Aung San Suu Kyi’s Long Road to Democracy

(THe New Indian Express Nov 19, 2012)

By T.P.Sreenivasan

Aung San Suu Kyi’s long journey to democracy brought her to the country that shaped her personality and inspired her to fight for freedom for her people. Rising to deliver the Nehru Memorial Lecture in New Delhi was one of the finest moments of her life perhaps next only to receiving the Nobel Prize for Peace. It was also a poignant moment, as she had to come to terms with India’s policy of befriending the very military junta, which kept her in a cage for more than twenty years.

“I was saddened”, she said, “by the fact that India had drawn away in our most difficult days but always had faith in our lasting relationship. Even more significantly, she observed, “Friendship should be based between people and not governments: governments come and go.” This was a masterstroke on her part. In a way she justified the Indian action by attributing it to compulsions of governments, or realpolitik, from time to time. If there were to be an opinion poll in India during the period of her incarceration, she would have been voted more popular than any of the military leaders in Myanmar. The people of India were with her throughout, while the government had to deal with the people in power. India’s position has always been that it recognizes states, not governments and that it deals with every government that has control over territory.

At no time in history has an authoritarian regime permitted a democratic leader to campaign for democracy abroad even before democracy becomes a reality in that country. Nor has an American President ever visited a country in which the US has sought, but not accomplished a regime change. The military leadership, Suu Kyi and Barack Obama are taking calculated risks with implicit and explicit motives, which are not mutually complementary. The military, which has penetrated every sector of the society of Myanmar has much to lose if full democracy is restored and it will struggle hard before conceding any ground to democracy. At the same time, the army needs to get the sanctions lifted and foreign investments facilitated. Suu Kyi has to watch her steps and words carefully to ensure that the army is not offended and the pro-democracy movements in Myanmar and outside are not disillusioned. Obama must have satisfied himself that the democratic reforms in progress will not be reversed, even while enjoying the hospitality of the junta. All the three have a stake in the future course of Myanmarese history.

Suu Kyi has been impeccable in her pronouncements on democracy abroad. In Delhi, she said: “We have not achieved the goal of democracy. We are still trying and we hope that in this last, I hope, and most difficult phase the people of India will stand by us and walk by us as we proceed along the path that they were able to proceed many years before us.” She is not unaware that he path ahead is different from the path India took, but she clearly hinted that the path ahead was hard and unpredictable.

In 1971, Suu Kyi arrived in Bhutan as the young bride of Michael Aris and was mistaken initially in the social circles as one of the Bhutanese princesses. She was friendly with us in the Indian Embassy in Bhutan because of her long association with India, which she narrated with exquisite charm and nostalgia, this time in Delhi. She gave a subtle hint of her father’s path being different from that of Gandhiji and that Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose was a greater hero than Pandit Nehru in the eyes of the Burmese. The generosity that Pandit Nehru showed to Aung San’s family after the latter’s death was particularly significant against that backdrop.

India’s policy towards Burma under the long reign of Ne Win and his successors took several twists and turns. Ne Win, who once took over power by invitation and later by a military coup, had an ambivalent attitude to India. While he was ruthless in depriving the fleeing Indians of their wealth, he maintained good relations with the Nehru family and the Indian leadership. His isolationist policy kept us away from Burma, except for cultural contacts, though we tried to open up trade contacts by importing rice from Burma. But among all our neighbours, Burma made the least demands of us and caused us no embarrassment internationally. When Indira Gandhi was assassinated, Ne Win flew to an unnamed destination to meditate in grief. I accompanied him to Delhi when he went on a condolence visit and saw for myself the love he showered on Rajiv Gandhi as the “uncle”, who came calling at the time of grief.  India was a sentimental link even for Ne Win, but it never translated into a meaningful relationship.

Right through the elections, the bloodshed and the consolidation of the junta, India remained committed to Democracy and showed our attachment to Suu Kyi. We blocked the return of Myanmar to the Nonaligned Movement at a Ministerial Meeting in Bali. The subsequent decision to do business with the military regime in Yangon was an effort by India to wean Myanmar away from China and to seek some economic benefits for us at a time when western sanctions were in effect. Myanmarese saw in our overtures an opportunity to diversify their external relationships and to gain respectability. As for the benefits, which accrued to us, these have not been significant, essentially because we ourselves have been negligent of follow-up action to many proposals for cooperation.

One welcome indication out of the visit of Suu Kyi even before the advent of democracy is that she carries no grudge against India for its proximity to the military government. But how soon she will become the leader of a democratic government and pursue policies friendly to India is a matter of speculation. In fact, she would be beholden, first and foremost, to those who stood by her and brought her back to the reckoning and that is the signal that she is giving to China by not going there before her trips to the US and India. We too will have to take our turn to benefit from the opening up of Myanmar.

The limited agenda of seeking cooperation in dealing with the insurgents on the India-Myanmar border, sharing some of the energy resources of Myanmar and establishing the base for a beneficial trade relationship can be pursued even during the transition to democracy. But whether democracy will eventually give us immense benefits is a matter to be seen. China and the United States are likely to call the shots even in a democratic structure.

