The Forest Man
In the Northeastern corner of India lies the river island of Majuli, surrounded by the river Brahmaputra. One of the biggest river islands in the world, Majuli used to be a home to a wide varieties of endangered species until human actions started lead to a massive erosion that threatened the survival of the island and the precious ecosystem contained therein.
In a major flood in 1979, plenty of snakes were washed ashore. The sight of the dead reptiles moved one man. He wept on the sight of seeing so many dead creatures that died in the hot sun without any tree cover. He took upon a massive task in his hands. He decided to reforest the whole island.
Working tireless for 35 years, this man, Jadhav Payeng, has now created a 1400 acre forest. For the threatened species of the island, he is the protector.
The Mountain Man
In 1959, a man in eastern India lost his wife on the way to a hospital. She was injured trying to cross a treacherous hill to bring him water. A hill stood between that man Dashrath Manjhi and modern civilization. The villagers could not get access to modern facilities due to the curse of geography.
But, for a determined man even a big hill is no big impediment. He started slowly chiseling away the hill. Grain by grain, he broke the Gehlour hills and has now created a pathway 360 feet long and 30 feet wide that allows vehicles to reach his village. One man has built a whole road. With his feat, he has reduced the distance between two remote groups of villages in Bihar, Atri and Wazirganj by about 55 km.
It is the unsung individuals like Dashrath Manjhi and Jadhav Payeng who make India run and who provide a hope to a population of 1.25 billion. They have not waited for the governments and other organizations to help them, rather they literally created a path themselves. It is these people who help India forget the gory past and get them see a ray of life.
It is people like them who make Indians dream.
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Chapter 10: India's Tryst with the World
The State shall endeavour to - (a) promote international peace and security; (b) maintain just and honourable relations between nations; (c) foster respect for international law and treaty obligations in the dealings of organised peoples with one another; and (d) encourage settlement of international disputes by arbitration.
-- Article 51 of the Indian Constitution
Unlike most others, the Indian Constitution makes it an explicit directive for the Indian government to push for international peace and encourage better relations between nations. Although it is a directive policy, not enforceable in a court of law, it gives away the intention of India's founding fathers. They wanted India to play an active role in helping promote world peace. For the most part, India has stayed true to this directive policy.
India's freedom movement was a popular struggle around the world and given the gracious way in which it won freedom, India was always bound to have a healthy relationship with the rest of the world. However, India never lived up to its full potential and often fumbled with diplomacy.
Key Determinants of India's Foreign Policy
Geography: India is situated right in the center of South Asia, South East Asia, Central Asia, and West Asia. Through the Indian Ocean passes the world's most precious cargo, such as oil to China and Asia's exports to Europe and Africa. It’s geographic proximity to superpowers such as the Soviet Union (later Russia) and China meant that the nation had to focus on building adequate deterrence. This has always often run contrary to its idealistic foreign policy intentions of having a nuclear weapon free world.
Economic policies: Indian leaders grew up in a socialist (of the Fabian type) Britain. They were also deeply inspired by communist revolutions happening around them - such as the Russian revolution. Thus, the early foreign policy was much more biased towards Communist nations. In the West, India was sometimes seen as a client state of the Soviet Union.
Historical and Cultural Factors: India's occupation by the British Empire had left a huge scar on the freedom fighters and thus a key element of foreign policy was to root out colonialism in the rest of the world. While India was against colonialism, the top leaders of the freedom movement were all educated in Britain and thus had a natural affinity towards the Anglophone nations. India's spiritual past often came in its relations with East and Southeast Asia [the Pancha-Sila policy with China was based on Buddha's five principles].
Foreign Policy Under Different Prime Ministers
Nehruvian Era
Nehru took personal responsibility for foreign affairs, just like he did before independence. He appointed his sister, Vijayalakshmi Pandit as India's main diplomat to the UN. In 1953, Ms.Pandit became the first woman president of the UN General Assembly.
Some of the key elements of Nehru policy:
Maintaining cordial relations with the UK: India surprised the world by retaining Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, even after Independence. It was an indication of the relative smooth transition. India decided to be a part of the British Commonwealth despite having its own head of state. Nehru made sure that India and the UK were in good terms despite the freedom struggle.
Panchsheel policy with China: As soon as Mao took over China in 1949 after the Communist revolution, India recognized the new government and argued on its side in various International fora. The five principles that Nehru made as the core of his foreign policy with China, held good for a decade, before the growing trouble in Tibet swallowed it.
Active role in developing world: Nehru wanted India to take a lead role in the new organization - Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) that he co-founded with the leaders of Egypt and Yugoslavia. It was to reduce the tensions surrounding the Cold War between the US and the USSR and build a strong community of developing nations. The active role that he took in criticizing the West in its intervention in Suez and Palestine and the Soviet in its intervention in Hungary, irritated the major powers and often turned India's external relationships frosty.
