Will Modi's swearing-in set off a new SAARC-wide precedent? Will he spring a surprise again and attend the new Afghan president's inauguration?

This article was first published by www.rediff.com on 7 July 2014 under the headline, "Will Modi break from the past and swing by Kabul?"


We will know soon. Other things being equal, India can be expected to be represented at the 2 August inauguration of the new president of Afghanistan. It is reliably learnt that Afghanistan has drawn up a list of 40-odd countries and heads of state and/or government that would be invited for the ceremony to be held at the Presidential Palace in Kabul. Incidentally, all SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) members are invited, which has got some asking: Will Mr Modi travel to Kabul given that he himself made the unprecedented move of inviting SAARC leaders to his 26 May swearing-in ceremony?

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan was among the SAARC leaders who graced Prime Minister Narendra Modi's swearing-in ceremony. If Mr Modi, and some or a majority of his SAARC counterparts, indeed make the journey to Kabul for the inauguration of the new Afghan president-elect, then they would have well and truly established an unwritten SAARC-wide convention for the SAARC heads of state and/or government to grace each other's inauguration. Security will be a consideration, as would protocol, but given Mr Modi's penchant for the unconventional, it should not come as a surprise if he indeed decides to attend the ceremony in Kabul. That said, protocol has never come in the way of the time-tested ties between India and Afghanistan. Most recently, Vice President Hamid Ansari was the senior-most foreign dignitary to attend the funeral of Afghanistan's First Vice President Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim, who was a close lieutenant of the late charismatic Northern Alliance commander Ahmad Shah Masood.

However, if the past is any indicator, it could well be that the external affairs minister will represent India at the inauguration of an Afghan president. In UPA-2, a former external affairs minister of India, Mr SM Krishna, represented India at the 19 November 2009 inauguration of Mr Hamid Karzai's second consecutive five-year term as President. (Incidentally, New Delhi had initially planned to nominate Vice President Ansari to attend the inauguration but decided against it because Mr Ansari was required for chairing the proceedings of the winter session of Parliament.) About 800 invitees, including foreign dignitaries, government and military officials and tribal representatives, were present. On the occasion, Mr Krishna had a separate meeting with his American counterpart, Ms Hillary Clinton, and got to exchange pleasantries with his Pakistani counterpart, Mr Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

Going further back, former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh dispatched Prithviraj Chavan, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, as his personal emissary in a special plane for Mr Karzai's inauguration on 7 December 2004. Mr Chavan was among the representatives from 27-odd foreign delegations who attended the event. The invitees included, among others, the then US Vice-President Dick Cheney and the then Defence Minister Donald Rumsfeld, the then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special adviser Lakhdar Brahimi, the then Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi and the then Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao.

If Prime Minister Narendra Modi deputes his external affairs minister, Ms Sushma Swaraj, for representing India at the inauguration, her visit to Kabul would come almost immediately after conclusion of her talks in New Delhi with visiting US foreign minister John Kerry. Mr Kerry is expected to visit New Delhi for the annual India-US strategic dialogue, to be held on 31 July. This year it was Washington's turn to host the Indian delegation for the strategic dialogue, which is held alternatively in Washington and New Delhi. However, Mr Modi's ascension as Prime Minister in May prompted Washington to change tack -- and quickly at that -- given Washington's unofficial boycott of Mr Modi for close to a decade. The US imposed a visa ban on Mr Modi in 2005 for his alleged role in the 2002 Gujarat riots and it remains in place to this day. Washington, accordingly, thought it fit to first send a bipartisan delegation to call on Mr Modi in New Delhi before hosting him at the White House in September this year. John McCain of the opposition Republican Party called on Mr Modi on 3 July. Kerry's aide William Burns will be in New Delhi soon before Kerry himself comes calling on Mr Modi -- something that would not have been possible if Washington had hosted the India-US strategic dialogue.

Dr Abdullah Abdullah and (on the right) Mr Ashraf Ghani

The only on-the-record comment so far has come from Mr AmarSinha, India's ambassador to Afghanistan, who has said that the swearing-in ceremony of the new Afghan President would be attended by India at duly appropriate level. He pre-empted speculation about India's preference (between Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank economist, a former adviser to the Bonn Process and a former finance minster in Mr Karzai's transitional administration, and Dr Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister) for President by saying that "either of the candidates become President they both are good friend of India and will work very closely with them (sic). They look towards India as a true friend[.] Our policy towards Afghanistan transcends political differences and each government work very closely both in India as well as here."

Key dates*:

5 April 2014: First round of Afghan presidential election

14 June 2014: Presidential run-off

7 July 2014: Preliminary result of the presidential run-off

24 July 2014: Final result of the presidential run-off

2 August 2014: Inauguration of the new President-elect of Afghanistan

(* as on 6 July 2014)

Online or E-voting in India: An idea whose time has come

If we are banking and shopping online, why can’t we vote online?

