HomeOPEDCentral Hall – Foreign Policy & Diplomacy

Central Hall – Foreign Policy & Diplomacy

Mumbai: For us Indian’s, Foreign Policy & Diplomacy is a rarely understood and mostly misunderstood term. Tragically it is extension of what is essentially domestic politics or domestic policy. Moreover, our Foreign Policy & Diplomacy for the outside world is often a nightmare to deal with. Our Foreign Policy & Diplomacy keeps on changing from one election to another, unless the incumbent government retains power.

One of the core principles or requirements of a robust, strong and stable Foreign Policy & Diplomacy requires a strong and stable national government. Although coalition governments are now the order of the day not just in India, but around the world, a Bipartisan approach towards Foreign Policy & Diplomacy has evolved.

Moreover, it cannot remain rigid attached to dogmas, principles and beliefs and needs to be flexible and evolving, yet rooted to one’s own beliefs, needs and goals, rather than being dictated to by others. While India tried to adhere to the five principles of Panchsheel, China paid scant respect to any of the treaties and documents it has signed with India so far.

The classic example of this Bipartisan approach is the unanimity between the Republicans and Democrats in the United States of America (USA) over the issue of how to deal with China in the aftermath of the Coronavirus pandemic and make China pay for its actions. Both, US President Donald Trump and Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi have been bitter enemies and critics of each other.

Also Read: Central Hall – MVAs wobbly gyroscope!

The bitter animosity between the two parties has grown even sharper in this election year. But both the parties do agree on taking tough stand against China. That is often referred to as Bipartisan politics, especially in times of severe national crisis or a situation where both the ruling and opposition political parties show maturity in showing common cause in dealing with any external threat or any situation externally.

In broad terms, foreign policy is the pattern of behavior that one state adopts while pursuing its interests in relations with other states. The further fractionalization of foreign policy is made into economic, military, cultural, sports or financial foreign policy, which is now being also referred to as Loan Diplomacy.

Military diplomacy can also be for common good as is in the case of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). However, the erstwhile Soviet Union led Warsaw Pact formed during the Cold War era is hardly in existence today. The latest invention to this is the Quad policy which comprises of the armies (the navies) of USA, India, Australia and Japan to take on the Chinese navy in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and South-China seas.

We in India during the regime of late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi that cultural diplomacy was used briefly to let the outside world know about the rich cultural heritage that we have. But it did not go beyond holding “Festival of India” in a few countries during his tenure as the Prime Minister from 1984-89. It did help a bit in improving and increasing foreign tourist arrivals to India to an extent, which was positive fallout of the policy.  Cultural diplomacy could have been used to dispel widely held misconceptions that the outside world holds about poverty, inequality, corruption, lack of infrastructure among other things.

Consistency in our foreign policy and diplomacy has never been the hallmark. Our policy has kept on changing with political parties or coalition of political parties with divergent political ideologies forming the government. Foreign policy and diplomacy has never been insulated from or never has the Bipartisan approach been followed.

As Col A A Athale in the “Official history of the conflict with China, 1962”, the debates in the parliament and editorials in national dailies from 1960 to 1962 make a shocking reading today. In a way it guided our foreign policy initiatives and often tied the hands of our diplomats in defusing the crisis. The utter naivety and misplaced beliefs was another cause for the unpleasant memories of the 1962 war.

The criticism can wait till the crisis is over, rather than present a spectacle of disunity which can only gladden the hearts of the enemy and present a chance to the enemy to exploit the internal differences. There were internal differences within the political, military and diplomatic echelons during the 1962 war.

If the arrival of the body bags of the US soldiers in the latter stages of the Vietnam War (1955-1973) and the public anger had forced the US government to pull out of the war. But the same notion was changed in the Gulf War fought from August 1990 to February 1991 with live deferred streaming of all the military action.

The lone voice of sanity amidst this hue and cry over the Galwan valley stand-off between India and China appears to be coming from Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar. The NCP chief in his media interaction in Satara later in the week had summed it up rightly “Matters of national security should not be politicized. One cannot forget China had captured about 45,000 Sq. Kms of Indian land after the 1962 war. Galwan valley incident in Ladakh cannot immediately be labeled as a failure of Defence Minister, as Indian soldiers were alert during patrolling”.

For a seasoned politician and former Defence minister, Pawar senior pretty well knows the need to refrain from politicizing an ongoing issue that too when the nation and the world is trying to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. Our past history is replete with and shown us that divided we have fallen and have allowed us to be ruled by invaders.

Part of the blame lies in our inability to understand international politics, foreign policy and diplomacy and its difference with local politics and the need for Bipartisanship when faced with external aggression. Criticisms and post-mortem of what went wrong where and who was to be blamed can wait.

Tragically today we are more enamored with Chinese general and military strategist Sun Tzu (544 BC – 496 BC) for his China centric military policies, than our very own Arya Chanakya (375 BC – 283 BC) whose political treatise the Arthashastra written between 3rd century BCE and 3rd century CE, is almost centuries old than Sun Tzu’s. That explains why we falter each time in dealing with any external threat.

History has an uncanny habit of teaching you a few lessons, if you ignore them then you are condemned to live by them, unless you grab the opportunity to correct yourself and present a united face to the external enemy.

Prashant Hamine
Prashant Hamine
News Editor - He has more than 25 years of experience in English journalism. He had worked with DNA, Free Press Journal and Afternoon Dispatch. He covers politics.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Must Read

spot_img