Nehru built a strong image for India in the world arena, although his idealistic advice to the rest of the world was sometimes seen as hypocritical given India's realpolitik dealings in Kashmir, Hyderabad, Goa, and the Northeast frontier. He helped push colonialism out of Africa and at the 1955 Bandung Conference of Afro-Asian nations, which India helped organize, he tried to build further connections for India.
Shastri's Era
India's second Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, had a very short tenure of about 19 months, due to his premature death. A lot of the era was focused on defense build up leading up to the war with Pakistan. He is held in a very high regard in India for successfully repelling Pakistan's aggression. His remaining time was spent on handling refugee problems in Burma and Sri Lanka - India's neighbors who were driving out a large number of Indian settlers due to change in regimes.
Indira's Era
India's third Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, was much more assertive and less tied to the idealisms of the founding fathers. She successfully took India nuclear by detonating a nuclear device in 1974. She helped break Pakistan into two - forming the new nation of Bangladesh. She also helped arm the Tamil rebels of Sri Lanka after its government went back on the promises it made to Shastri.
In Southeast Asia, India was on the side of the USSR and supported Viet Cong in its struggle against the US. That made India's relationship with the US-leaning region tough. Indira's period was the lowest point of Indo-US relationships and a high point for Indo-Russian relationship.
In the Middle East, she opened secret channels with Israel through her lieutenant (and later Prime Minister) Narasimha Rao, although overtly she was against Israel. Although India had maintained a good relationship with the Middle East (the region used Indian rupee as their official currency 6 decades ago) the 1971 war with Pakistan brought some trouble in the region. Pakistan portrayed India's help to the Bangladeshi cause as anti-Islamic and was able to convince the orthodox monarchies in the middle east to accept its side. However, India's traditional fri
endships with more moderate nations like Iran and Egypt prevented that region from taking an action against India.
Rajiv's Era
Indira's son, Rajiv, placed key importance on restoring ties with the major powers. He made a visit to the US within months of coming to the office. However, Ronald Reagan, the President at the time, was still very focused on defeating India's top friend, the Soviet Union. He also made a landmark visit to China, the first for an Indian Prime Minister since Nehru's visit in 1954.
Rajiv's key parts of foreign policy came in the islands of the south. He helped Maldives resist a coup orchestrated by the Tamil rebels. Operation Cactus authorized by Rajiv was decisive in getting the people's rule back to Maldives. However, in Sri Lanka he made a controversial decision to send the Indian Peacekeeping Force (IPKF). As we saw in earlier chapters, that was a colossal failure and defined Rajiv's era.
Narasimha Rao's Era
Rao came at a time when the Communist world was collapsing. The Soviet Union collapsed and that left India confused. This forced India to open itself to the West both in economic and foreign policies. The ignored relationship with European Countries was now paid attention to.
Narasimha Rao also opened up to America's top ally - Israel. In 1992, one year into his Premiership, he established a full diplomatic relationship with Israel. This proved very critical during India's war with Pakistan in 1999. Another key change came in relationships with South East Asia and East Asia.
Rao was among the best Indian Prime Ministers when it came to foreign policy. A lot of present thrust is a relic of his era.
Gujral Era
Although his reign as foreign minister and Prime Minister combined lasted for less than two years, IK Gujral left a strong impact on India's foreign policy. The Gujral doctrine stressed on the more prudent - "neighbours first policy". The doctrine let the Prime Minister make friendly measures with neighbors without expecting something directly in return.
Key things achieved in that period:
Water sharing agreements with Bangladesh
Cooling down border dispute with China
Expanding people to people contact with Pakistan
A landmark visit to Nepal to build roads with a key neighbor
One key criticism of India's foreign policy during such third front parties is that realpolitik takes a hit. For instance, India's intelligence agency RAW's efforts was reportedly impeded in Morarji Desai and IK Gujral regimes.
Vajpayee Era
In this era, a game of cat and mouse was played by Pakistan. India and Pakistan tested their nuclear weapons in 1998 as soon as Vajpayee came to power. The increased tensions was cooled by a landmark visit to Pakistan by PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee in February 1999. However, that trust was broken when it was found in May that Pakistan's army was invading the hills in Kargil in Kashmir, starting a brief war. The truce after the war didn't last long as Pakistan went through yet another coup. In 2001, Pakistan-funded terrorists attacked the Indian Parliament building yet again taking the two countries close to a war.
The biggest victory for Vajpayee came with US President Bill Clinton's visit in 2000. That ended a long era of acrimonious relationships between the two democracies. Clinton ended the sanctions on India and Vajpayee took India much closer to the US in economic, foreign, and military policies. The relationship with Israel also flowered a lot more.
Manmohan Era
Manmohan Singh, for the most part, continued Vajpayee's policies. He improved relationships with the US and also started building key relationships with China, Japan, and Europe. It was in his period that India reached a critical mass and was getting flirtations from powers all over the world.
A key alliance that started this time was BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa - the five big stars of the developing world that accounted for half of the world population and a big chunk of new economic growth.
