by the international community.

Human rights have been the subject of extensive deliberations and standard setting by the international community. Violations of the fundamental freedoms of citizens by states have been condemned worldwide and there are norms of behaviour by the states even while dealing with law and order situations. Extra-judicial killings, illegal detentions and torture are not permissible in any circumstances. No civilized nation should violate human rights of its people even in the face of provocations. But at the same time, politicization of human rights and violation of human rights by organized groups or terrorists also stand condemned.

Terrorism has been recognized globally as the worst kind of crime against humanity as it takes different forms and manifestations. Although an international convention on terrorism is yet to take shape, there are several seminal conventions on terrorist activities of various kinds. In an earlier phase, there was a tendency to exclude liberation struggles from the purview of terrorism, but today there is universal recognition that there is no such thing as “good terrorism”. To use indiscriminate force to destroy innocent lives and property in order to secure political advantages is to engage in the worst form of terrorism. States too cannot engage in terrorist activities of any kind. Some see even the examination of “root causes” of terrorism as justification of terrorism.

These are some of the issues on which the international community has clear and definite views. As long as the parties to the conflict act within the framework of these norms, they can be assured of the support of international community. The confidence of the Government that the country is at the threshold of a decisive phase in her contemporary history is welcome and as long as the norms are observed, nobody will point fingers or preach from the pulpit. As Jehan Pereira observed just the other day, the need for preservation of Sri Lanka’s territorial integrity, the inadmissibility of terrorism and the impracticability of a military solution are the messages that lie behind the mixed signals that emanate from the international community.

Thank you

Talbott is right: so is Sinha

By T.P.Sreenivasan

In an uncharacteristically convoluted manner, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Strobe Talbott told a news channel that the NDA Government was ready to settle for much less than what had been offered by the Bush Administration to the UPA Government in the form of a nuclear deal. “I think that what the Clinton Administration has been prepared to offer the BJP-led Government that we were dealing with, the deal that President Bush was willing to make with Manmohan Singh and company, the Indian side would have gone for it”, he said. The statement is hypothetical as the Clinton Administration did not offer any such deal, but the public record would corroborate Talbott’s claim in substance. Talbott’s “Engaging India” and Jaswant Singh’s “A Call to Honour” differ on the details as to what each tried to achieve in their marathon talks, but both agree that the “village” that they sought to find was not a comprehensive agreement, but an understanding on each other’s concerns, arising out of India’s tests. But if they had the opportunity to build a house once they reached the village, they would have gone for it.

Talks with the United States became imperative when the Clinton Administration imposed the Glenn Amendment sanctions over and above the technology denial regime that had already existed. Though Jaswant Singh never conceded that his immediate objective was to return to the pre-May 1998 situation, Talbott made no secret of the conditions or “benchmarks” India had to reach to set it free from the new sanctions. The Glenn Amendment was entirely uncharted waters and the way it operated sent shock waves across India. Apart from trade and financial restrictions, the so-called people sanctions threatened to undermine even the visa system. Several Indian scientists had to leave and others, like Dr.R.Chidambaram, were denied even visitors’ visa. American officials decided to err on the side of overdoing the sanctions regime. There was a palpable sense of emergency in the air in Washington, when anxious Indian Americans lost sleep over their visa status. The Jaswant Singh-Talbott talks were, therefore, seen in India and the U.S as a modality for getting the Glenn Amendment sanctions lifted.

Talbott’s benchmarks were clearly spelt out publicly. They consisted of India’s signature on the CTBT, India’s agreement to negotiate a permanent ban on the production of fissile material and, in the interim, a freeze on further production, a strategic restraint regime, a stricter export control regime and improvement in India-Pakistan relations. The U.S. expected that these reasonable benchmarks would be accepted in return for the reward in the form of sanctions relief and a Presidential visit. But India, without rejecting any of the conditions outright, kept developing theories on each of them, as though we were willing to do some of them as part of our own scheme of things at our own pace. We were tantalizingly close to making our de facto commitment not to test into a de jure undertaking, we had no problem with entering negotiations on an FMCT, we had an open mind on export control and we were more than willing to normalize relations with Pakistan. It was only on the question of strategic restraint that there was no meeting point.

No nuclear deal like the kind President Bush offered to India was on the table, but India’s anxiety to build new bridges with the United States and the new confidence that India had demonstrated in the talks should lead to the logical conclusion that India would have moved to a nuclear deal if such a deal was on offer. But the fact is that the two sides had a more limited objective of returning to the pre-May 1998 position.

