Global positioning

India must urgently move out of its current proclivity of taking foreign policy positions with a view not to offend the US even in the face of blatant transgression of international law, writes Sitaram Yechury.

It is only natural that the meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Pervez Musharraf on the sidelines of the Nam summit in Havana should have grabbed almost exclusive attention in India. Coming in the background of apprehensions about whether such a meeting would ever take place, this, indeed, produced a joint statement with far-reaching implications. While we shall return to this later, the week Singh spent in Latin America resulted in significant developments otherwise as well.

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The meeting of the heads of governments of India, Brazil and South Africa (Ibsa) in Brasilia resulted in formalising a partnership between three large developing economies from three continents of the world. Conceived in June 2003, a plan of action was drawn up at New Delhi in March 2004. Apart from increased cooperation in various economic fields, the target is to expand the trilateral trade from $ 4.5 billion in 2003 to $ 10 billion by 2007.

With Brazil being part of Mercosur (including Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay) and South Africa, a member of the South African Customs Union (Sacu), India will get the opportunity to expand economic relations with these nations.

In 1990, Manmohan Singh, as Secretary to the South Commission, released a report that described developing countries as existing on the periphery of the North, mostly weak and powerless in the world arena. The Ibsa is one expression of cooperation among countries of the South. While the possibilities for increased economic cooperation must be fully exploited, a combined resolve must also be made to tackle the powerful common feature among these countries — poverty.

It can only be hoped that India will now work to seek closer cooperation between the Ibsa, Russia and China at the global level, moving towards a partnership that is, of late, known by its acronym Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). With both Russia and China being part of the Shanghai Cooperation (to which India is also invited as an observer), the Brics has the potential to emerge as a partnership for global stability and security. This potential needs to be nurtured and developed in order to create a reasonable countervailing force to prevent the world from becoming a victim of unilateralism and hegemony.

The world in the post-Cold War period, leaving behind international relations dominated by bipolarity, should have moved towards multi-polarity. This should have been the natural tendency and direction of the development of international relations. This, however, is being subverted by US imperialism, which seeks to impose a unipolarity under its tutelage. Invoking the doctrine of preemptive strike, the US military occupation of Iraq violating its national sovereignty, the threats of unjust sanctions against Iran or the brazen support and assistance to Israel in its criminal war against Lebanon and occupation of Palestinian territories are the defining contours of such a unipolar world. In order to create a more democratic and equitable world order, such tendencies will have to be resisted. India must urgently move out of its current proclivity of taking foreign policy positions with a view not to offend the US even in the face of blatant transgression of international law. India must work to move from the Ibsa to Brics in evolving a new world order.

India’s role in the NAM must also be seen from this perspective. With a membership of 116 countries, NAM is the largest forum of developing countries outside of the United Nations. The summit taking place in Havana, the capital of socialist Cuba, by its very location has sent a message to the world. From its very inception, the Nam refused to be drawn into becoming a bargaining lever for developing countries in the bipolarity of the Cold War. It thus asserted the principles of peaceful coexistence and opposition to all forms of neo-colonialism and imperialism. Singh reflected this in his address to the summit by stating that non-alignment is tantamount to “independence in thinking”. This, however, needs to be backed by tangible actions. There cannot be any scope for equivocation on issues of opposition to unilateralism and hegemonism.

Singh proposed the setting up of a suitable high level group for West Asia, calling upon the international community to address its responsibility to resolve the West Asian crisis. He, however, equivocated on who was responsible for the crisis in the first place. Israel’s illegal and unjust occupation of Palestinian and Arab lands is the source of the original sin. Once these lands are vacated, if any terrorist attacks take place, then the whole world will join Israel in not only condemning but in combating such menace. Obfuscation rather than clarity often reduces a potentially powerful movement into inaction. One can only hope that under Cuba’s leadership, a more meaningful intervention of Nam in global affairs will take place in the future.

Let us now return to the Indo-Pak agreement. The decision to put in place an institutional mechanism to counter terrorism is, indeed, pathbreaking. While India has to be ever vigilant to make this work and to guard against any potential misuse, this nevertheless contributes to improving the good neighbourly environment. The procedures for this mechanism will have to be vigorously worked out. Pakistan, apart from issuing mere verbal assurances that its territory will not be used for cross-border terrorist activities, will now be held accountable. The resumption of talks between the foreign secretaries must work towards resolving the disputes over the Siachen glacier and Sir Creek. In October 2005, India and Pakistan had agreed on an integrated approach, identifying six facets of these disputes. This should now be followed up with the required urgency.

The BJP’s opposition to this agreement only compounds its own inconsistent approach to Indo-Pak relations. Having reduced India’s foreign policy into a Pak-centric one during its six-year rule, it is now denouncing this agreement as a ‘sell-out’. It is a different matter that both after the Kargil war and the attack on Parliament, the Vajpayee government extended its ‘hand of friendship’ to Pakistan. Citing the Mumbai blasts, it now urges the Indian government not to have any dialogue with Pakistan.

The need is to pin down Pakistan’s involvement and support to cross-border terrorism. The institutional mechanism must precisely aim to do this by both committing Pakistan and holding it accountable. The BJP’s opposition to this, hence, appears to stem more from its domestic political compulsions rather than a serious assessment of Indo-Pak relations or, for that matter, the situation in South Asia. Desperate to regain its lost popular political base, the BJP is resorting to once again whipping up communal passions. Its strategy of equating anti-Pakistan with anti-Muslim in order to consolidate the Hindu vote bank will continue to play havoc for the unity and integrity of our country. Interestingly, while the Mumbai blasts are cited as a reason for abrogating any talks with Pakistan, the BJP continues to play down the terrorist attacks in Malegaon, a Muslim-dominated town. Is it because in nearby Nanded, two Bajrang Dal activists were accidentally killed while making bombs?

The writer is Rajya Sabha MP and member, CPI(M) Politburo