Suu Kyi’s pursuit of democracy could be long and arduous, but she has shown remarkable skills in managing the military so far. She has the potential to get on with governance, whatever role she assumes in the years to come. She has refused to take sides in the conflict between the Buddhists and the Muslim Rohingyas on the plea that her role would be to bring about reconciliation rather than to take sides. The same spirit may prevail in Myanmar if she succeeds in sending the military back to the barracks.

Malayalee Mindset

Speaking the last word on the theme of transforming mindsets, I would like to look at the Malayalee mindset and see what transformation is needed to make ourselves more modern, productive, and closer to universal norms of behavior. We are generally sharper in intellect, more creative and more innovative than many people. We have had the opportunity to interact with many cultures for centuries and even today we have greater global reach than many others. But the paradox is that there is much in our mindset that needs attention and correction, much in our ways that baffles others. It is said that any observation you make on India, the opposite of it will also be true and we should bear in mind that this is so also about Kerala.

The paradox is explained in a story of a bane and a boon. The bane of the Malayalees at the time of their creation was that they were dull, disorganized and lazy, although they were in an enchanting land. They complained bitterly to the Almighty, who gave them a boon that they would be perfect once they took off from Kerala and settled abroad. So we have two kinds of Malayalees, according to this tale, one that remains with the bane in Kerala, undisciplined and lazy, the other, the beneficiaries of the boon, courteous and industrious, in other lands. The story may be apocryphal, but it underlines the fact that the Malayalees are capable of changing their mindset and mend their ways to be successful outside Kerala. They are trusted and depended upon in countries from Mauritius to Malaysia, from the Gulf to the Americas. The joke in Malaysia was that the name of their airline, MAS, stood for “Malayalees Are Supreme.”

The story of the Kerala crabs is well known. They are exported in open cans, as no crab will allow another to climb up in any circumstance. We are highly individualistic, incapable of working as a team. Our superb intellect and creative energy are frittered away in internal squabbles. We are all chiefs, not Indians, as Americans would say. For a society to develop, it has to operate within which each of us has a niche. We have to learn to wait for our turn, whether we are entering an elevator or waiting to help ourselves to a buffet. We must learn from our brethren, who patiently wait in line at the beverage corporation stalls.

Social graces are generally absent in our society. We may be the only people in the world, who do not greet each other as a matter of routine. Most societies develop set phrases, to greet when they meet. Japan has a whole set of traditional expressions for every occasion to show courtesy and humility. But among us, the greeting is, at best, a smile or, at worst, a personal comment, which often shows lack of sensitivity. Gratitude is rarely expressed in Malayalam and, at best, we resort to a casual “thank you”. No Malayalam word exists even for “cheers”, though we drink Indian made foreign liquor in huge quantities. The British talk about the weather to break the ice, but we do not do it, perhaps because we have no variety in weather conditions. We need to cultivate social graces within our own society, not just outside it.

Kerala women are liberated and control the purse strings in the family, but their place is in the home. Wives are not seen or heard in public. Given a choice, we will still make them walk 30 yards behind us. True liberation will come when women are able to come out of the homes safely and occupy positions beside their men in any area of activity. Michelle Obama should be the role model for Kerala women.

Malayalees have gone global, but we remain insular in our own state and resist the winds of change. Outsiders are uncomfortable here because we tend to ignore them on social occasions after an initial introduction and resume our gossip in the vernacular. Partly, it is the inadequacy of language; partly it is lack of confidence. For a people, who have been successful abroad in various professions, we are often tongue-tied when the conversation is in English. Our students have no opportunities to speak in English, not at home, not in class, not among friends and so we remain perpetually handicapped in articulation. Finishing schools and instant English courses do not seem to have raised the general level of proficiency in English. I have seen our people, not being able to express themselves adequately even after living abroad for several years. This is more a matter of mindset, which can be changed, not a mental block. We are not poor in learning languages; we remain poor in using them.

Swami Vivekananda’s “lunatic asylum” is alive and well in Kerala even today. Religions, castes and sub-castes still divide us and the trend is to perpetuate and deepen the divisions, not to discard them. How come that education, economic development and social growth do not erase caste prejudices and practices? Caste, which was once a tool to protect the social fabric and to foster traditional professions, appears to have penetrated the psyche of our being. It strikes at the very root of democracy. We do not cast our votes, we vote our castes. The caste mindset will stay with us as long as it determines our social status, our job opportunities and our loyalties. But Kerala cannot become an egalitarian society, unless we get over our caste mindset.

There appears to be a new explosion of faith. Are we turning more and more to the Gods as we have no faith in our fellow men? Temples, churches and mosques have sprung up everywhere, as if in competition. Religious rituals are no more private between man and his God, but conspicuous display of devotion, a few degrees higher than the competitors. The aim is not to reach heaven anymore, but the Guinness Book of Records. Religious tolerance, a hallmark of Kerala in the past, is fast disappearing from our land. Even Mahabali is greeted with splurging, drinking and Bollywood talk.

The quest for leadership and public recognition must be a weakness of all human beings, but Malayalees seem to have an overdose of it. That explains the proliferation of political parties, organisations and associations. The saying goes that where there are two Malayalees, there is an association, where there are three, there are two associations, where there are four, there is a federation of associations. It is the pursuit of positions that prompts this pointless proliferation of institutions. The waste of energy and resources in our society must be phenomenal in our quest for visibility. We have an infinite infatuation for the camera at every level and the media exploits it merrily. The new tendency to put up huge flex boards of leaders, big and small, in every square and circle, must be curbed. When every one knows that the persons who are featured often finance the flex boards, what purpose do they serve? Thank God, we do not go for gigantic cut outs of leaders like in a neighboring state.