Talbott’s contention is also based on the efforts made by the NPA Government to move further on the nuclear front with the Bush Administration. Jaswant Singh states that the document signed in January 2004, the ‘Next Steps in Strategic Partnership’ (NSSP) had been planned during his time as Foreign Minister. It was under the aegis of NSSP that the two countries began talking about the sale of civilian nuclear technology, joint space exploration, missile defence and high technology trade. Jaswant Singh has expressed satisfaction that it was on the foundations laid by him that the nuclear deal was constructed by the Bush Administration and the UPA Government. It is also well known that it was the NDA Government that had first mooted the idea of additional nuclear installations being subjected to IAEA inspection in return for civilian nuclear co-operation. On the basis of this, it was logical for Talbott to assume that the NDA Government would have accepted the present deal or even something less. He had read the minds of his interlocutors correctly.

It was not Jaswant Singh, but Yashwant Sinha, who reacted to Talbott. Without the burden of history on him, he said in a straightforward fashion that “we had no discussion on the current lines of the current nuclear deal or the 123 Agreement’ with the Clinton Administration. This was absolutely correct. He was also correct in asserting that “there was no draft of the kind like the 123 Agreement of the present Government”. But when he went on to say that “in our time, as all the evidence will show, we were discussing peripheral issues like safety of nuclear plants etc’, he was way off the mark. How could Jaswant Singh claim that he planted the seed for today’s tree if only peripheral issues were under consideration?

Indeed, both Talbott and Sinha are right in their own ways. They represent two former Governments, who aspired to reach an agreement on nuclear issues, but could not make it on account of force of circumstances. But it is hard for politicians to rise above politics. It takes statesmen to see beyond political expediency and accept what is in the best interests of their countries.

The “Unclear” Deal

By T.P.Sreenivasan

(Former Ambassador of India and Governor of IAEA)

After two years of the most extensive and exhaustive debate nationally and internationally, no one seems to be clear about the prospects of the Indo-US Nuclear Deal of 2005. The UPA Government, which piloted the deal with gusto till August 2007 and performed a negotiating feat by finalizing a bilateral agreement with the US (the 123 agreement) and appeared to be prepared to go down with it, if necessary, has suddenly lost momentum. The BJP, which initiated a new strategic partnership with the US and prepared the ground for the deal, wants it renegotiated, with no certainty that they can get a better deal. The left, with its abhorrence of possible US domination on account of the deal, blows hot and cold. For the first time in Indian history, India is in no position to operationalise an international agreement, which has been approved by its cabinet. The path ahead is unclear for the nuclear deal.

Except for a few fanatics, who think that India can do without nuclear energy in the future, no one believes that India can afford to continue its international isolation as a non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). We know that we decided many years ago that the energy mix for India in the future will have nuclear energy as an important component. We also know that our civilian nuclear programme cannot be sustained at a level commensurate with our current economic growth unless we have access to fuel and technology from abroad. We know, therefore, that we need to have a deal of some kind at some time in the near future with the nuclear weapon states. In fact, India’s diplomatic efforts since 1974 have been directed towards securing such a deal without signing the NPT. Till 2005, the prospects for such a deal were gloomy, particularly after India defied international opinion and declared itself a nuclear weapon state. Any Government of India in the future, regardless of its ideology, will have to seek an accommodation with the international non-proliferation regime. What is unclear is the price we are willing to pay for such an accommodation.

For Indian diplomats, who have been engaged in disarmament negotiations for several years, the Indo-US Joint Statement of July 18, 2005 was a dream come true. President Clinton, with all his goodwill for India, could not go beyond setting aside the nuclear issue and proceeding with co-operation in other areas, but President Bush showed an alternative to the NPT route for India to end its nuclear isolation. India virtually won nuclear weapon state status with the same rights and obligations as the other nuclear weapon states. In return, India reaffirmed its moratorium on testing; it agreed to separate the Indian military and civilian nuclear facilities and place the civilian facilities under IAEA inspection and abide by the internationally accepted norms for export control and fissile material production. The balance of rights and obligations in the Statement ensured that we had a non-discriminatory regime in place. Against the backdrop of the bitter arguments of 31 years, the deal looked the best that we could ask for.