For the largest and vibrant democracy that is India, we have made a smooth transition from paper ballot to electronic voting machines (EVMs.) The EVMs were first used on a trial basis in 50 polling stations of Parur Assembly Constituency of Kerala in May 1982. Since November 1998, EVMs have been used in each and every general- and bye-election to Parliamentary and Assembly constituencies in the country. India can proudly claim to have turned into an e-democracy in the 2004 General Elections when 10.75 lakh EVMs were used across all polling stations in the country. Today, EVMs are used in all elections without exception.

If we could embrace EVMs long before the world did, there is no reason why we cannot graduate to e-voting now. It goes without saying that it cannot be accomplished overnight, not least because internet penetration is not uniform throughout the country yet. Only about 200 million of the 800-odd million voters in India today have access to internet and only half of the 200 million are reported to be active on social media. But it is in vogue in some countries and it could become a reality in India, too. Switzerland and Estonia are good examples of how technology can be put to best use for voting. Estonia, in particular, introduced online voting in 2005: All that voters there had to do was to prove their identities using an electronic national identity card in order to be able to vote online. Norway is another European country that harnesses the power of technology in conducting elections; it even allows the less tech-savvy voters among them to vote telephonically.

In the UK, its Electoral Commission has said that reforms such as allowing internet voting should be considered to engage younger voters who are turning out in declining numbers. Only about 44 per cent of the eligible voters in the UK under the age of 25 exercised their franchise, according to some polls. Jenny Watson, the head of the Electoral Commission in the UK, is reported to have said that “we plan to look at a variety of options [such as e-voting], assessing how they will help citizens engage more effectively.” She explained her decision thus: “By doing so we could by proxy help address some of the issues with turnout, particular amongst an increasingly disenfranchised younger generation[.] Unless our electoral system keeps pace with the way many voters live the rest of their lives – where the way they bank and the way they shop has been transformed – it risks being seen as increasingly alien and outdated, particularly to young voters as they use it for the first time.” The Electoral Commission in the UK plans to launch online voter registration this year.

Online voting has its benefits: For instance, it could encourage more young voters to exercise their franchise, thereby increasing the voter turnout. The Election Commission of India is already overseeing the implementation of the Systematic Voters Education and Electoral Participation(SVEEP) scheme for the last few years in order to encourage more voters, particularly women, first-time voters and voters living in remote areas, to exercise their franchise. According to the Election Commission, more than two crore voters in the country are aged between 18 and 19 years. Out of a total of 81-odd crore voters in the country, 2.3 crore are between 18-19 years, thus constituting 2.8 per cent of the national electorate. Also, e-voting could come in handy for the defence personnel who otherwise have to rely on postal ballot. “Transmission time can be cut down if blank ballot papers are sent electronically, providing more time for their return. Better still would be to develop online voting and what better way than to provide it to the group that deserves it the most? We certainly owe it to our Armed forces personnel to do all that is possible to enable them to exercise their franchise,” wrote Mr N Gopalaswami, a former chief election commissioner, in a signed newspaper article. He was referring to the Supreme Court directing the Election Commission (EC) to allow defence personnel to vote as general voters in peace stations. In the future, online voting could benefit non-resident Indians (NRIs), too, after making the required legislative and/or logistical amendments.

Online voting is not without its concerns, though. Fears of rigging or manipulation abound. Also, insulating it from hackers and cyber-criminals could pose a challenge but it is not insurmountable. The Aadhaar card devised by the Unique Identification Authority of India can be among other things a valid proof of identity for online voting.

Fortunately for India, its Election Commission has not been one to shy away from putting technology to use. According to reports, it plans to webcast voting live from some of the 1.4 million-odd polling stations in the country in this year’s general elections. The move will help the EC to keep a check on sensitive polling stations. In the past, it has co-opted technology to make Indian elections free, fair and transparent.

So to come back to my original question: If we can bank and shop online, why indeed can’t we vote online?

Author's Note:
You may also like to read:
1. Polls 2014: EC mulling option to allow NRIs to vote via the net in future; and
2. Indian expats divided over option of voting online

Declassify 1962 India-China war report, reappraise the civil – military relations

The release of a portion of the ‘top secret’ T.B. Henderson Brooks – Premindra Singh Bhagat inquiry report on the 1962 India-China war by an Australian journalist Neville Maxwell has come at a time when the civil – military relations are under the scanner all over again, due in no small part to the allegedly inappropriate conduct of a former Chief of Army Staff who dragged the government to court over his age row and how an otherwise routine movement of troops coinciding with the date of court hearing gave rise to fears in the government of a possible ‘coup’; the unseemly controversy surrounding the frequent crashes by Soviet-era MiG fighter jets; and most recently, a series of naval mishaps that eventually led to the resignation of the Navy chief Admiral DK Joshi.