This is the same mindset that results in the immense waste of resources, time and money in our ritualistic public meetings. Any occasion is good enough for a public meeting at any time of the day and you find enough people to line up on the stage and even to occupy the front seats as fodder for verbal canons. Long welcome speeches and several felicitation remarks detract from the substance of the occasion. Speakers are selected to give them honorable appearances and not to make a contribution. Money is spent on flowers covered in plastic sheets and crude metal, glass and wood souvenirs. Unless a code of conduct is established for public meetings, much energy and resources will be wasted on them, as they do in authoritarian states. In Kenya, a hundred senior most officials would go to every meeting that the President addresses and the state machinery comes to a grinding halt. Should we have the same mindset? In the power hungry Kerala, do we need thousands of bulbs burning every time a festival passes by?

Civic sense is also a matter of mindset. Being clean ourselves, while polluting the neighborhood is classic hypocrisy. Same is the case with polluting rivers, destroying forests or turning streets into toilets. Cleanliness must be as much in the mind as in our surroundings.

Another bane of our society is the overdose of ideologies. Some of us still open our umbrellas as soon as it rains in Beijing. We are the only people who closed our shops when Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were killed. Strikes, hartals etc are still common and the consciousness is only of the rights of workers, not their responsibilities. The institution of “looking charges” should put any labour movement to shame.

Attachment to land is an obsession, not even a mindset. We kill each other for a strip of land. We are perpetually in narrow streets and inadequate civic facilities as no one parts with land even for the common good. The Malayalam University cannot get land in Ezhuthachan’s village. The same mindset thwarts proposals for industrialization. Every potential investor is suspected to be a land grabber. The lust for land skews land utilization. It is true, as Mark Twain said, land is not made any more, but judicious use of available land is essential for Kerala’s development.

In making my case for transforming the Malayalee mindset, I may have exaggerated facts, generalized isolated tendencies and caused offence. But I have not spoken as an outsider, but someone who may have the same mindset that I am seeking to transform. This was more introspection than criticism. Changes in mindset are hard to accomplish in a clean sweep. In the meantime Malayalees must be given tasks that suit their mindset and genius. Give them jobs that demand personal initiative, not collective action. Exploit them in ways that their intellectual talents and rich imagination is put to good use. Trust them to build a knowledge society and usher in a silent revolution. But if Malaylees can transform their mindset, the sky is the limit for them. If we add social graces such as courtesy, discipline and punctuality, social responsibility and industry to the other remarkable attributes of the Malayalees, we will get a productive work force, an impeccable society and a proud community. And then, as Mahakavi Vallathol said, “When we hear the name Kerala, blood will simmer in our veins.”

Mauritius looks up to India

By T P Sreenivasan

03rd November 2012 12:00 AM

There could not have been a better venue for a regional conclave of the Indian diaspora than Mauritius. It is indeed the Indian diaspora capital of the world, not in terms of numbers, but in terms of the most concentrated presence of people of Indian origin per square kilometre. Mauritius also has the distinction of having elected a Person of Indian Origin (PIO) for the first time in history as a head of the government. “We planned a ‘mini’ Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD), but there is nothing ‘mini’ about this PBD…. Next time, we should organise one, not in the Swami Vivekananda Hall (the largest facility on the island), but on the beaches where every Mauritian can join in”, said Indian high commissioner T P Seetharam. According to him, the registration had to be closed several days before the event as it had exceeded the target of 800 participants.

An African PBD had already been held in Durban earlier and so the Mauritius PBD was basically for the Indian Ocean islands, including Reunion, Madagascar and Comoros and quite naturally, Mauritius embraced it with warmth and enthusiasm. The Government of Mauritius worked with the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs and the High Commission of India to create a PBD to remember and one of the best-organised ones. It was an occasion for uninhibited celebration of the links with India and for demonstrating that India’s umbilical chord with the majority of Mauritius citizens is strong and durable.

In the early days of the Jaswant Singh-Strobe Talbott talks in Washington following the 1998 nuclear tests, Talbott asked Jaswant Singh whether the latter could think of any country in the world, which would support India unconditionally if India faced a threat. While Jaswant Singh was still thinking of an answer, Talbott said, “I mean, excluding Mauritius and Bhutan”. Jaswant Singh said nothing. This may not be a true story, but it tells a lot of the truth. There is at least one resolution, Pakistan’s proposal for a ‘Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (NWFZ) in South Asia’ which is tabled every year in the UN General Assembly against which only India, Mauritius and Bhutan vote. All others either support the resolution or, as a gesture to India, abstain at best. Our point that a NWFZ in South Asia is untenable when nuclear weapons are present in the near neighbourhood has few takers as they consider NWFZs as holy cows.

Mauritius supports the Indian positions in the UN more as a gesture of solidarity than on merit. It has not signed the CTBT till today, because of India’s difficulties with it. Some other countries, which are close to India, constantly plead with us to understand that they may have to vote differently from India on issues of no direct interest to India to establish their credibility in the international community, but Mauritius supports our positions unconditionally. We have come to expect it as a matter of course so much so that when Mauritius omitted to mention support for India’s permanent membership in the UN Security Council in the General Assembly debate this year, there was some commotion in South Block. Mauritius repeatedly explained that it was an omission on the part of the delegation in New York, which thought that it was not a live issue this year.

