Democratic pressure & international diplomacy statecraft

Harish Khare
The Hindu, 29 August

The current controversy over the 123 agreement goes beyond the nature of our relationship with the United States. It has to do with how democracy’s contentious noise and disagreements can be used positively in pursuit of national diplomatic goals.

Thirty-five years ago, on July 31, 1972, Indira Gandhi stood up in the Lok Sabha to reply to the debate on the Shimla Agreement (that had been concluded a few weeks earlier). During the course of the debate the Jana Sangh benches had accused the government of conceding too much to Pakistan, and that too under pressure from Moscow, which was suspected of wielding an unhealthy influence on Indian foreign policy, consequent to the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and C ooperation (of August 9, 1971). The Jana Sangh members had suggested that it was a telephone call from Moscow that persuaded the Indian delegation to give up its tough negotiating line, enabling Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to bluff his way to a diplomatic victory.

In her reply, Mrs. Gandhi was national self-assurance personified: “The question is whether anybody spoke to Moscow. I categorically declare that no one spoke to any foreign country at all … We like advice on some occasions but not on all occasions because each country must make its own decisions. It is only the country itself and the leaders of the country who can judge what is in the interests of the country. Nobody from outside, however great a friend or enemy, can tell us what is in the true interest of India. We know, as I have said earlier, that nobody from outside can be interested in our strength, it is only we [who] are concerned.”

This little essay in national self-confidence is recalled in the context of the current debate over the Indo-American civilian nuclear deal. Much of the honest criticism of the proposed deal is psychological. The critics’ doubts and fears in fact can be located in the psychology of an uncertain nationalism of an emotionally insecure society; this nationalism is afraid of its own capacity to make a realistic assessment of its assets and liabilities in the overall calculus of national strength. At the core of this uncertainty is the fear of an ex-colonial mind, always over-rating the white man’s intellectual and organisational resourcefulness. The bottom line of the on-going ‘123’ debate is whether or not we feel it in our collective bones that we have what it takes to get the better of the Americans and others who want to deny us our legitimate place under the nuclear sun.

This is not the first time that the country has been called upon to decide whether a particular foreign policy initiative is in our interests, whether we are being dictated to by a foreign power, whether we have lost our autonomy in our external relations, whether we have the requisite self-assurance to stand up to friends who may turn out to be not so friendly. This is a familiar tableau of national self-assurance struggling with a legacy of self-doubt.

A nation graduates to a higher power status only when it is able to discover skills and visions to mobilise its emotional and physical capacities. But no nation, however great its natural resources, geographical spread or scientific accomplishments, can aspire to the status of a great power if it fails to produce a domestic decision-making elite, capable of devising and pursuing coherent beliefs and objectives in a sustained and systemic manner.

The requirement is, as Kissinger observed about China’s three leaders (Mao, Chou, and Deng), a leadership capable of combing “the distillation of the experiences of an ancient country with an instinct for distinguishing between the permanent and the tactical.”

Though democracy ipso facto favours self-doubt, democratic regimes have a better advantage than a military or party dictatorship when it comes to producing a policy innovation. Democratic noise and accountability can be used creatively to ensure that the leaders do not barter away genuine national interests (in exchange for an external power’s support in domestic power struggles or worse in exchange for an individualised Swiss bank account). Democracies have the additional systemic advantage because the policy choices produced are deemed to have a larger political acceptance, which would presumably outlast an incumbent regime.

At the same time contentious democracies also produce inherently short-lived regimes, which nonetheless find themselves having to negotiate long-term agreements and arrangements with an exacting and impatient outside world. What ultimately matters is the national elite’s competence (political, intellectual, emotional, policy, technical to match its wits against the outsider, to bargain, to negotiate, and to persuade), its capacity (to govern innovatively and to devise the requisite instruments of delivery), and its confidence (leadership qualities, ability to garner national support behind well-defined goals, move the way a society thinks).

The current noisy debates and controversies over the nuclear deal beg three inter-related questions, especially when it comes to operationalising an independent foreign policy.

Firstly, how do we proceed with global engagement and international agreements so as to maximise national bargaining leeway? Do we force our negotiators to reveal all their cards, just for the satisfaction of the domestic audience? Do we proscribe as well as prescribe negotiating tactics? Do we end up ham-stringing negotiators when the objective should be to provide them maximum flexibility within their brief?

Secondly, how not to give the impression — to outside powers or to groups with outside linkages — that the democratic process and its openness can be exploited by them to New Delhi’s disadvantage?

Thirdly, how not to set up precedents that may become real time fault lines, especially in the conduct of foreign policy? A strategic breakthrough or a foreign policy disaster vis-À-vis one external power invariably invites reactions, often unfriendly, from other global players.

Weak governments do not make tough negotiators. As the designated custodian of national interest, the Manmohan Singh government finds itself in an unenviable position. A stalemate at the very heart of strategic decision-making will be noticed in every capital of the world as also by the non-state actors who continue to feel that New Delhi is hobbled by self-inflicted incapacity or incompetence. The 40-odd members of the Nuclear Supply Group would be drawing their own conclusions about the Manmohan Singh government’s vulnerabilities and strengths. The Russians already seem to have detected a chink or two in our coalition armour.

Beyond the nuclear deal, the larger question is whether our noisy democracy is to become a positive asset in the conduct of diplomacy. Is the coalition format to become a liability in pursuit of a purposeful foreign policy or can its inherent contradictions be used creatively abroad? For example, we are making much of President George W. Bush’s fast depleting domestic capital, as also of the end of his lien on the White House in November 2008. Instead of taking advantage of a man who finds most of his presidential ambitions frustrated, we are scaring ourselves wondering what his successor may or may not do in terms of the Hyde Act’s prescriptions. On the other hand, we are overlooking the fact that if the 123 deal did come about it was only because we were able to manipulate the American political process, through a competent use of the American-Indian community and its growing clout. And it is this very asset that would be available to be used, if need be, with Mr. Bush’s successors.

It is open for some to suggest that we do not engage at all with the United States, lest we contract some kind of contagious ideological pollution. There is a five-decade-old tradition of anti-Americanism; the U.S. continues to invoke negative perceptions among large segments of the Indian population. And, frankly, Washington has not behaved in a way as to be reassuring to the non-elite opinion in India. Therefore, it is quite likely that we may well manage to arrange our domestic alignments in such a way as to have minimal contacts with the U.S., provided the political leaders are prepared to pay the economic cost of total estrangement. But that in no way would lessen the Americans’ capacity to make things difficult for us in this part of the world. We have only to remember how a thoughtless Assistant Secretary of State, named Robin Raphael, had complicated the Kashmir matrix. We owe it to ourselves to recognise and factor in the cost of American — or for that matter, Russian or Chinese — antagonism.

Once we are able to demonstrate to the world that we have sufficient national self-assurance, only then can we ensure that a relationship — strategic or otherwise — works to our relative advantage. The best antidote to undesirable contamination is a stable polity, sturdy leadership, and mature self-confidence. All that we need to know is that there is more than one way to skin a cat.