Modi Era
It’s been only a couple of months since Modi started at the time of this publication. Modi seems to blend Gujral's doctrine that stressed the "Neighbors first policy" with Vajpayee's realpolitik with the West. Like Nehru, he seems quite adept and comfortable when dealing with foreign leaders. Already there are indications of Japan becoming a key ally in energy.
In September 2014, Modi held meetings with the leaders of the world’s top manufacturing powers - US, China, and Japan. Modi has been trying to pursue foreign policy with a primary eye on growing the domestic strength in manufacturing.
Relations with Key Countries
Relationship with the US
The India-US relationship was always a love-hate one where both sides often fumbled in understanding the other side. In 1947, both sides started right with the right rhetoric (democracies, freedom, liberation) but things often became worse when faced with reality.
1. Kashmir issue. The US and the UK tried to mediate on the Kashmir issue, but India didn't want it, fearing what the final verdict would look like. This caused the first friction. TIME Magazine reported the Western world view of how Pakistan is the law abiding party here: The commission's final gesture, an arbitration proposal backed by the US and Britain, had been accepted by Pakistan and rejected by India. Abdullah's delegates passed a resolution denouncing the "arbitration offer sponsored by President Truman and Prime Minister Attlee as "yet another device to deny freedom to the people of Kashmir."
2. China issue. The US wanted India to not recognize Mao Zedong's revolution. India lost no time in recognizing the legitimacy of the People's Republic of China [the West pretended that it didn't exist and dealt only with the rebel government in Taiwan]. India strongly argued for providing China's permanent seat to Mao's government and not to the rebel Chiang-kai Shek's government. This irritated the Americans. However, India acted as the middleman between the US and China during the Korean war, helping both sides bring the war to an end.
3. Joining the Western bloc: As the Soviet Union became the biggest challenge for the US, the government there started an "Us. vs Them" campaign. India was forced to pick sides but didn't. India’s neighbour Pakistan had no such compunctions and they did join the Western bloc in 1954 through Southeast Asia Treaty Organization and Central Treaty Organization. Although Pakistan tried hard to use these two treaties to bring the West to war with India, the US refused. However, the relationship was scary for India and India had no option but to look to the Soviets.
4. Soviet Vetoes: As Pakistan entered the Western bloc, the group started ganging up on India in the Security council. During such occasions, India needed the Soviet veto.
5. Nixon and Kissinger: Until the late ‘60s, the US was not as much against the Indians. Democrats like Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson kept a more healthy relationship. However, the entry of Nixon would change this India-US relationship to a very hostile one with Nixon almost bringing a war on India. In the Bangladeshi war of independence, the US fought hard to avoid a partition of its ally Pakistan, going very much against the self-determination of the Bengalis. He even instigated his new friend China to start a front on India.
6. Afghanistan: The nixing of Nixon brought some respite to India. However, under Reagan a new war started in Afghanistan. Americans sought to drive away Soviet influence and used Pakistan to train Mujahideen - Islamic terrorists. India ended up on the wrong side and eventually ended with the highly anti-India Talibans coming to take power.
In short, the India-US relationship became a victim of a big geopolitical game played through Pakistan as the pawn. For a long time, India tried hard to dehyphenate the relationship [making the US see India beyond the lens of Pakistan]. Let's see how it goes. Modi will be here in four weeks and I'm attending his speech at Madison Square garden. Let us see how he approaches the Indo-US relationships.
Relationship with Soviet Union/Russia
For the first six years post-independence, India didn't really have a strong relationship with the Soviet Union. Stalin was too headstrong to see India as a strong ally. Nehru
was also paying more attention to the West and was not impressed with the Soviet Union's lack of help in Kashmir.
However, in 1949 India's future President S. Radhakrishnan was sent as an ambassador to Moscow and he helped build the relationship between these two countries. The death of Stalin in 1953 drastically altered the relationship. A combination of factors helped here.
Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin's successor, was much more sympathetic to India's interests.
The formation of US-Pak treaties left India with no alternative.
The relationship of both the USSR and India with China was getting worse.
Nehru made a key visit in 1955 and that helped cement this relationship and it proved to be an all-weather relationship for India. During Indira's time, the Soviet relationship proved very important, especially in the 1971 war. However, Rajiv Gandhi's and Narasimha Rao's time saw India moving a little away from the Soviet Union that was disintegrating to form Russia and various central asian republics.
However, since the start of the Manmohan era, Russia had started to get back into its importance as India finds Russia's energy and defense cooperation very important.
Relationship with Pakistan
The relationship with Pakistan is among the thorniest one. The violence around the time of partition in 1947, the still undecided nature of Kashmir and the three full scale wars that were fought between the countries all add to the tensions.
There were many treaties and meetings between the countries to sort out their issues. But, each of them failed to bring long-lasting peace.
From Tryst to Tendulkar: The History of Independent India Page 16