Indian diaspora in many countries help in the formulation of pro-India policies by their governments, particularly in countries, in which the community has a decisive say. However, there is no automaticity of support, except in Mauritius. Fiji, despite its significant Indian community, followed its own policies. In its quest to maintain special ties with the west, Fiji did not join the Non Aligned Movement on the ground that Fiji was so non-aligned that it could not join even the NAM. The Bavadra government, which came to power in 1987, was contemplating to join, but it was ousted in a military coup within 30 days. Indian Americans were very supportive of the nuclear deal, but they were the severest critics of the 1975 Emergency. Only Mauritius supports India, whether India is right or wrong.

Mauritius has 80 per cent PIOs in its 1.3 million population and there is no pressure from the others to distance it from India. Uninhabited till the Dutch took possession of the island in the eighteenth century; it has no indigenous people to claim special rights. The only Dutch contribution to the island was that they consumed to extinction the dodo, a flightless indigenous bird, giving the English language the expression ‘as dead as a dodo’. It is the most successful democracy in Africa, with stability and racial harmony and it is a social and economic success story. The Indian link is fully accepted by the population and the government does not have to balance India with any other power. France and China have influence, but even they do not challenge the Indian connection. In the debate on diaspora’s expectations of India, the overwhelming sentiment expressed was that children did not have to define their expectations of the mother. Mother India could be trusted to act in their best interests, as was evident in the various educational and cultural institutions that India had built. Their further aspirations like building a PIO University or tracing their roots in India at a reasonable cost are voiced with the expectation that India fulfil them, like a mother will do, when circumstances permit. There are no shrilling demands, no threats of disillusionment. Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam stressed that India-Mauritius relations transcended consideration of immediate benefits for either country.

Minister for overseas Indian affairs Vayalar Ravi pointed out that 40 per cent of the foreign direct investment (FDI) in India came through Mauritius. The treaty between the two countries on Double Taxation Avoidance is the reason for the emergence of Mauritius as the dominant channel of FDI. The situation immensely benefits Mauritius by way of employment opportunities and service fees, though alleged abuse of the facility by Indian resident investors has alerted Indian tax authorities to seek changes in the treaty. Mauritius is confident that the two countries can work together to remove the abuses without affecting bilateral links. “Let me state very clearly that we will collaborate to prevent any alleged misuse of the treaty. In view of the historical, cultural, political and diplomatic ties between the two countries, we need a global solution that will not penalise Mauritius”, said the then Mauritius finance minister Ram Sithanine in 2006. Such mundane matters were not allowed to vitiate the celebration of traditional ties. Foreign secretary Anund Neewoor admonished a journalist for raising the issue with me at a foreign office lecture on India-Diaspora relations.

Prime Minister Ramgoolam praised the PBD as a unique institution that brought India’s children abroad back to their mother’s lap. Vayalar Ravi responded equally warmly about India’s children abroad. Mauritians appeared to relish their mother’s embrace as they soaked in contemporary Indian paintings of Namboodiri, Santhana Krishnan, Subramanian and Devi Seetharam, the Rajesh Khanna show, the Kathakali and the Mohiniyattam, together with mutual vows of eternal friendship.

T P Sreenivasan is a former ambassador of India and governor for India of the IAEA.

E-mail: tpsreenivasan@gmail.com

US in Asia-Pacific: An Indian Perspective

The US Strategic Goals in Asia Pacific: An Indian Perspective.

By T.P.Sreenivasan

The distant drums of an approaching new cold war were audible at the Asia Pacific Roundtable on Asian Security Governance and Order in Kuala Lumpur. The increasing influence and assertiveness of China in the region seemed to invite a matching response from the United States.

The striking point about the rise of China was the perception in the region, at least among some countries, that the Chinese presence was benign. Prime Minister Razak of Malaysia, for instance, said that he would not belittle “the positive transformational effects China’s ascendancy has and will continue to have on Asia and beyond.”

Mahathir Mohammed, the elder statesman of Malaysia, sough to allay the fears about China by saying that the Chinese, who had contacts with the region for centuries, had never colonized any country, while the Portuguese and other Europeans merrily built empires in Asia. He said that Malaysia should fear the Europeans more. He revealed his admiration for the Chinese when he said that the Chinese were cleverer than the Russians. The Soviet Union collapsed because it tried to reform both the economic and political systems at the same time. The Chinese survived as a nation because they only reformed the economic system.

Malaysians were not the only ones to praise China or to predict that China would determine the future of the Asia Pacific region. The assessments of China were always positive and there was never even a hint of human rights violations or curtailment of press freedom.  Mahathir favoured a certain amount of authoritarianism in Government and was as tolerant of “some killings” by the Chinese as of American atrocities against terrorists.

China’s own perceptions about security in Asia and the Pacific were quite patronizing, bordering on arrogance. The Chinese Ambassador to ASEAN spelt out the Chinese position on the South China Sea, making light of the repercussions of the Chinese assertiveness on this matter. Other Chinese scholars openly admitted that confrontation with the United States was inevitable, as the US “Back to Asia” security policy was targeting on China and it was a direct threat to it. But even while admitting strategic distrust, they said that shared interests made the two countries cautious and pragmatic in managing tensions.