But a mix of ignorance, fear of the United States and undue optimism about our own capabilities ignited protests against the deal in India and the blind believers in non-proliferation in the United States and elsewhere raised a hue and cry. Both the Governments were pressured by their respective constituencies to become rigid, if not backtrack on the initial agreement. In India, it was the scientific community, unaccustomed to external inspections, which raised questions. The issue of the theoretical possibility of testing by India was raised repeatedly, making India suspect in the eyes of the world. They argued that the separation plan was expensive and unrealistic and that India’s deterrent as well as its fast breeder programme would be jeopardized by the deal. The non-proliferation Ayatollahs in the US created the Hyde Act of the US Congress, with the objective of constraining the Administration to put forward caveats of a political nature. The cumulative effect of these debates was that the Indian and US negotiators had their hands and feet tied as they sat down to negotiate the enabling 123 Agreement.

It is a tribute to the negotiating skills of the Indian diplomats and the willingness of the US to go more than half way that the 123 agreement was successfully negotiated. The contentious issues of testing and reprocessing were resolved for the purposes of the agreement, even though doubts remained on both these issues. India has the right to test, but the US has the right to react! The reprocessing scenario is far from clear as the modalities are yet to be worked out.

The Government genuinely believed that the agreement would move forward to the IAEA and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) before being submitted to the US Congress. But the bomb shell came not from the IAEA or the NSG, but from the leftist members of the UPA coalition when they demanded that the agreement should not be operationalised as they saw the grave danger of US hegemony in it. It is not clear as to why they chose to oppose the deal only after the agreement was reached with the US. They felt, perhaps, that the US would not agree to the features we were seeking in the agreement and, therefore, remained silent. The Government was unaware of the strong feelings in the minds of the Left and tried to call their bluff only to find that the Left was willing to bring the Government down on this issue. The UPA relented in the end and virtually put the agreement in the cold storage. Not that it loved the nuclear deal less: it loved power more. In any event, if they gave up power, the deal would have also fallen by the wayside.

The “unclear” deal will have to wait for better times when we have a Government which has the ability to implement agreements it negotiates with foreign governments. But it remains to be seen in what circumstances and under what conditions the deal will be operationalised. It is a deal, which is good for India, good for the US and good for the world. But it has to be acceptable to the members of the ruling coalition in India. In a democracy, the crucial test is not the merits of the issue, but its perception by the majority.

SPEECHES, SPEECHES, SPEECHES (From January 2008)

January 27, 2008
Lecture at the Civil Service Academy, Trivandrum

January 31, 2008
Inauguration of Angloscape Workshop, Trivandrum

February 7, 2008
Valedictory Address, Trivandrum Management Association

February 8, 2008
Friday Club Meeting of KIC with HE David Malone, Canadian High Commissioner

February 12, 2008
Valedictory Address Seminar on Clobalisation, Ethnicity and Terrorism in South India
University of Kerala, Trivandrum

February 14, 2008
President, Anniversary of Sree Chithra Memorial School, Chirayinkil

February 17, 2008
Kerala Launch of my two books by the Maharaja of Travancore, Trivandrum Club

February 21-27, 2008
Commission of Eminent Persons, IAEA, Vienna

February 27, 2008
Inaugural Address, Himalayan Research and Cultural Foundation
Seminar on Central Asia, Trivandrum

March 2, 2008
Pondicherry University
Inaugural Address Seminar on India and the EU.

March 6, 2008
Alliance Francais, Trivandrum
Lecture on India and the European Union

March 9, 2008
Inauguration of the Janasakthi Convention, Calicut

March 11, 2008
Meeting of the SCAP India Committee, ICWA, New Delhi

March 12, 2008
Release of a book by VSSNair, Institution of Engineers, Trivandrum

March 14, 2008
Friday Club Meeting of the KIC on MYANMAR

ElBaradei in India- A Friend Caught in the Storm

By T.P.Sreenivasan

When Mohamed ElBaradei told me that he would be in India on the same days that I was going to be in Vienna, I was not only disappointed, but also perturbed that he might be in India at the wrong time. Indeed he was and, irony of ironies, the forum he came to address on the benefits of India joining the nuclear mainstream turned out to be the burial ground of the India-U.S. nuclear deal. His proverbial diplomatic skills were on display at every step, but his friends in India could have spared him the experience. Whether the Government chose to stick to the deal and faced elections or took the path of self-preservation, ElBaradei was sure to be embarrassed. He could have played a role only if India had decided to begin consultations with the IAEA on the next steps for the implementation of the deal. To his credit, the IAEA chief weathered the storm admirably, without hurting his hosts or himself.