Let us look at the substantive portions of the 126-page section of the report that was released online by Neville Maxwell, who was the Delhi correspondent of the Times of London during the war. For one, the report squarely attributes the debacle to an unsound military plan. It goes on to blame the then army leadership, the intelligence apparatus, the bureaucrats in the ministries of defence and external affairs, and the political class, not necessarily in that order, for the humiliating defeat at the hands of the Chinese. The army leadership, for overruling the field commanders; the intelligence chief, for assuming, erroneously, that the Chinese would not resort to use of force; and the then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s leadership, for pushing for a ‘Forward Policy’ of establishing military outposts in areas claimed by China and launching aggressive patrols without the necessary army wherewithal.

The report notes, among other things, the following:

* The government who politically must have been keen to recover territory advocated a cautious policy whilst Army HQ dictated a policy that was clearly militarily unsound.

* The Chief of Army Staff did not present the correct military assessment to the political leadership on the forward policy in spite of the fact that the military intelligence believed that China would retaliate against any move by India to reclaim territory.

* A meeting was held in the Prime Minister’s Office on 2 November 1961 which was attended among others by the defence minister, the foreign secretary, the Chief of Army Staff and the director Intelligence Bureau (DIB). It appears that the DIB was of the opinion that the Chinese would not react to our establishing new posts and that they were not likely to use force against any of our posts even if they were in a position to do so.

The Ministry of Defence has sought to take refuge under the pretext that the inquiry committee report remains top secret because of the extremely sensitive nature of its contents “which are of current operational value.” Some scholars have debunked the government’s claim, saying that declassification of the report would not hinder or jeopardise in any manner the contemporary political and military attitudes and affairs. On the contrary, they have argued, it was necessary in the interest of generating an open and honest debate in the country about the circumstances leading up to the war so that the right lessons could be drawn. It has been pointed out that the government ought to take the nation into confidence and encourage a critical analysis of what went wrong and how to avoid a repetition in the future. As a newspaper editorial said, “There needs, instead, be a thorough reading of the report and the manner of its eventual public availability for a tutorial on India’s inexplicably ostrich-like approach to archival material. If today we are reacting to the report as if it were still 1963, given the lack of clarity on military assessment of operational details, it reflects the state’s reluctance to allow access to material essential for proper history writing, the kind of history without which there cannot be coherent and informed public debate.”

The release of a section of the report is a wake-up call of sorts for the Indian political and military leadership. To quote a former diplomat Hardeep S Puri, “The contents of the report point to three extremely disturbing trends that were in evidence in the 1960s. Some of these have continuing relevance even 52 years later. These merit a full national debate in order to prevent the recurrence of a 1962-type fiasco. They relate to a continuing civil-military disconnect, serious gaps in training and provisioning of equipment, inadequate or flawed intelligence which contributed to bizarre decision-making at the army headquarters and by the political leadership in the ministries of defence and external affairs, and at the PMO.”

India would do well to reappraise its civil – military relations unless, of course, it wants to go down the path that George Santayana so eloquently warned against: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 exposes limits of technology?

The mere possibility of someone actually pulling off such an audacious attack on India should be reason enough for alarm bells to ring in the Indian security establishment. “What if,” is a question that cannot and must not be rejected out of hand.

The tragedy that struck the Malaysian Airlines aircraft MH370 with 239 passengers and crew on board it on 8 March 2014 has been worse compounded by the fact that there is still no certainty as to what caused the aircraft to simply disappear or where the plane’s wreckage probably is. With every passing day, the families of the passengers on-board the ill-fated flight have to battle the pain and trauma of not getting closure even as, at last count, 26 countries had pooled their resources to search for the remains of the aircraft.

This one incident alone has brought home the limits of what technology can do to make aviation industry safer or resolve the unanswered questions that continue to bedevil investigators in Malaysia and beyond. Is it even possible in the 21st century that technology is failing us in locating the wreckage of the aircraft or in piecing together the circumstances leading up to and after its disappearance? Several conspiracy theories have been doing the rounds, almost on a daily basis: Could it be a terrorist act, sabotage, hijack or a technical glitch? There are no immediate answers to these puzzling questions. For his part, Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia has said that the aircraft’s main communications and transponder had been deliberately shut off. “… these movements are consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane,” Mr Najib said.

On the face of it, the Indian government has treated the incident as another airline crash, although five Indian nationals were aboard that MH370 flight. What is disconcerting is not the manner in which the Indian government has chosen to respond to the tragedy but the apparent, cavalier, handling of the incident which could have ended in an even worse tragedy if, as a former United States diplomat Strobe Talbott has argued, the plane could have been hijacked for a 9/11-type attack on an Indian city. Talbott said on his Twitter account: “Malaysian plane mystery: Direction, fuel load & range now lead some to suspect hijackers planned a 9/11-type attack on an Indian city.” He then tweeted a second theory to say that the hijackers were headed towards India but crashed just like the third plane involved in the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US. “Malaysian#370 as hijack: 1 of many theories. Speculation: hijackers headed toward India but crashed like UA#93 on 9/11,” Talbott tweeted.