According to the Chinese, China’s increasing importance and influence were making the countries of the region perform the feat of “putting legs on two boats”. Even though confidence made China continue to play a positive role in managing the new complex relations and challenges, the situation gave rise to nationalism and a “new victim feeling”, a strange concept of fear, which led, ironically, to greater assertiveness. China clearly sees a competition between the old US dominated military alliances and the new structures in which China plays a central role. It realizes that the key to political dominance is economic penetration and the Chinese make no secret of their strategy.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the US has identified the arc extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean region and South Asia as the region which needs to receive greater attention. The rebalancing means shifting the US concentration from the Middle East to Asia and a broader reach in Asia itself with more flexible deployments and rotation of troops. President Obama was candid about the US strategic objective in Asia. He said, “I am determined that we meet the challenges of the moment responsibly and that we emerge even stronger in a manner that preserves American global leadership and maintains our military superiority.” The real debate today is not about the importance of Asia, but what methods should be used to increase the US engagement in the region.

The US interests in the region should be seen against China’s growing military capabilities and its assertiveness of claims, which has implications for freedom of navigation. Although the President is committed to reducing the defense budget, the disengagement in Afghanistan and Iraq may release enough resources for Asia Pacific. In November 2011, Secretary Hillary Clinton recalled that the stability and security in Asia was guaranteed for long by the US military. The US could not afford not to strengthen its presence in Asia at a time when the region is likely to shape global security itself.

The new strategy appears to be to reduce ground forces and focus on nuclear forces and the navy, in which the US has clear superiority over China. Old alliances in the region need to be strengthened and new friends need to be found. Since the region straddles two oceans, the Pacific and the Indian, shipping and strategy have to take the interlinkages into account.

Although the US has maintained that its rebalancing of forces in Asia is not directed against any country, China has repeatedly accused the US of pointing at a Chinese threat to perpetuate its hegemony in Asia. It has said that a de facto empire on borrowed money is flexing its muscles, while its creditors are at the door. China believes that it is all a matter of cold war mentality and that nobody will believe that the US actions are not directed against China. If anything, China will be more assertive of its claims on the South China Sea and other disputes, as it became evident at the recent ASEAN summit.

India-US relations have undoubtedly benefitted from the change of scene in Asia Pacific. When External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met on June 13, 2012 for the third round of their strategic dialogue, there was spring in the air, not blowing in from the Potomac, but from the distant Pacific and Indian Oceans. The issues that had bedeviled the bilateral relationship in the last two years were all there, but there was certain urgency about putting them behind and moving forward for larger objectives. The ripples that grew into waves in the South China Sea and the changing equations in Asia Pacific gave their parleys new content and a sense of purpose.

No doubt, after initial hesitations, the US began to see India as the “lynchpin” of its new security architecture and India became a doorway to the Pacific. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta made it clear that he was on a mission to recruit India as a partner in Asia Pacific, whatever may have been the irritants in the past.

The elaborate Joint Statement issued at the end of the strategic dialogue makes the context very clear. “The US and India have a shared vision of peace, stability, and prosperity in Asia, the Indian Ocean region, and the Pacific region and are committed to work together, and with others in the region, for the evolution of an open, balanced and inclusive architecture.”  Such a firm assertion of the role of the two countries in the region is rare in India-US statements. What is more, Secretary Clinton welcomed India’s growing engagement in the Asia Pacific. The Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC), an old Indian initiative, which had lost momentum, received a boost when the US sought to become a dialogue partner of the Association.

The US, once wary of Indian activism in Afghanistan for fear of Pakistan’s displeasure, declared its intention to seek new opportunities to intensify the efforts of the two countries for consultation, coordination and cooperation to promote a stable, democratic, united, sovereign and prosperous Afghanistan. India, in turn, welcomed the announcement of the Chicago Summit of NATO of progress in the security transition process, acknowledging the legitimacy of NATO operations in Afghanistan. The statement also favoured the elimination of safe havens and infrastructure for terrorism and violent extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan. No better evidence was necessary of the disillusionment of the US of the role of Pakistan as an ally in Afghanistan and its desire to work with India.

The reference to defence relations was of particular importance. Instead of harping over the disappointment over the fighter aircraft contract, the statement celebrated the fact that India had awarded defence contracts worth USD 9 billion in recent years to US companies. It noted the many military exercises and exchanges in the last six years and reaffirmed their desire to strengthen defence cooperation through increased technology transfer.  Defence Minister A K Antony had stressed to Secretary Panetta the need to transform the buyer-seller relationship into a partnership in technology and strategy. In New Delhi earlier, the US had conceded that India’s unwillingness to sign a couple of basic agreements relating to defence cooperation should not stand in the way of new defence deals.

Among the differences, which were pushed under the carpet was the nuclear liability issue, which had prevented nuclear trade between India and the United States so far.  No mention was made to the obstacles to the licensing and site development work associated with construction of the new Westinghouse reactors in Gujarat, but they welcomed progress towards the full implementation of the nuclear deal. The need of the hour was to highlight points of convergence, not of divergence.

An endless list of issues of agreement in diverse fields such as counter terrorism, intelligence, homeland security, cyber security, energy, climate change, education, development, trade, agriculture, science and technology, health and innovation and people-to-people ties found place in the Joint Statement.