ElBaradei is unique among the non-proliferationists in that his commitment to the NPT is equally matched by his commitment to the development of the developing world. Non-proliferation is not a dogma for him; it is the first step towards elimination of nuclear weapons. He is, therefore, as tough with the nuclear weapon states as with the non-nuclear weapon states when it comes to their commitments under the NPT. He is also meticulous in investigating allegations about violations of the treaty as he has shown in the cases of Iraq and Iran. His latest statements on Iran prompted the New York Times to call ElBaradei an “irritant”, reminiscent of the propaganda mounted against him when the war clouds were gathering over Iraq. His assertion of Iran’s innocence, unless proved guilty, is seen as blasphemy by the Ayatollahs of non-proliferation in the west.

As for India and the others (Pakistan and Israel) who are outside the NPT, ElBaradei has shown greater tolerance and understanding than his predecessors. He has consistently maintained that a way should be found to bring them into the fold rather than isolate them. Long before the India-U.S. deal was contemplated, he used to suggest small but significant measures to us to bring us closer to the world consensus on non-proliferation. He felt that India should make use of the Technical Co-operation Fund and also accept safety inspections without compromising our position. He was extremely sensitive to our fundamental position and he sought to find an alternate route. For him, the India-U.S. nuclear deal was this very alternative and that explains his enthusiastic welcome for the initiative even without any prompting by India or the United States.

The invitation for the IAEA chief went not from the government, but from the Hindustan Times. It is not clear whether the newspaper acted on its own, sensing his news value or the government encouraged it in the hope of gaining some support for the deal. The function in Mumbai at which Dr. Anil Kakodkar handed over a miniature model of a cobalt therapy unit for Vietnam as part of the technical co-operation programme was a bit laboured because a similar ceremony was held in Vienna at the time of the General Conference in September. There has been even a suggestion by those who do not know ElBaradei that the U.S. prompted him to go to India. It is also significant that the Prime Minister broke normal protocol to host a meal for ElBaradei. Normally, the Prime Minister does not even meet heads of UN Specialised Agencies.

The masterly diplomat that he is, ElBaradei sensed the atmosphere in India very quickly and steered clear of either supporting the nuclear deal per se or suggesting that there is any hurry to begin the negotiations with the IAEA Board or the NSG. He stressed, however, that, as a friend of India, he would like India to get the full benefits of nuclear technology and not remain isolated. He also made the point that the global efforts for elimination of nuclear weapons cannot succeed without the participation of India in the nuclear mainstream. At one point, it was reported that he suggested that the safeguards agreement was not “significant” as the IAEA already had similar agreements with India, but what he meant was that it did not involve complex negotiations, once there was political agreement.

The only point he made about the deal was that it was a significant step towards the ending of India’s isolation and that regardless of changes in the United States, the deal will go through the Congress. He noted that there was bipartisan support for the deal. Even after it became clear that the deal would be shelved in order to save the government, Elbaradei did not express any alarm. His poise and choice of words were impeccable even though the spinning around him would have made him wonder whether he should have come to India at this particular juncture.

The sudden change of heart by the government to shelve the deal when Elbaradei was in town was the mother of all coincidences. But it may not be a coincidence that the left decided to press the government to abandon the deal when he was in India. They may have seen the visit as a demonstration by the government that it was going to take the deal forward. ElBaradei is a friend indeed, but we should have waited for the need to arise before we tested his friendship.

Nuclear Deal: Leave It to the Little Man

By T.P.Sreenivasan


“At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little man walking into the little booth with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper. No amount of rhetoric or voluminous discussion can possibly diminish the overwhelming importance of that point.” said Sir Winston Churchill. Will that little man put that little cross in the right place if he is given an opportunity to decide whether India should proceed with the nuclear deal?

The nuclear deal is nothing but a logical extension of the efforts made by the previous government to find an accommodation with the global non-proliferation regime after the tests of 1998. In fact, India has been pursuing such an accommodation since 1974, which means that virtually every political party in India is in agreement that India’s nuclear isolation should end. Therefore, there is no doubt that the little man will have no difficulty to accept a deal, which gives India an opening to nuclear technology without signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The only question, then, is whether the Manmohan Singh Government could have negotiated a better deal with the United States. Anyone, who has followed the dialogue with the United States since May 1998, will know that the deal has the right mix of rights and obligations for India and that we could not have done better in the negotiations, given the proclivities of public opinion not only in the United States, but also in other countries, including Russia. The proof of this is that the deal has gained acceptance in many countries, though the Chinese position is generally negative.

