Our chameleons

An article by my father, S. Viswam,

Coutesy: The Janata, Mumbai.

Have you wondered why not a single one of our vast galaxy of political leaders has uttered a single word of hope and prayer for Yasser Arafat as he fights for his life in a Paris hospital getting treated for a terminal illness that defies diagnosis? Yet, time was when Arafat even sneezed, New Delhi prayed he would not catch a cold! Suddenly, New Delhi is embarrassed even to make a public statement expressing good wishes for Arafat’s recovery.

Have you wondered why our foreign policy establishment has not uttered a word of condemnation for the manner in which Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has kept Arafat under house arrest for the last couple of years or that he last week bullied the Knesset into approving his plan for dismantling Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip? Surely, our South Block mandarins know fully well that Sharon’s unilateral disengagement is just a prelude to his tightening of control over the West Bank and keeping the Palestinians out from there once and for all.

Or, have you wondered why India has lost interest in championing the cause of the Nobel laureate and pro-democracy campaigner Aaung San Suu Kyi currently under the “protective custody” of the Myanmar dictatorship? Or, that our UPA government was too shy even to bring up the subject of her release during the recent visit to India of the top Myanmar military dictator Senior General Than Shwe? Did her name even come up casually in our Manmohan Singh’s conversation with the General?

Certainly, in New Delhi’s view national interests demand a closer relationship with the Myanmar military rule if only to pre-empt Chinese entrenchment in that country. But must we bend backwards to keep the military establishment in Myanmar in good humour even at the risk of jettisoning our own democratic traditions and commitments? What can be New Delhi’s justification for its blunt denial of a visa to the highly respected Dr.Sein Win, the head of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma and Prime Minister in exile, for attending an international convention held in New Delhi from October 15 to 17? If the government can permit an international convention to be held in India in support of Myanmar’s struggle for democracy, does it make sense to deny visa to a leader who represents the democratic forces in Myanmar to participate in it?

The significance of the contents of the message which Dr. Sein Win sent to the convention will hopefully not be lost on South Block. “India,” said Dr. Sein Win, “the world’s largest democracy, has regrettably been a disappointment these past several years.” What an indictment against our professed democratic traditions and commitments!

“We understand,” continued Dr. Sein Win, “ that for India, improving relations with Burma is important. But we do not want the great leaders of India to forget that India’s aspirations and grand plan can only be guaranteed by a responsible, transparent and accountable government elected by the Burmese people. A symbiotic relationship between the two countries which is in the long term interests of India will only be possible when there is democracy in Burma. India’s multifaceted policy should not be restricted to business dealings and short-term military cooperation with the Burmese generals only, and it should include engagement with the Burmese people and their chosen representatives of the democracy movement on moral grounds.”

A foreign policy not based on moral grounds is not worth a day’s purchase, and what a pity that South Block has to be reminded of this at a time when it is rolling out the red carpet for a visitor who keeps the leader of the Burmese democratic movement under house arrest.

The only minister in our UPA government who can be expected to be sensitive to the implications of Yarafat’s disappearance from the West Asian scene for the future of the Palestinians, and to our turning indifferent to Suu Kyi’s plight is External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh. He has a strong sense of history and is not in the habit of abandoning his friends midstream. And for Indians of Natwar’s generation, including this writer, Arafat will always remain a hero and a legend, and Suu Kyi a heroine of a struggle in recognition of which we gave her the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding.

But, unfortunately for Natwar, his nostalgia for the “golden era” of Jawaharlal Nehru and the heydays of the Non-Aligned Movement drew such flak from our learned critics that he has decided not to stick his neck out any more. For him, nowadays, silence is the better part of foreign policy. These days, there are new heroes, like George Bush and Parvez Musharraf and Bin Laden, and the world has to pay court to them. Arafat and his like, like old generals who do not die but fade away, are walking into the sunset.

The first thing any serious student of foreign policy and international affairs is taught is that no nation has or can have permanent friends or permanent foes. It has only permanent (national) interests. So, when nations change tack and jettison old policies in favour of new ones, they take shelter under the umbrella of national interests. And national interests must make way for all other interests, even if some of the old interests were rooted in values, principles and justice. This is the way of the world and quite rightly so.

As I write this, Monday November 8,Yasser Arafat is in the twilight zone between life and death. Possibly, when this piece gets into print, he might have gone. But, during his lifetime, he was Big News in India. He was perhaps the most popular among world leaders, after the B & K duo (Khruschev and Bulganin), who interacted with India and the Indian political leadership of the first four post-independence decades. He visited India frequently: too frequently, complained the Americans and the Israelis. He was a regular at the Non-Aligned Summits, and no non-aligned meeting, whatever the level, failed to incorporate a formulation in its political resolution, asserting the “inalienable right of the Palestinians for a homeland of their own”. He and Cuba’s Fidel Castro were the “star” guests at the 1983 NAM Summit at Vigyan Bhavan when Indira Gandhi formally took over the movement’s leadership describing it as “history’s biggest peace movement”. Arafat called Indira Gandhi his sister, and Fidel hugged her, much to her surprise and possibly embarrassment. Arafat was a favourite of one and all, and was given the red carpet treatment by successive governments in New Delhi.