The mere possibility of someone actually pulling off such an audacious attack on India should be reason enough for alarm bells to ring in the Indian security establishment. “What if,” is a question that cannot and must not be rejected out of hand. There is also the larger issue about how little aviation authorities worldwide have learnt from the 2001 attacks in the US. In a chapter on aviation security written for the book “How did this happen?” published by the Washington-based think tank Council on Foreign Relations a few months after the 2001 attacks in the US, American writer Gregg Easterbrook highlighted the vulnerabilities in the way aircraft transponders operate. “If the transponders had not gone silent on 9/11, air traffic controllers would have quickly realised that two jetliners en route to Los Angeles had made dramatic course changes and were bound straight for Manhattan. Instead, controllers lost precious time trying to figure out where the aircraft were. At the time, I would have bet my life’s savings that the transponder, which broadcasts an aircraft’s location and identity, would be re-engineered to prevent hijackers from turning such units off. But nothing was done. Almost 13 years later, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 sparked a lengthy worldwide search when, it appears, another transponder was turned off. The issue today is exactly as it was on 9/11,” Easterbrook wrote in a recent article.

At the time of writing, the international team hunting for the aircraft in the southern Indian Ocean has not recovered anything.

Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen has spoken. But is India listening?

  

Amartya Sen

The public discourse in some parts of India today has tended to centre around the politics of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the apparent failure of the ruling Congress-led UPA to revive the economy and the likely consequences or implications of Narendra Modi as Prime Minister, not necessarily in that order. Add to it the talk of a third, fourth or a federal front, and you have a veritable cornucopia of political expression. Lost somewhere in all of this was a “wish” made by a gentleman who answers to the name of Amartya Sen. The 80-year-old Nobel Laureate, who admittedly has no love lost for the Modi brand of politics, said in his keynote address at the Jaipur Literature Festival last month that he would like to see a secular right-wing party emerge in the country. To quote a media report, he said: “My big political wish is to have a strong and flourishing right-wing party that is secular and not communal.” Another media report quoted him extensively, in which he seeks to explain himself by saying: “There is an important role for a clear-headed, pro-market, pro-business party that does not depend on religious politics, and does not prioritise one religious community over all others...the Swatantra Party for example...but the party died. I wish it would be revived.” Sen wished for more: For instance, he said that he would like the “Left parties to be stronger, but also more clear-minded and much more concentrated on removing severe deprivations of the really poor and downtrodden people and not obsessed with American imperialism”; and “the media to be more responsive to the needs of the poorest people, and less single-minded in their coverage of the world of glitzy entertainment and shining business opportunities. They are right to grumble about the way subsidies waste economic resources, but largely fail to denounce subsidies for the better off, in the way subsidies for the unemployed and the hungry are savaged in the press.” 

Now, one may or may not agree with Sen’s political views; one may quarrel with his choice of words and their implication; one may even question their own convictions; but it would not be prudent to reject his remarks out of hand. At the very least they merit a careful consideration. Here’s why:

* To begin with, it is not enough for the AAP to claim that it is neither Left nor Right or that it is not anti-enterprise. For a political party that claims to offer an alternative to the centre-left Congress-led UPA and the centre-right BJP-led coalition, the AAP hopes to be all things to all people all the time. Sample the following statements attributed to AAP’s ideologue Yogendra Yadav, which were published in various publications:

“Unlike traditional political parties, we are not based on the idea of one ideology, we are here to solve problems.”

“[Our] political programme is evolving, that programme refuses to typecast itself into standard ‘Left’ or ‘Right’.”

“Our Constitution talks of socialist principles.”

The AAP remains hydra-headed and ambivalent on certain issues, in spite of its leaders’ recent attempts to clarify their political- and economic vision. “We are not against capitalism, we’re against crony capitalism... It’s a wrong perception that AAP is against business. Of course we need businesses,” AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal said while addressing corporate leaders at a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) meeting in Delhi. Yet, during his 49-day stint as Chief Minister of Delhi, Mr Kejriwal not only rejected FDI in retail but also increased the subsidies on electricity and water.

* The right-wing politics espoused by the BJP; its ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS); and its affiliates such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal has its own limitations. The lines between what is communal and what is secular may get blurred due to political realignments in the run-up to, or after, an election but the greatness of Indian democracy lies in its ability to moderate or temper any major deviations from the idea of India or its identity as a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious society. Yet every now and then certain fringe elements do manage to raise their ugly head but only so much before they are overcome. It owes much to the fact that the nature of the Indian democracy is such that it militates against such extremist and fissiparous tendencies. The BJP’s Hindutva brand of politics particularly challenges the sense and sensibilities of some sections of the society, who then make common cause with the likes of, say, Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party.

