A Diplomatic Dichotomy

CONGRESS ministers these days are mostly heckled. Rarely do they get the unanimous backing of the opposition parties in Parliament. Home Minister S.B. Chavan managed that feat in the Rajya Sabha when he openly accused the US of harbouring "evil designs" on and hampering the political process in Jammu and Kashmir and seeking to gain a "foothold" there. The members applauded his statement with much thumping of desks. He was articulating the other side of the Indian dilemma.

Since India launched its liberalisation programme, Indian policy makers have been caught in a wedge—reconciling the demands of economic diplomacy with the political strategy on issues of national security and integrity. The confrontation between External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and S.S. Ray, Indian ambassador to the US, over the possible fallout of the supply of arms worth $368 million under the Hank Brown Amendment to Pakistan, was an example of this dichotomy.

There was a time when the US was clearly the enemy. Now with its increasing economic ties with India, a new lobby has emerged in New Delhi, which would rather focus on this than rake up political problems between the two countries. Or it hopes these problems will simply go away once American investment in India rises. While the economic ties have moved fast, the traditional suspicion attached to American actions has not disappeared. On the contrary, the US actions in the last two years have reinforced these. The problems in Kashmir and the increasing American interest in them has added to this atmosphere. This deep distrust and the strong anti-US feeling has been crystallised by Chavan.

The American response to Chavan’s accusation was swift. Terming the charge "nonsense", the Americans said their policy on Kashmir was to encourage an end to the violence and a resolution of the dispute through negotiations between India and Pakistan, taking into account the wishes of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Another US official in Washington was more harsh: "Chavan pops off like that once a month or so on his own. He is an embarrassment to his colleagues in the Government." This begs a question. Does Chavan just "pop off" as the Americans would like everyone to believe?

The answer to this question is yes and no. It is true that Chavan has a habit of shooting his mouth off. But as the number two man in the Cabinet, his assertions cannot always be treated as utterances of a loose cannon. This reputation of his has often been skilfully employed by Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao to convey unpleasant political messages, especially to the Americans. An official close to Rao conceded: "The Prime Minister uses the finance minister for one purpose and the home minister for another. Manmohan Singh plugs the line for the continuity in economic reforms and therefore keeping Indo-US relations on track. Chavan’s statement바카라 웹사이트 was an autonomous exercise, but he was conveying signals on those aspects of the US policy which concern and bother us."

On February 14 this year, during a discussion on the extension of President’s rule in Kashmir, Chavan’s speech featured a broadside against the US in the Lok Sabha. A "third party", he said, wanted independence for Kashmir. He claimed to be in "possession" of a document prepared by the Republicans in America stating that "the Democrats are creating problems in India and they are trying to encourage Pakistan to that extent".

Naturally, this received media headlines. There was much speculation about Chavan’s possible provocation. The home minister was on thin ice because he failed to produce the report to support his allegation. Some media reports said Rao was embarrassed by this outburst. But clearly in the official circles, there was a sense of satisfaction at Chavan having "shot his mouth off".

A similar feeling can now be perceived in official circles. Since February the atmosphere has changed qualitatively. The Brown Amendment has been passed. There is greater American activism on Kashmir. Their officials have been meeting Kashmiri leaders, both in India and abroad. American envoy Frank Wisner has visited Kashmir. Hurriyat leaders have met the American envoy in Delhi. Former President George Bush had a long meeting with Shabir Shah in Delhi. When US Assistant Secretary of State Robin Raphel was in India in November, she met Farooq Abdullah and reportedly offered full US support for reverting to the pre-1952 situation. Abdullah has himself gone on record saying that the US backed his party’s demand for greater autonomy to Kashmir and the conversion of the existing line of control into a "soft border" between India and Pakistan. Raphel had hinted in her meetings in Delhi that a political package must be made known to the Kashmiris. She had gained the eternal ire of the Indians by questioning the accession of Kashmir to India two years ago.

바카라 웹사이트India has hopelessly looked to America to rein in Pakistan in Kashmir. The Americans, who have talked off and on about resolving the Kashmir dispute within the framework of the 1972 Shimla Agreement, have been stressing the need to take the wishes of the Kashmiris into account for a solution to the Kashmir dispute. This, the Indian policy makers suspect, is the US way of pushing for an independent Kashmir. "These contacts with the dissidents each time we come close to a political solution, regardless of the assurances given by the Americans, puts a spanner in the works," said an official.

There was a sense of deja vu in official circles when Rao failed to react strongly to the passage of the Hank Brown Amendment. Instead, he let Mukherjee and Ray publicly fight over it. Besides, officials recall that last year, over-ruling strong opposition, Rao바카라 웹사이트 allowed, on American suggestions, the Hurriyat chief Omar Farooq to travel to Casablanca to attend the Organisation of Islamic Conference summit. Said a senior Home Ministry official: "The US finds us on a weak wicket in Kashmir. They do not want India to remain a cohesive entity and would rather do to us what they did to the USSR and are now trying to do to Russia."

The first strong statement from Rao on the Brown Amendment came at the beginning of the winter session of Parliament. He told the Congress Parliamentary Party that the US arms supply to Pakistan could possibly be aimed at blocking India’s efforts to resolve the Kashmir problem.

The statements by Rao and Chavan must also be seen in the light of growing pressure within the Congress against the US actions and diverting attention from their own failure. With elections just months away, Congressmen are worried about looking weak vis-a-vis the US.

In fact, it is not just a perception within the Congress or the general public. An envoy of a neighbouring country commented that India has simply failed to stand up to the US: "Look at China. They handle their relations with the US so skillfully. Nehru and Indira Gandhi could stand up to the US pressures." Defenders of Rao argue that it is a unipolar world and the US is the sole superpower, hence the change.

Increasingly there is a perception that Indian foreign policy is in a shambles. There is a lack of foreign policy initiatives and what is there by way of initiatives generally come from the Prime Minister’s Office. The officials in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) are then expected to implement them. While pragmatism in international relations is fine, there is a need for coherent foreign and security policies, not the knee-jerk reactions often seen. The importance Rao attached to foreign policy was evident from the fact that the late Dinesh Singh was minister for more than two years despite being unable to attend office due to his illness. Only early this year, Rao chose to bring Mukherjee to head the ministry.

After the American reaction and with Parliament in session, the MEA, where the latest mantra is economic diplomacy, had little choice but to summon US Charge d’Affaires Mathew Daly to convey India’s unhappiness at the American statement. Two days later, asked if they still stuck to the word "nonsense", an American spokesperson said, "We have nothing to add."

Chavan’s statement is unlikely to seriously mar Indo-US relations, though Commerce Minister P. Chidambaram said at the Indo-US joint business council meeting, "There are clouds on the horizon". The Kashmir problem is not about to go away so easily. And the American perception of its role in the world (or its interventionist role), as articulated recently at a gathering in Washington by Lynn Davis, under secretary of state for arms control and international security affairs, is not going to change either. Said Davis: "President Clinton quite clearly has placed the US in a leadership role and through American leadership we are responding successfully to the new security challenges. Diplomacy is a key tool in our success, backed up by the military forces of the US." It’s time Rao shot straight from the hip.