When Arafat came to New Delhi to declare open the India Chapter of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), he was “escorted” to the new premises housing the office by hundreds of slogan-shouting admirers and a band, much like a bridegroom riding the horse in an Indian wedding Baraat. Whenever in New Delhi, Arafat would address well-attended press conferences, and the media invariably gave him a good press. His visits became irregular after Rajiv Gandhi’s death, occasional during the PV Narasimha Rao regime, and virtually ceased after the advent of the BJP era.

The diminishing Indian interest in and commitment to the Palestinian cause ran parallel with the enhancement of Indian interest in cultivating and befriending Israel. Indeed, the Indian establishment began turning towards Israel even during its support to the Palestinian cause. Moshe Dayan made a successful secret visit to New Delhi at Morarji Desai’s invitation. One thing led to another. The “token” Israeli set-up in Mumbai, said to be concerned only with peripheral consular duties, was upgraded into a consulate. The next step was the restoration of full India-Israel diplomatic relations. Under the BJP dispensation, India-Israel relations firmed up at the expense of New Delhi’s oft-proclaimed commitment to an independent homeland for the Palestinians. And now, Israel can do nothing wrong in the eyes of South Block. Although it pays lip sympathy to the Palestinian cause, we have dropped Arafat like a hot potato and we have all kinds of cooperation with Israel. Mossad is no longer a dirty word.

Our relations with Myanmar have taken a 180 degree turn, and in the fear of a growing Yongon-Beijing relationship, we have spread the red carpet for a military dictator who blithely talks of Myanmar’s “roadmap for democracy” even while continuing to keep Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest. Suu Kyi was once regarded by New Delhi as the symbol of the demand for the democratization of the Myanmar polity. Now, we have begun to regard the military dictatorship, which is steadily devaluing Suu Kyi’s relevance to the campaign for democracy, as the potential deliverers of democracy in Myanmar. We have dropped Suu Kyi like a hot potato.

Soon after our independence, the great leader of Malaysia, Tun Abdul Rahman was among the first of the South-East Asian leaders to visit India. Within moments of landing at New Delhi airport, and even before leaving the airport, he proclaimed Malaysia’s support for India over Kashmir and announced the snapping of Malaysian diplomatic relations with Pakistan. Nehru who received him at the airport was pleasantly taken aback. A couple of years later, when the Tun turned to New Delhi for its support for Malaysia in its row with the Philippines over Sabah, India dragged its feet. And in a shameful show of pusillanimity, it privately conveyed to the Tun that India found it difficult to support Malaysia and that it would prefer to stay neutral. The Tun never forgave Nehru and India for the snub. India-Malaysia relations never regained their earlier warmth, and New Delhi continued to antagonize Tun Rahman’s successor, Tun Razak in many ways. New Delhi remained indifferent to Malaysia’s campaign to declare the Malacca Straits as a “zone of freedom, peace and neutrality” and Malaysia, together with Singapore and Indonesia did its little bit to keep India out of the Asean. Mahathir had a long spell as Malaysia’s prime minister but never warmed up significantly to the Indian leadership. He maintained “cool but correct” relations with India. Siding with the Soviet Union during the Cold War days, New Delhi distanced itself as much as it could from the Asean region while extending unqualified backing to North Vietnam which was supported by Moscow in its fight against South Vietnam which was under the American influence. In the process, New Delhi estranged the whole of South-East Asia, Australia and New Zealand. It has taken two decades of intense diplomacy and back-tracking for New Delhi to establish good relations with the countries of the region.

Addressing the Hindustan Times Leadership Initiative conference in New Delhi on November 8, Natwar Singh had this to say about India’s South Asia policy: “ It is natural, but not necessarily inevitable that India’s smaller neighbours look upon us with some degree of apprehension and fear of domination. A key objective of our policy is to reassure our neighbours, and anchor this assurance in a virtuous web of cross-border, economic and commercial linkages. Once India is looked upon as an opportunity, then India’s size and its economic strength would become an asset rather than a liability in dealing with our neighbours.”

This is exactly the philosophy governing Inder Gujral’s Doctrine, named after him. Inder propounded the doctrine when he was foreign minister, and implemented it to the extent possible when he became prime minister. But the Congress, and later, the BJP-led NDA, sneered at it and pooh-poohed its importance and relevance, possibly because Inder was neither a Congressman nor a BJP-man when he came out with the doctrine. The Congress sneered at it in private and the NDA in public. Both sent wrong messages to India’s neighbours. The message that went out was that India will always be a hegemonistic power capitalizing on its size and population in order to dominate over the smaller countries around it. It sounds highly ironic that Natwar should echo Inder’s thoughts and clothe the philosophy as a brainchild of the UPA government. And, again, while turning our face away from Arafat and Suu Kyi, we are exposing our own hypocracies and double standards.

Sins committed in the name of national interest must be forgiven, but acting as imperialists while professing to be democrats is an unforgivable sin. The world expects Gandhi’s India to at least remain consistent to our self-chosen ideals of freedom, democracy and justice even at the risk of courting criticism from those who have no real comprehension of democracy.