C Rajagopalachari

Between, say, a Modi and a Mulayam, there is enough space for a secular centre-right political party to grow and flourish – a party that can harness India’s demographic dividend; give voice to the youths, students and young professionals alike; encourage and promote enterprise; create jobs, wealth and value; and bring out the entrepreneurial spirit in them. If one were to take Sen’s remarks at face value, the India of today could do with a new political entity that reflects the hopes and aspirations of the young people. One need only look at the latest data from the Election Commission in which an estimated 1.79 lakh new young voters would exercise their franchise on an average in each parliamentary constituency. The Swatantra Party founded by C Rajagopalachari gave us a glimpse of how a party that encourages enterprise and liberalism can offer a political alternative. Perhaps it is time for a similar initiative?

India’s first social media election

If Barack Obama was described by a section of the US media as the first social media president, whoever wins the 2014 general elections in India could well earn the moniker of being the first social media prime minister this country has seen. It would be no exaggeration to say that the 2014 elections are well and truly India’s first big social media election, inspired in no small way by the manner in which Obama successfully tapping into the power of social networks to win the 2008 US presidential election. An indication of the influence social media wields can be had from the fact that for the first time in India, the Election Commission will monitor social media spends of the candidates. One possible reason for the exponential rise in the use of social media is that an estimated 1.79 lakh new young voters would exercise their franchise on an average in each parliamentary constituency, as per the latest Election Commission data. (However, it needs to be pointed out here that internet penetration is not uniform throughout the country; therefore, social media would have an influence only in certain pockets.)

I recall reading a New York Times article that published the following quote explaining the phenomenon: “Thomas Jefferson used newspapers to win the presidency, F.D.R. [Franklin D Roosevelt] used radio to change the way he governed, J.F.K. [John F Kennedy] was the first president to understand television, and Howard Dean saw the value of the web for raising money[.] But Senator Barack Obama understood that you could use the web to lower the cost of building a political brand, create a sense of connection and engagement, and dispense with the command and control method of governing to allow people to self-organise to do the work.” That was in 2008. Today, social media has become ubiquitous in India and around the world. So much so that according to a studycarried out by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IRISKnowledge Foundation, social media such as Facebook and Twitter are likely to influence at least 160 Lok Sabha constituencies out of 543 during the next general elections. According to some estimates, the number of social media users in India can be expected to rise exponentially by the middle of this year to several tens of million; it may not be much in absolute terms but when seen in the context of the reach of social media and its power of exponential influence it could make all the difference between winning and losing.

Sample the following statistics:

·      The internet population in India is among the largest in the world;

·      In India 30 new internet users are added every minute and a new Facebook user every second; and

·      Nearly half of all internet users in India use social media to keep themselves abreast of political developments.

These statistics only go to prove that there is a paradigm shift unfolding in the way elections are fought and political parties engage voters. Already we are seeing candidates and political parties alike experimenting with Google Hangouts, live broadcasts, audio-visual presentations on YouTube and online debates, besides making use of Facebook and Twitter. (The advent of social media in Indian election campaigns is not the only innovation going around. This election has also seen the entry of American-style “primaries” and “town hall” meetings to select candidates and engage with voters, respectively.)

India - Sri Lanka: Expanding on the Shades of Grey

Here is the link to the text of my article that was published by www.ipcs.org on 4 April 2014:

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INDIA - ARTICLES Print Bookmark Email Subscribe #4369, 4 April 2014   India-Sri Lanka: Expanding on the Shades of Grey Ramesh RamachandranJournalist, New Delhi   On March 27, India, departing from its usual voting pattern on UNHRC resolutions critical of Sri Lanka, abstained from casting its vote on the resolution that approved an independent international investigation into certain alleged war crimes and human rights violations committed by the Sri Lankan government during the 2009 civil war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The “explanation of vote” by India’s permanent representative to the UN offices in Geneva among other things, stated that “In asking the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to investigate, assess and monitor the human rights situation in Sri Lanka, the resolution ignores the progress already made by the country in this field and places in jeopardy the cooperation currently taking place between the Government of Sri Lanka and the OHCHR and the Council’s Special Procedures. Besides, the resolution is inconsistent and impractical in asking both the Government of Sri Lanka and the OHCHR to simultaneously conduct investigations.” “…adopting an intrusive approach that undermines national sovereignty and institutions is counterproductive,” he added. Evidently, India's abstention was dictated as much by necessity and self-preservation as by a desire to place bilateralism at the front and centre of New Delhi’s ties with Colombo. After having voted for the UNHRC resolutions on Sri Lanka in 2012 and 2013, India’s abstention this year was indicative of a course correction in India’s engagement with Sri Lanka that was aimed at retrieving the ground lost in the intervening years, burnishing India’s credentials as a relevant player in the island nation’s affairs and signalling a return to bilateralism as the centrepiece of New Delhi – Colombo ties. If India’s support for the resolutions in the preceding years exposed an utter bankruptcy of ideas on engaging Sri Lanka (thereby implicitly admitting to a failure on the part of New Delhi to either influence the course of events or bring about the desired change in Colombo’s disposition), its abstention should be seen as a belated attempt to pull the relationship back from the brink. Indeed the muted reactions from the regional political parties provided New Delhi with room to manoeuvre, and in the process, enabled it to reclaim its voice vis-à-vis the Tamil Nadu state government and other regional political parties on foreign policy issues. Particularly worrying for the Indian Ministry of External Affairs is the phenomenon of erosion of New Delhi’s position in what it calls its sphere of influence. The debate over ways India should have voted at the last three UNHRC resolutions on Sri Lanka is instructive to the extent that it illustrates how far India has come from being an influential actor in its neighbourhood to being a marginal or fringe player. Some key questions were: Was it advisable for New Delhi to vote for the resolutions and risk losing whatever goodwill and leverage it might have had with Colombo? Shouldn’t all other options have been exhausted before India threw in the towel and threw in its lot with the West? India’s abstention this year has partially answered that question. At present, India cannot claim to adhere to a consistent policy towards Sri Lanka. First it nurtured the LTTE and burnt its fingers in the process. It then extended tacit support to Colombo – before, during and after the end of the Sri Lankan civil war in May 2009 – only to subsequently support the UNHRC resolution piloted by the US. The 2013 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting summit in Sri Lanka was as much in the news for the renewed focus on Colombo’s human rights record as for the Indian prime minister’s decision to refrain from attending it, and instead, leave it to the Indian External Affairs Minister to lead New Delhi’s delegation. In a letter of regret hand-delivered to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Singh informed Rajapaksa of his inability to attend personally but without providing reasons. Suffice to say that a careful reading of the history of India-Sri Lanka relations would make it evident that New Delhi’s policy towards Colombo can be described as consistently inconsistent, characterised by myopia and self-inflicted crises. It is time to reshape India’s neighbourhood policy in a manner that reflects the broadest possible national consensus on the way forward in our relations with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. Irrespective of which coalition forms the next government in New Delhi, a reset is necessary. India can ill-afford a Pavlovian foreign policy, and/or framing India’s foreign policy options as a binary choice. There is need for greater appreciation of several shades of grey.

Shades of grey in India-Sri Lanka ties: Time for reshaping India's neighbourhood policy

This article was published by www.rediff.com on 28 March 2014 under the headline "Time for reshaping India's neighbourhood policy" and by www.atimes.com on 31 March 2014 under the headline "UN vote shows strains in Delhi's diplomacy":

President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India

Abstaining from voting on a UNHRC resolution on Sri Lanka was dictated as much by necessity and self-preservation as by a desire to place bilateralism at the front and centre of New Delhi’s ties with Colombo, says Ramesh Ramachandran.

In a departure from its hitherto familiar voting pattern on United Nations Human Rights Council resolutions critical of Sri Lanka, India on Thursday abstained from casting its vote on the resolution that approved an independent international investigation into certain alleged war crimes and gross human rights violations committed by the government of Sri Lanka during the 2009 civil war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The customary ‘explanation of vote’ by the permanent representative of India to the UN offices in Geneva said, among other things, that: 

* “In asking the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to investigate, assess and monitor the human rights situation in Sri Lanka, the resolution ignores the progress already made by the country in this field and places in jeopardy the cooperation currently taking place between the government of Sri Lanka and the OHCHR and the council’s special procedures. Besides, the resolution is inconsistent and impractical in asking both the government of Sri Lanka and the OHCHR to simultaneously conduct investigations”;

* “India believes that it is imperative for every country to have the means of addressing human rights violations through robust national mechanisms. The council’s efforts should therefore be in a direction to enable Sri Lanka to investigate all allegations of human rights violations through comprehensive, independent and credible national investigative mechanisms and bring to justice those found guilty. Sri Lanka should be provided all assistance it desires in a cooperative and collaborative manner”; and

* “It has been India’s firm belief that adopting an intrusive approach that undermines national sovereignty and institutions is counterproductive.”

After having voted for the UNHRC resolutions on Sri Lanka in 2012 and 2013, India’s abstention this year is indicative of a course correction in New Delhi’s engagement with Colombo that is aimed at retrieving the ground lost in the intervening years, burnishing India’s credentials as a relevant player in the island nation’s affairs and signalling a return to bilateralism as the centrepiece of India-Sri Lanka ties (not necessarily in that order).

If India’s support for the resolutions in the previous years exposed an utter bankruptcy of ideas on how to engage with Sri Lanka (thereby implicitly admitting to a failure on the part of New Delhi to either influence the course of events or bring about the desired change in Colombo’s disposition), the abstention should be seen as a belated attempt to pull the relationship back from the brink.

Of course, it helped that the reaction from the regional parties was muted this year and that gave New Delhi extra room for manoeuvre, enabling it in the process to regain its voice vis-a-vis the states on foreign policy matters.