Strobe Talbott may have said that the Indian negotiators got the better of him, but the five benchmarks that he was pursuing with Jaswant Singh would have tied us in knots much more than the present nuclear deal would do. In fact, India had all but accepted the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), subject only to “de-demonising” it in the eyes of the Indian public. Another benchmark, namely, strategic restraint, was nothing but a thinly veiled plan for capping, rolling back and eliminating our nuclear weapon capability. On export controls, we virtually endorsed the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) guidelines. We had no difficulty in agreeing to negotiate and, if possible, sign a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT). Even on the fifth benchmark of better relations with Pakistan, we were receptive as Lahore and Agra had shown.

The Bush-Manmohan Singh deal, even with the Hyde Act as a backdrop, stops short of conceding some of the points in the blue print that the previous Government was considering. The 123 Agreement is open to different interpretations, but it has enough ambiguities there to operate in our interest, if the American change of heart in favour of India in the new world is real. It is a framework that can accommodate concessions in the business interests of both the countries. The withdrawal clauses in the Agreement are a masterpiece in drafting. But it is premised on good faith and mutuality of interests, not on the shibboleths of the cold war or even the Bangladesh war.

The opposition to the deal today, which did not become apparent during the 1998-2000 period and did not become acute till the 123 Agreement was finalized, is on the assumption that good faith does not exist and that a strategic relationship with the United States, even in the changed world scenario, is harmful. The argument appears to be in favour of an agreement that deals with the nuclear issue, but does not bring us any closer to the United States. The irony, of course, is that we have been trying in the past to resolve the nuclear imbroglio, which alone stood in the way of improving our relations with the United States.

As of today, the situation is that one alliance loves the deal, but it loves power more and another alliance hates the deal, but hates to lose the political leverage it has today. Yet another alliance would like to sign the same deal, but in a different garb, if and when it comes to power. No mechanism, whether political or technical can square this circle. The questionnaire can be answered, but the questions will remain. The Hyde Act and the 123 Agreement are realities that cannot be wished away. In fact, India, in an act of misjudgment, had deployed all its Indian American and business clout in Washington to have the Hyde Act passed, in the expectation that it would be defanged by the Bush administration. The Left was not breathing down the necks of the negotiators when they secured satisfactory formulations in the 123 Agreement.

If India pauses or even ejects on account of domestic pressure, it is not just our credibility that will be at stake, but also an opportunity to have a satisfactory deal. In international law, an agreement comes into force or it does not. Not “operationalising” is not a recognized option for parties to an agreement. Another U.S. President and another U.S. Congress may not be inclined to negotiate on the same lines in the future, particularly if there is no national consensus in India in favour of a new relationship between the two countries.

The question today is whether the apparent disapproval of the deal by a majority of the members of parliament really reflects the mood of the people. In other counties, this would be a classic case for a national referendum. Since we do not have such a constitutional provision, there is no choice for us, but to go to the little man and let him make a choice. But the worry is his proverbial unpredictability. Indian democracy will shine more if the political parties have the courage to face the electorate on an issue of such public importance. If voted back to power, the Government can pursue the deal as well as its worldview with vigour. If not, the new dispensation will find its own path forward. Let the little man decide.

January 29, 2007

Words, Words, Words-Adventures in Diplomacy

My first book, with the title above, has just come off the press. Pearson Longman has done a splendid job in editing and production and the book will be on the stands shortly. Shri. Hamid Ansari, the Vice-President of India has graciously agreed to release the book in New Delhi later this year.

Advance praise for the book has come from Mohamed ElBaradei, Shashi Tharoor, Jagdish Bhagwati, KPS Menon and Karl Inderfurth.

The hard cover book has 253 pages and is priced at Rs.600 (US$15)It has eight colour pictures.

The book has the following chapters:

My Story (Memoirs)
Magic of Multilateralism (United Nations)
Nuclear winter, Kargil Spring (India-US relations)
On Whom the Sun Never Sets (Indian Diaspora)
Quest for Balance (The IAEA)
Back to the Backwaters

Happy reading!