The spring in India-US relations, evident after the third round of the strategic dialogue, comes from the anxiety of the two countries to rebalance them in the face of Chinese assertiveness. Compulsions of security in Asia Pacific may well bring the two democracies closer together in the future.

The Indonesian Foreign Minister expressed the current dilemma of the countries of the region in these words: “What worries us is having to choose; we do not want to be put into that position. The Pacific is sufficiently accommodating to provide not only the role of China and the US, but of emerging powers too.” A spokesperson of ASEAN said that ASEAN would not like to dictate the roles of different powers in the region. It would rather act like a flight controller at an airport, making sure that all arrivals and departures are smooth and there is no collision.

But sooner or later, the countries in the region will have to develop a cohesive Asian strategy to deal with the challenge of Chinese assertiveness. Chinese domination of the sea-lanes of Indian and Pacific Oceans will be a major concern for India. Assertion of its claims in the South China Sea, if it succeeds, will encourage it to press its territorial claims on India. India considers its strategic autonomy sacrosanct and wishes to pursue a new generation of nonalignment, but as it became evident in June, India’s engagement with the US will become stronger and more productive in the light of the evolving situation in Asia Pacific.

India has a stake in working with the US, China and other countries in the region to rearrange the regional security system, which accommodates rather than collide with India’s security interests. India’s efforts have been to identify issues, particularly multilateral issues, such as global trade, the financial system and the environment in which cooperation with China can be enhanced. But three major issues still divide India and China, with the potential for an adversarial relationship. The unsettled border between the two countries, the Chinese propping up of Pakistan against India and the possibility of China diverting the water, which flows into India are intractable. Some scholars have suggested an India-China diplomatic structure to monitor these issues and to find temporary, if not final solutions to these issues. But given the present assertiveness of China, it is not likely to help matters. India will have to search for its own security in the larger context of the evolving situation rather than bilaterally with China.

 

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Implementation “Hona Chahiye!”

Implementation “Hona Chahiye!”

(Remarks at a Roundtable at the Brookings Institution on August 8, 2012)

I did not know enough Hindi to think up a bilingual title for this talk, the first such title I have ever used. It must be Steve Cohen who coined it, with his knowledge of India and Hindi. I found the title very fascinating and decided to accept it. Coming to think of it, implementation of existing agreements, rather than negotiating new ones, has turned out to be harder in international relations, as in private lives. Reaching of agreements often happens out of idealism and optimism or even romance, but when it comes to implementation, the imponderable impediments spring up and implementation often falls short of expectations. The test lies in the ability of the partners to stick as much as possible to the sentiments that originally engendered the agreements and implement them in good faith. Implementation “hona chahiye”, and I would even add, “zaroor.”

However, the story has another side. Agreements have a certain historical context and compulsion and it may not be possible or even desirable to implement them in letter. It may become necessary to implement them in spirit and set aside some elements of the written word to suit the new context and compulsion. History is full of agreements, which served a purpose at the time they were signed and approved, but much imagination and flexibility became necessary to sidetrack some details and proceed with the purposes and principles of the original document. Bringing the agreements in line with the implementation may be so hazardous that it will be better to let the anomalies lie. This is demonstrated in the mother of all agreements, the UN Charter itself. Nobody asks for the implementation of the “enemy clause” or the original composition of the permanent members of the Security Council as recorded in the Charter.

Coming to the specifics of the agreements between the US and India, the general situation I just laid out, holds good in diverse ways. The single instance of the US-India Nuclear Deal is sufficient to study the dynamics of agreements and their implementation. In the first place, we have to remember that what was attempted was nothing short of a miracle. The bottom lines of the two countries were so diametrically opposite that a meeting of minds was unlikely. I am referring to India’s rocky determination not to sign the NPT and the abiding faith of the US in NPT as a cornerstone of its global non-proliferation policy. It was such irreconcilable positions that the deal sought to bridge. Inevitably, the pressures of contemporary history pushed both the countries to an agreement, but the differences in perception persisted till the end. What enabled the two nations to reach an agreement was the willingness of the two to keep their own respective understandings to themselves.

In their effort to convince their own constituencies, both sides issued declarations and passed legislations to show that they had not reneged on the fundamental positions they held. But each of these steps made the implementation complicated. The most celebrated of these was the declaration of the Indian side that there was nothing in the deal that would prohibit India from testing again and the declaration on the side of the US that the deal could be annulled if a test took place. The provisions in the deal itself were ambiguous on the issue, but both had its respective interpretations. Similarly, many provisions of the Hyde Act were anathema to India, but it was explained that these were unilateral US assumptions to which India was not party. The US side clarified time and again that the Act was part of the deal and was binding. Even the meaning of “full nuclear cooperation” and the “clean waiver” given by the NSG left many lose ends. But the agreement was signed because of the political compulsions rather than practical considerations. The fact that it has not been fully implemented should not detract from its significance as a milestone in US-India relationship.

