Signs of change?
Many eyebrows were raised when, in 2006, India voted against Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency on a western sponsored resolution regarding Iran’s nuclear program. India, a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement, had been a leading proponent of the diffusion of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. India and Pakistan who often struck discordant notes on most global issues like human rights, terrorism, self-determination, no first use amongst others were in complete harmony on the issue of peaceful uses. Key resolutions on the subject in the United Nations and the Non-Aligned Movement were the handiwork of close cooperation between the delegations of these two countries. India broke ranks with the non-aligned mainstream by its negative vote at Vienna.
That deviation from an entrenched NAM position was amongst several key signals of a major adjustment in India’s foreign policy paradigm. Its withdrawal from the Iran gas pipeline was another. Indian diplomacy seemed to have broken free of its ideological moorings to charter a pragmatist trajectory putting value on concrete dividends as opposed to doctrinal purity. These dividends included the global community’s decision to de-link India from Pakistan, affixation of the latter with Afghanistan in the regional configuration, projection of India as a rising global power and the path breaking nuclear agreement which virtually recognised India as a nuclear weapon state by allowing access to nuclear technology and fuel without adherence to the non-proliferation treaty. In Afghanistan, India was offered a strategic salience by Karzai’s decision to assign her the task of training the Afghan military.
It seemed that India had taken a calculated decision to align itself firmly with the United States and had fallen in line with Washington’s regional priorities. In the Indian perspective, containment of China’s rising influence and domination of Pakistan provided the strategic underpinning for this alliance.
Recent events suggest that this might have been a premature conclusion. First came the decision to purchase 40 fighter jets, valued at a staggering 12 billion dollars, from a French firm which was preferred over the famed Lockheed Martin of the United States. With regards to the much trumpeted nuclear deal, reportedly the enabling provisions particularly the immunity clauses have yet to be legislated obstructing the sale of nuclear power plants from the United States, a key factor that had helped rally the American corporate sector behind the agreement.
India also seems to be failing the current litmus test of loyalty i.e. participation in the unilateral western sanctions against Iran. By July 1, European imports of Iranian crude would cease and the prohibition on all dealings with the Iranian Central Bank would be fully in place. Major oil importers like South Korea and Japan have already received Saudi assurances to cover the shortfall. Even the independent minded Chinese are said to have scoured the Gulf region for alternate sources in case of necessity.
India, on the other hand, has stood firm. Not only has it refused to heed the sanctions but has gone a step ahead by formalising a long term barter arrangement for Iranian oil purchases. Some reports have also hinted at the possibility of a pioneering deal allowing Indian companies exploration rights in Iran On the sanctions issue alone India has demonstrated a striking measure of autonomy in its foreign policy. The sporadically touted theory that India is deceitfully leading Iran up the garden path and will ditch it at the moment of reckoning is too cynical to be taken seriously. If true, it would establish India as a certified American proxy a role which one would be reluctant to associate with an aspiring global power.
Why this deviation from what seemed a settled course of tight western alignment? Three reasons come to mind. First, lessons from the Pakistani experience. The manner in which Pakistan had been used and abused in its proxy role over the decades, the last episode being particularly poignant, with Raymond Davis spraying bullets on our citizens, Osama taken out through a clandestine military operation, our frontline troops deployed against terror killed in unprovoked attacks, most aid suspended with increasingly onerous conditionalities for its resumption, could not have been lost on Indian policy makers.
After urging India to assume its responsibility as a pre-eminent Asian power it was given short shrift in the opening chapter of the Afghan end game. Economic constraints, diminishing military prospects and the gruelling demands of an election year forced Washington to initiate negotiations with the dreaded Taliban. The newly anointed Asian policeman was nowhere in the picture. Even the Afghan President a known Indian ally was left in the lurch. The prospect of Taliban revival in Afghanistan with American connivance cannot be counted to inspire much confidence in the consistency of approach of the sole super power, a phenomenon to which Pakistan has had its share of exposure. Wise nations learn from the mistakes of others.
Could the evolving regional situation include a rethink of India’s designated role as the pivotal cog in the containment of China is an intriguing point which will be discussed next week?
The writer is Pakistan’s former Ambassador to the United Nations and European Union. He can be contacted at shaukatumer@hotmail.com