It needs to be said here that India cannot claim to adhere to a consistent policy towards Sri Lanka. First it nurtured the LTTE and burnt its fingers in the process. Then it extended a tacit support to Colombo -- before, during and after the end of the Sri Lankan civil war in May 2009 -- only to later, in its wisdom, support the UNHRC resolution piloted by the United States. The 2013 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting summit in Sri Lanka was as much in the news for the renewed focus on the human rights record of the host nation as for the decision by the prime minister of India not to take part in it. In his stead it was left to External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid to lead the Indian delegation for the biennial event of the 53-nation Commonwealth.

In a letter of regret that was hand-delivered to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Singh informed Rajapaksa of his inability to attend personally but he did not assign any reasons for it. Suffice it to say that a careful reading of the history of India-Sri Lanka relations would make it evident to just about anyone that India’s policy towards this island-nation in the Indian Ocean can be described as consistently inconsistent, characterised by myopia and self-inflicted crises.

For the ministry of external affairs, what should be particularly worrying is the erosion in India’s standing, in what it calls, its sphere of influence. The recent debate over which way India should vote on a UNHRC resolution on Sri Lanka is instructive to the extent that it illustrated how far India has come from being an influential actor in its neighbourhood to being a marginal or fringe player.

Put simply (not simplistically), some of the key questions were: Is it advisable for New Delhi to vote for the resolutions and risk losing whatever goodwill and leverage it might have had with Colombo? Should not all other options have been exhausted before India (figuratively) threw in the towel and (literally) threw in its lot with the West? Thursday’s abstention has partially answered that question. However, there remains another worry:

The protestations from Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa and her rival and DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi over India’s vote on Sri Lanka in 2012, coming as they did a few months after West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee ‘vetoed’ an agreement on the sharing of the Teesta river waters with Bangladesh, injected a certain degree of dissonance in the conduct of foreign policy. What fuelled the diplomats’ anxiety was the precedent that would be set if the Centre caved in or succumbed to the states on matters that fell in the Union Government’s realm. 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. At the same time, what cannot be denied is that there exists a view among a section of serving and former practitioners of diplomacy that devolution of foreign policy to more stakeholders than what is currently assumed should not be entirely unwelcome.

As a former foreign secretary told this writer, “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.” In other words, it is argued that if the states assert their rights and/or seek more consultations, then the Centre must respect those sentiments.

Having said that, an impression seems to be gaining ground, erroneously at that, that foreign policy is the worst sufferer of this nouveau phenomenon of the states having their say in matters pertaining to foreign policy. A cursory look at recent years would show that the states have consistently been vocal on a host of other issues, too. The recent examples of certain states or regional parties opposing the policy of raising the cap on FDI (foreign direct investment) in single-brand retail is a case in point. As is the opposition to the Centre’s proposal for setting up a National Counter Terrorism Centre.

In some of these cases New Delhi chose to yield, albeit temporarily, but in some others it had its way. Therefore, it would not be accurate to suggest that regional influences are wielding a ‘veto’ over New Delhi. Also, it would not be fair to either paint the states as villains of the piece or to apportion all the blame for the Centre’s foreign policy woes to regional parties that are, or could be, aligned against it in the political arena.

For instance, the Centre accuses the West Bengal government headed by the Trinamool Congress party of scuttling a river waters sharing agreement with Bangladesh. However, the Congress, which heads the ruling coalition at the Centre and also in Kerala, is guilty of playing to narrow political sentiments, too, as was evidenced by the state government’s and the party’s stand on the two Italian marines who are facing murder charges for the deaths of two Indian fishermen off the Kerala coast.

On balance, it is time for reshaping India’s neighbourhood policy in a manner that it reflects the broadest possible national consensus on the way forward in reshaping ties with countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. A reset is imperative, irrespective of which coalition forms the next government in New Delhi. India can ill-afford a Pavlovian foreign policy.

Equally, framing India’s foreign policy options as a binary choice can be self-defeating. There needs to be a dispassionate debate and a greater appreciation of various shades of grey (pun unintended.)

CONSULT, NOT CONFRONT

President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India

Re-posting my November 2013 piece on the CHOGM Summit and India - Sri Lanka relations (You may want to read it together with my March 2012 piece, headlined "Mamata, Karunanidhi effect: MEA sees red as states veto foreign policy"):

