Mamata, Karunanidhi effect: MEA sees red as states veto foreign policy

HYDERABAD

20 MARCH 2012

The protestations from Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa and her rival and DMK

patriarch M Karunanidhi over India's vote on Sri Lanka later this week, coming as they

do months after West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee vetoed an agreement on

the sharing of the Teesta river waters with Bangladesh, has further fuelled anxiety in

South Block, which also houses the ministry of external affairs (MEA.)

The precedent being set by the Centre caving in or succumbing to the States on matters

that fall in the domain of foreign policy is worrying for India, and more so for the

practitioners of diplomacy in the MEA.

Already, India's engagement of Pakistan on one hand and China and Burma on the other

are determined to an extent by the domestic conditions prevalent in Jammu and Kashmir

and the north-eastern states, respectively.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh betrayed his frustration when he said in the Lok Sabha

that difficult decisions were getting more difficult because of coalition compulsions. He

called for bipartisanship in the interest of the country.

However, not everybody is pessimistic. Lalit Mansingh, a former foreign secretary and a

former ambassador to the US, echoes the sentiments of many who believe that this trend

should not be unwelcome.

"Foreign policy today is made not only in New Delhi but elsewhere, too. There are

multiple stakeholders and one can't deny states a say in foreign policy if it relates to

them," Mr Mansingh told this newspaper. So, if the states assert their rights and seek

more consultations, then the Centre must respect those sentiments, he notes.

Equally worrying for New Delhi would be the erosion in its standing in what it calls its

sphere of influence. The ongoing debate over which way India should vote on a UNHRC

resolution on Sri Lanka is instructive in that it illustrates how far India has come from

being an influential player in its own backyard to a marginal or fringe player.

Irrespective of whether India joins the US, France, Norway and others in voting for the

resolution as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh indicated in the Lok Sabha, or abstains,

which is not ruled out if the resolution is not worded to its satisfaction, the non-binding

resolution is most likely to fall through.

Colombo is sanguine about the outcome of the March 23 vote in Geneva. It believes it

has the numbers required to defeat the resolution. China, Russia, Pakistan, Cuba,

Indonesia, Thailand and others from the Asian and the African regional groups in the 47-

member UNHRC have indicated that they would oppose it.

If that is a probability, then is it advisable for New Delhi to vote for the resolution and

risk losing whatever goodwill and leverage it might have with Colombo? At the same

time optimists take the view that Colombo would be helping itself, and India, by agreeing

to some concessions on the language of the draft resolution and by putting forward a

roadmap for a political solution of the ethnic conflict.

// Table //

Current membership of the Human Rights Council (20 June 2011 - 31 December 2012) by

regional groups

AFRICAN STATES

Angola

Benin

Botswana

Burkina Faso

Cameroon

Congo

Djibouti

Libya

Mauritania

Mauritius

Nigeria

Senegal

Uganda

LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN STATES

Chile

Costa Rica

Cuba

Ecuador

Guatemala

Mexico

Peru

Uruguay

ASIAN STATES

Bangladesh

China

India

Indonesia

Jordan

Kuwait

Kyrgyzstan

Malaysia

Maldives

Philippines

Qatar

Saudi Arabia

Thailand

WESTERN EUROPE AND OTHER STATES

Austria

Belgium

Italy

Norway

Spain

Switzerland

United States

EASTERN EUROPEAN STATES

Czech Republic

Hungary

Poland

Moldova

Romania

Russia

India's poser to US: If you won't dump Pakistan, why should we jettison Iran?

Hyderabad
18 March 2012

As India negotiates the diplomatic minefield that is West Asia, questions are being asked of the government as to whether and how it could engage differently with Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia, without having to taking sides or pick and choose one over the other.

New Delhi would have you believe that the overlapping tensions in West Asia, manifested in the Israel-Iran stand-off over the latter's nuclear ambitions, the proxy war being played out in Syria between a Shiite Iran and the Sunni-bloc led by Saudi Arabia, or more generally the competition between Saudi Arabia and Iran for supremacy, constrict India's options.

In an example of some nimble Indian diplomacy, the government despatched external affairs minister SM Krishna to Israel and defence minister AK Antony to Saudi Arabia in order to offset any adverse fallout from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's proposed visit to Iran later this year. However, the same government chose in its wisdom to support a UNSC resolution against Syria.

While there is merit in New Delhi's argument, an influential section of the Indian diplomatic community contends that the ongoing investigation into the attack on an Israeli envoy in New Delhi or the threat of US sanctions on Indian entities post-June 28 for not reducing oil imports from Iran should not deter the government from pursuing what it deems is in its enlightened national interest.

"The US not only does not choose between India and Pakistan but actually assists our adversary in many ways, so why should we forego our limited relationship with Iran for the sake of the US?" wondered Kanwal Sibal, a former foreign secretary.

"Do Iran and Saudi Arabia choose between us and Pakistan? If at all they have been historically closer to Pakistan than to us. If Iran's statements on Israel and the Holocaust are objectionable, the Wahabi ideology emanating from Saudi Arabia is objectionable too. We should safeguard our energy relationship with Iran as best as we can despite US and EU sanctions and the Arab position," Mr Sibal told this newspaper.

Increasingly, diplomats who have observed or served in the region insist that India's relationship with Iran should stand on its own feet and not linked to its relations with Saudi Arabia. They maintain that whatever the differences between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and the Shia-Sunni conflict that is building up, India does not need to take sides or feel compelled to choose.

They cautioned against a repeat of 2005 when New Delhi jettisoned its ties with Tehran in its narrow pursuit of the India-US nuclear deal. While some claim that Iran's rise as a regional power is inevitable, others cite the significance of Iran as land bridge to Afghanistan and beyond as a case in point.