With rising inevitability of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s ascendancy in the ongoing election to the Indian national Parliament, the manifesto of the party was keenly anticipated and its delay much analysed. The portion on foreign policy invites special attention, besides the portion on India’s nuclear doctrine.
Compared to the foreign policy portion in the BJP’s 1998 election manifesto, that heralded the first BJP-led government, the current chapter is miniscule, poorly drafted and replete with omissions, even inaccuracies. It does not, however, hold hyperbole back, promising to “reboot and reorient the foreign policy goals, content and process”, providing little hint of what these would be.
Essentially Indian foreign policy was “rebooted” in 1991, when Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao adjusted it to the reality of Soviet Union’s collapse and the reshaping of the world following Cold War’s end. It spelt a new outreach to the US, a “Look East“ orientation to integrate India into the global market and the long journey to get nuclear apartheid lifted. An important milestone since has been the 2008 civil nuclear deal with the US. Meanwhile, however, new challenges have emerged in global trade and climate change negotiations, with India-US relations again manifesting some of the old mistrusts. While Indian foreign policy adjusted well to the post-Cold War scenario, it is struggling to deal with contemporary global power re-distribution and related contestation. The twin challenges facing India are the relentless rise of China and the survival, spread and transmutation of radical Islam despite the US’ war on terror since 2001.
The BJP manifesto skirts these complexities with facile, even inaccurate phrases. Under the subtitle “Guiding Principles of our Foreign Policy”, are one-liners that are imprecise, unlike the 1998 manifesto which was detailed in fleshing out potential BJP approaches to neighbours and beyond. Following is an ad seriatim analysis of some proclaimed principles.
The BJP proposes to “champion uniform international opinion on issues like terrorism and global warming”. India annually introduces a resolution at the UN General Assembly for a Comprehensive Convention on Terrorism. The outliers traditionally have been from the Arab camp with the Palestinian issue on their mind. Over time resistance has diminished, as even countries like Saudi Arabia are today relatively more sensitive to the perils of radical Islam, though still selectively sponsoring those they consider their allies, as demonstrated by their literal boycott of Qatar for supporting the Muslim Brotherhood. A government lead by Narendra Modi would need greater outreach to the Islamic world, today split amongst Shias and Sunnis as indeed various libertarian movements espousing different shades of radical Islam with one extremity tethered in Al Qaeda. Mere slogans will not suffice.
On global warming, the next government has its work cut out. China is rapidly moving to cleaner energy, which can isolate India, resorting still to formulations like reducing energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product. China proposes to cut this by 40-45 per cent by 2020 against the 2005 base. Can an India, with collapsing industrial production, kickstart the economy while opting for cleaner energy alternatives? A Modi government may find that balancing growth with environmental concerns will require more than just “championing” some outdated approach.
On the regional and global groupings that a BJP government will favour, the approach is confusing. The regional ones listed are Saarc (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) and Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), shifting Shanghai Cooperation Organisation under global forums, whereas it, too, is a regional organisation. BIMSTEC, a Bay of Bengal initiative that bridges Saarc and Asean, borrowing members from both and the Indian Ocean Rim Association of Countries that border the Arabian Sea, has been omitted
The six-nation Gulf Coordination Council (GCC), where over six million Indians live and work, is vital for Indian energy security as well as a trade destination just does not figure. While the role of the Malayali lobby in the United Progressive Alliance government in monopolising the India’s GCC policy needs curbing, no Indian government can devise a balanced policy by ignoring the vital Muslim neighbourhood beyond Pakistan. East Asia Summit, a principal grouping of Asian and global powers, also finds no mention.
Then comes a novel declaration that India “shall remain a natural home for persecuted Hindus and they shall be welcome to seek refuge”. For a secular country, to rest its refugee policy, which currently India lacks, on a single faith is antithetical to its Constitution and history. The 1998 BJP manifesto recalled that “Bharat received with open arms all faiths and people fleeing persecution...” Are we seeing the burial of Vajpayee-articulated inclusive vision and the ascendancy of a Modi blessed cloistered idea of India?
Finally, while the Indian nuclear doctrine needs periodic review, it should not be undertaken simply to satisfy hawks who see only mendacity in UPA’s national security policies. India contends with a Pakistan which uses nuclear bluster and opaqueness to keep India on edge, a China that declares like India a No-First Use policy and apparently a responsible stance while letting Pakistan do the irresponsible badgering, and a global community that has used offers of full civil nuclear commerce in exchange for keeping Indian nuclear strategic programme modest. Any hawkish review is bound to upset this balance.
The next Indian government will inherit a more complex world than the one National Democratic Alliance-I faced. It would need not just more soft power, as the manifesto proclaims, but more smart power. The manifesto, finalised after the likes of Jaswant Singh had been exiled, is short on ideas and deficient in language. Hopefully, the Gujarat model includes solution to obvious shortcomings in the fields of foreign policy and national security.