The recently concluded Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) summit in Sri Lanka was as much in the news for the renewed focus on the human rights record of the host nation as for the decision by the Prime Minister of India not to take part in it. In his stead it was left to External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid to lead the Indian delegation to Colombo for the biennial event of the 53-nation Commonwealth. In a letter of regret that was hand-delivered to President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka, Mr Singh informed Mr Rajapaksa of his inability to attend personally but he did not assign any reasons for it. It was the second consecutive CHOGM summit the Indian Prime Minister has skipped but not many in his own party, the Indian National Congress, or its allies are complaining. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which was at the front and centre of a campaign in Tamil Nadu to dissuade the Prime Minister from travelling to Colombo, welcomed the move, describing it as “some consolation” to it. Some of the Prime Minister’s own colleagues in the Council of Ministers who hail from Tamil Nadu were relieved, too, after the PM acceded to the decision of the Congress core group, headed by party president Sonia Gandhi, that he must excuse himself from the summit. For its part, the Congress party was guided by the belief that while the DMK had withdrawn support to the government and pulled out from the ruling alliance in March this year, it remains a potential ally as the 2014 parliamentary elections draw near. Besides, Sri Lanka is an emotive issue that resonates with a large cross-section of the electorate in the state. As Mr Khurshid himself pointed out, the Prime Minister’s decision to skip CHOGM had been taken after factoring in a lot of issues. “The Prime Minister has taken a considerate call; he factored in a lot of issues, including the importance of his presence in the country at this time. We are after all facing five elections,” he said, before going on to concede that “there was also a very strong sentiment expressed by our colleagues in Parliament from Tamil Nadu.”

The Indian Prime Minister was not alone in giving the summit a miss. The prime ministers of Canada and Mauritius boycotted it, too. However, unlike the Canadian premier who warned of the boycott at the last CHOGM summit held in Australia in 2011, India cannot claim to adhere to a consistent policy towards Sri Lanka. First it nurtured the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and burnt its fingers in the process. Then it extended a tacit support to Colombo – before, during and after the end of the Sri Lankan civil war in May 2009 – only to later, in its wisdom, support a 2011 United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution piloted by the United States and vote, in turn, against Sri Lanka. It voted against Sri Lanka a second time in the UNHRC in March this year. There can be compelling arguments for and against whether India should have supported such a resolution but it cannot be denied that those acts exposed the limits of India’s influence among its neighbours. Suffice it to say that a careful reading of the history of India-Sri Lanka relations would make it evident to just about anyone that India’s policy towards this island-nation in the Indian Ocean can be described as consistently inconsistent, characterised by myopia and self-inflicted crises.

In a federal structure such as India’s, foreign policy cannot be practised in a vacuum or in isolation or without consultations with all stakeholders concerned, including, but not limited to, the states, particularly those that share contiguous borders with neighbouring countries and/or share ethnic, linguistic, cultural or geographical affinities with them. A foreign policy drawn up in the corridors of the South Block in New Delhi may have served India well in all these decades but contemporary realities dictate that in a federal set-up and in an era of coalition governments the views of the states are factored in at the time of formulation of a foreign policy. Having said that, an impression seems to be gaining ground, erroneously at that, that foreign policy is the worst sufferer of this nouveau phenomenon of the states having their say in matters pertaining to foreign policy. A cursory look at recent years would show that the states have consistently been vocal on a host of other issues, too. The recent examples of certain states or regional parties opposing the policy of raising the cap on FDI (foreign direct investment) in single-brand retail to 100 per cent is a case in point. As is the opposition to the Centre’s proposal for setting up a National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) or the protests against building nuclear power plants at Jaitapur in Maharashtra and Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu. In some of these cases New Delhi chose to yield, albeit temporarily, but in some others it had its way. Therefore, it would not be accurate to suggest that regional influences are wielding a veto over New Delhi. Also, it would not be fair to either paint the states as villains of the piece or to apportion all the blame for the Centre’s foreign policy woes to regional parties that are or could be aligned against it in the political arena. For instance, the Centre accuses the West Bengal government headed by the All India Trinamool Congress party of scuttling a river waters sharing agreement with Bangladesh. However, the Congress, which heads the ruling coalition at the Centre and also in Kerala, is guilty of playing to narrow political sentiments, too, as was evidenced by the state government’s and the party’s stand on the two Italian marines who are facing murder charges for the deaths of two Indian fishermen off the Kerala coast. That the ensuing protests and the government’s response to them were provoked in part by the fact that a crucial by-election was to take place in the state, was not lost on anyone.

What cannot be overstated is that devolution of foreign policy to more stakeholders than what is currently assumed should not be entirely unwelcome. I would go as far as to say that the democratisation of foreign policy and the salience of the states in shaping it cannot be continued to be treated as an exception; and the sooner New Delhi gets used to executing its foreign and domestic policies in a coalition with sometimes competing political interests, the better it will be for all the stakeholders concerned. The irony is unmistakable: If Colombo reasons that Sri Lanka is too small a geographical entity to be governed from the provinces or for more powers to be delegated to them, New Delhi is increasingly finding that administering foreign policy in the extant federal polity which it so recommends for Sri Lanka, coupled with the influence wielded by regional political parties or groups in a country of India’s size and history, is not easy. As recent developments indicate, policy-making cannot remain the exclusive preserve of New Delhi and it behoves of the Centre to encourage various stakeholders to air their views and to enable them to give expression to their concerns. Also, it is time for reshaping India’s neighbourhood policy in a manner that it reflects the broadest possible national consensus.