I wrote an article in 2009, when I was a Fellow at Brookings, entitled, “The US may have no nuclear trade with India” which sent shock waves among strategic thinkers and the nuclear industry in the US and in India. I received phone calls from major US companies. My logic was that the US, while it had enabled India to enter the nuclear mainstream, it had no intention to contribute even remotely to India’s nuclear capability. This was not lust my own surmise. Someone who ought to know told this to me. I could see the logic of the argument. First of all, the US had no significant new technology to share with India. The political purpose of the deal was fulfilled when the NSG clearance was given. US nuclear trade could not be resumed just with the 123 Agreement. There were more conditions built into the system. I concluded that the US would find it hard to provide nuclear technology or material to India.

India should not have been disappointed that US supplies might not materialize. Many people had opposed the deal in India because it was being signed with the US. An agreement with France or Russia would have been more acceptable. It was the indication of an assurance given to the US that India would have significant nuclear trade with it, which caused a major controversy. Many argued that we should confine our dealings with France and Russia now that the obstacles had been removed. My US interlocutor told me that India’s wish would be fulfilled and it should rejoice at the outcome. The US would benefit more from the goodwill generated by the deal and the expected defence contracts than from the nuclear trade envisaged under the deal.

The liability issue and the controversy over enrichment and reprocessing technology, which arose subsequently, have delayed the full implementation of the deal. Both these are legal and sentimental issues, which did not alter the spirit of the deal. The Government of India had no intention to include the liability of the suppliers in the bill as it was aware of the international practice in this regard and there were sufficient provisions in the Indian legal system to deal with criminal negligence by anyone involved in the transactions. A sentimental debate on the Bhopal tragedy gave the opposition an opportunity to amend the bill, knowing fully well that it would block nuclear trade with the United States, which involves private companies. What they could not accomplish during the debates on the deal was achieved through the mechanism of the liability act. The French and Russian positions on the liability law was not different, but since the companies involved were state entities, the law did not affect the supplies, which were already in the pipeline. Both the US and India are engaged in finding a way to remove the legal impediments imposed by the liability law and the MOU signed between NPCIL and Westinghouse in June this year indicates some movement. But both sides may not be unhappy by the turn of events, if my contention in my 2009 article turns out to be right.

The reiteration in 2011 by the major suppliers that ENR technology would not be available to India should not have come as a surprise to India. But India insists on the principle of “full nuclear cooperation” and the “clean waiver”, knowing full well that India will not get it. India has the necessary technology and the agreement is specifically about the establishment of reprocessing facilities, not technology. No tears need be shed on account of restrictions on ENR technology, though it has become a “Holy Grail” for India when the implementation of the deal is considered.

The totally unexpected Fukushima disaster has also cast a shadow on the implementation of the deal. Though the Government of India is determined to pursue the path of developing nuclear power for its energy needs, as originally planned, there is sizeable popular opposition to the establishment of new nuclear reactors, as was demonstrated in Kudankulam. The sites allotted to the US are in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, where regional predisposition is towards industrialization, but popular sentiment against nuclear power could be ignited anywhere. This new factor must also be taken into account in the implementation of the deal.

After all is said and done, what matters is the political will. The Obama Administration, and for that matter, the second UPA Government, have been ambivalent about the strategic partnership between the two countries. The promises made at the time of the Presidential visit have not been fulfilled as yet. The proposal for India to be admitted to the NSG, MTCR, the Australis Group and the Wassenar arrangement has been sacrificed at the altar of the NPT. The support for India’s permanent membership of the UN Security Council, voiced in vague terms by President Obama in the Indian Parliament, was not followed up by any concrete action. On the Indian side, the search for strategic autonomy resulted in its positions in the Security Council, not purchasing fighters from the US and not being helpful on Iran.

The winds, however, seem to change, with the US decision to rebalance its forces in Asia Pacific and defense cooperation with India becoming the linchpin in this context. This should explain the new spring in strategic cooperation that emerged in the latest round of strategic talks. Several issues, which had remained dormant, came up for favourable consideration, including some relating to the nuclear deal. That, however, is another subject I would like to deal with in another talk tomorrow on Asia Pacific.

Suffice it to say today that we can expect a greater degree of implementation of the agreements and understandings as the new realities of the global situation unfold. But implementation should be measured against the context of the agreements and the changing perceptions of their current relevance, rather than on the implementation of every clause. It is the spirit that should be implemented and not the letter.

Thank you.

Selective Alignments, not Nonalignment.



By T.P.Sreenivasan



Nonalignment 2.0 was not born a year ago in the fertile minds of Khilnani, Kumar, Mehta, Menon, Nilekani, Raghavan, Saran and Varadarajan, the authors of a Centre for Policy Research (CPR) paper, but in a conference room in Accra, Ghana in 1991. At a Ministerial Conference of NAM there, the movement abandoned rejection of blocs as its central pillar and embraced development, human rights and environment as their testaments of faith. Politics, it was decided, would not be the preoccupation of NAM.


The Egyptian Foreign Minister AmreMoussa formally proposed that NAM be merged with G-77 as imperialism and colonialism were not the evils to fight against anymore. Finally, it was agreed that the new generation of nonalignment should focus on equity and justice in the economic order, human rights and the environment.



The reaction to the Accra rebirth of nonalignment was rather negative among Indian writers, including, perhaps, some of the authors of the present paper. The argument that NAM was still relevant even in a unipolar configuration and that it should remain the voice of the developing world had no takers, but it was allowed to remain dormant except when Cuba, Venezuela or Iran revived it for US bashing purposes. India’s own involvement with the NAM became ritualistic and we pursued our own interests with no ideological obsessions or historical loyalties. While keeping away from its rhetorical assertions on non-proliferation, we associated ourselves with its declarations of one summit after another. NAM summits became non-events in the Indian calendar. G-20, IBSA, BRICS and ASEAN took precedence over NAM and even SAARC. Nonalignment became part of our political heritage, partly glorious, partly embarrassing, not in play in our big game for global status.



Now, many years later, the Centre for Policy Research has christened their paper on search for strategic autonomy “Nonalignment 2.0”, much to the consternation of the rest of the strategic community. A thoughtful and important policy paper has, consequently, got embroiled in controversy over its title. How could India embrace the very word that the Americans have just used in describing India’s attitudes in the UN Security Council? A commentator called it Failure 2.0. The apparent blessings that the exercise received from Shiv Shankar Menon and his deputies added more mystery to the rebirth of nonalignment as the instrument of Indian foreign policy in the near term of ten to fifteen years, the report says, is the narrow window for India to succeed. The authors are hard at work to disown their own title and, therefore, it should be set aside. They assert that strategic autonomy was the defining value and continuous goal of Nonalignment and that they are merely renovating it.



The report is descriptive in its political sections and prescriptive, when it comes to economic issues. In politics, there is an eagerness to have continuity, but in the more successful area of economic policy, much remains to be done.The reason for this anomaly is not far to seek. The economic writers have been more distant from policy making than the contributors of the political sections. The former have asserted right from the beginning that India’s global goals are limitless if it can maintain high growth and maintain democratic institutions. Diplomacy is secondary in their calculations, but deficiencies in minor things too should be avoided. That the kingdom can be lost for want of a horseshoe nail is not just a nursery rhyme, it is a parable about the nature of power, they assert.



Surprisingly, the report concedes, for the first time in Indian strategic writing, that China is already a super power together with the US. When did the reality of G-2 hit our thinkers? When have we begun considering ourselves one of the “other centres and hubs of power that will be relevant, particularly in regional context”? It looks as though the quest for a multipolar world, in which India plays a global role that K. Subrahmanyam and others dreamt, has been abandoned. We should aspire only to achieve a situation where no other state is in a position to exercise undue influence on us. Is that the be-all and end-all of foreign policy?



Having thus scaled down our ambition for a role in the world, the report claims that India is not seen as a threatening power except in our neighbourhoodand that the rest of the world wants India to succeed. Indeed, Sweden, Argentina and Ghana are quite comfortable with us even if Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka are not. In the same breath, the writers tell us that India is viewed as passive. In other words, India can neither hurt nor help anyone, not a particularly happy situation for a potentially powerful nation.



The threat from China is covered in subdued terms, but its power differential with India, the unlikelihood of the border issue being resolved swiftly, the asymmetry of our capabilities and deployments on the border, the projection of Chinese power in the Indian Ocean, the complex and ambiguous economic relations, the growing trade surplus etc. figure prominently in the report, but with inadequate analysis of these developments.Characterising Sino-Indian relations as the single most important challenge for Indian strategy in the years ahead, the only suggestion made is that India’s China strategy should strike a balance between cooperation and competition, economic and political interests, bilateral and regional contexts. It is left to the imagination as to what can be done if such a balance cannot be achieved, a very likely scenario.



India’s challenges in South Asia are described in starker terms in the report. The nature of politics and perceptions of India in our immediate neighbourhood not only make it hard for the countries in the region to act on policies of mutual benefit, but also place fetters on India’s global ambitions. The report echoes the Gujral doctrine of giving unilateral concessions to its neighbours. Deepening economic engagement is the answer, even to counter the threat of Chinese engagement in the region. The Indian dilemmas in the neighbourhood cannot be resolved with any amount of strategic autonomy. Opportunities abound, but the challenges are equally formidable.



With Pakistan, the report rules out a historical breakthrough and expects incremental improvement as a result of constructive engagement. The US cannot persuade Pakistan to abandon terrorism and the Chinese shield to Pakistan is likely to be reinforced. A number of negative and positive levers have been suggested, but none of them is new and they can be applied only if opportunities present themselves. Restoring the strategic unity of South Asia remains a distant goal.



In West Asia, the suggestion is that India should engage with both the lawfully constituted authority and the democratic forces, with a view to finding a political settlement. This easier said than done. How much can strategic autonomy help India to prevent external intervention? Equally hard will be for India to avoid sharp choices, like steering clear of the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia.



The elaborate treatment in the report of the international institutions, hard power, internal security, non-conventional security issues, knowledge and information etc. must be studied separately. They are indeed weighty sections.The clarion call to India to rise with our clear values intact and not to fritter away India's enormous legitimacy, when seeking power. We should set new standards for what the most powerful must do.


The passion for strategic autonomy or a new generation of nonalignment, however, should not be the priority of the powerful. They hire and fire allies to suit their strategic objectives. India has already moved away from a pathological attachment to nonalignment and opted for selective alignments on the basis of mutual benefit, giving birth to alignments across geographical and ideological divides. To harp on the primacy of autonomy, to the exclusion of finding common cause with others is a sign of weakness and lack of self-confidence. The authors themselves have not been able to link every solution they suggest to strategic autonomy. Strategic autonomy comes automatically to the powerful. In the pursuit of power, selective alignments are more crucial than nonalignment.