India,the European Union and Human Rights

Human Rights and the Strategic Partnership

In a Communication on ‘An EU-India Strategic Partnership’ (16 June 2004), the European Commission expressed keen interest in further extending the human rights dialogue in ‘a mutually respectful and constructive manner’. Brussels was also keen that synergies should be sought and joint initiatives developed in third countries. The Indian government, it proposed, should be invited to start regular human rights discussions within the Athens agreed format, including senior officials and ministerial meetings (European Commission, 2004, p. 5). The Commission expressed willingness to explore funding projects in India under the European Initiative for Human Rights and Democracy (EIDHR). The European Parliament too welcomed that the strategic partnership provided for ‘the extension and institutionalization of a human rights dialogue’ (European Parliament, 2004).

For New Delhi, a strategic partnership signified ‘a partnership between equals’ and not one where ‘one side is prescriptive or one side is intrusive and the other side is, in a sense, a passive partner’ and that the relationship should be carried forward on the basis of ‘a mutual recognition that we are dealing with partners, we are dealing with countries which are independent and sovereign’ (Saran, 2004, emphases added).

The common objectives of upholding universal principles of human rights, India argued, should be pursued in ‘a manner that is non-intrusive and non-prescriptive, with due respect and recognition for each other’s democratic processes. Existing channels of dialogue in this area are working satisfactorily and may be constructively utilizing the spirit of mutual respect and understanding’ (Tripathi, 2005).

The Joint Action Plan (JAP) (7 September 2005) stipulated that the two sides proposed to ‘continue in a spirit of equality and mutual respect, the dialogue on human rights both in a multilateral and bilateral context, with the objective of building greater mutual understanding and expanding common ground in order to strengthen the foundations of the strategic partnership’. It also resolved to ‘consult and discuss positions on human rights and democracy issues and look at opportunities for co-sponsoring resolutions on thematic issues in relevant fora such as the UNCHR or UN General Assembly Third Committee’ and envisaged looking together for ‘possible synergies and initiatives to promote human rights and democracy’ (Ministry of Commerce, 2005). Though the two sides had held ‘various consultations’ in New York and Geneva to discuss topics of common interest (Ministry of External Affairs, 2006), there has in practice been little coordination on any of these goals.

During discussions on the Joint Action Plan II, the EU sought to push for ‘long-term commitments’ from India on human rights, but New Delhi resisted making such commitments (Manet, 2008). Thus, the JAP II (2008) merely stated that the two sides would ‘strengthen’ their consultations in the UN Human Rights Council and ‘sustain’ their dialogue on human rights with a view to promoting their universality (European External Action Service, 2008). The Joint Statement at the 13th India-EU summit (March 2016), held after a gap of 4 years, underscored ‘the importance they attach to human rights cooperation and expressed their intention to continue dialogue and enhance interaction in international fora, in particular the U.N. General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council’ (European Council, 2016a, para 8). The EU-India ‘Agenda for Action 2020’ (30 March 2016) reaffirmed the commitment to the India-EU human rights dialogue as ‘a key tool to promote shared human rights values and forge mutual understanding’ within the strategic partnership (European Council, 2016b, p. 1).

Why India Started a Human Rights Dialogue with the EU

At the Athens Troika ministerial meeting (17 January 2003) (European Council, 2004), India agreed to start a local, ad hoc human rights dialogue, which has been held in Delhi more or less annually since 2004 with the EU. Five factors seemed to have influenced India’s decision. First, timing was crucial. With growing media and international criticism of the Gujarat communal riots (2002) in international forums, India sought to ‘ensure that those issues in which public opinion and the media have an overriding interest, and where distortions need to be corrected, could be effectively addressed in the future’ (Ministry of External Affairs, 2004, para 10). Second, there was strong pressure on EU institutions and member states at various levels from domestic constituencies. Third, both Northern and Southern governments initially incorporated a human rights dialogue for the ‘tactical objective’ of deflecting the pressure of NGO networks (Youngs, 2001, p. 6). As a senior Indian official remarked: ‘We want to engage the EU to stop it being a nuisance and lecturing us—EU policy is liable to be influenced by NGOs’ (cited in Grant, 2006). Fourth, as the world’s largest democracy, India felt there was no reason for it to be either defensive or hesitant in discussing human rights issues with anyone. Fifth, India made a great point to be on the UNCHR and subsequently the UN Human Rights Council ³ and felt that it ‘could contribute to work on human rights on its own terms and perspectives’ (interview with EU member state senior official, New Delhi, March 2016).

A total of eight rounds of the human rights dialogues have been held so far. No dialogue has been held since the last one on 27 November 2013. Consultations on human rights are also held in New York, but mostly in Geneva in the context of the UN Human Rights Council. Human rights issues are raised at ministerial meetings, foreign policy consultations and on one occasion (2003) in the India-EU Round Table. They are seldom raised at summits since ‘the scope for in-depth exchange of views is limited in this particular setting’ (Ferrero-Waldner, 2006). Human rights are also apparently addressed in the India-EU counterterrorism dialogue (European Council, 2015, p. 25).

Human Rights Provisions in Trade Agreements

Contested Norms

The EU engages in the practice of ‘othering’ wherein it represents the other as ‘different’ and inferior, as an entity not yet able to achieve universal principles. As a result, it needs to show others how things are done (Diez, 2005, pp. 628–629). The EU’s projection of norms externally is clearly intended to protect and safeguard European interests abroad. Brussels seeks to impose norms irrespective of the stage of development, historical background, political traditions and social-cultural heritage or systems of other countries (see Jain & Pandey, 2015).

Europe often presents the normative agenda (e.g., social clause and labour standards) in a way that seeks to undermine the competitive advantage of developing countries and to safeguard European interests abroad. This leads most Indians to conclude that economics is the primary driving force behind norm-setting rather than an abiding faith or inherent belief in the values themselves (Jain, 2009, p. 179).

India argues that the absence of a precise or ‘clear standard against which to measure a member state’s obligation of “progressive realization” [of economic and social rights] based on the “maximum of its available resources”’ makes monitoring of compliance at the international level virtually impossible. Such issues are ‘best handled in the framework of the legal and judicial systems of each country’ (Puri, 2005). India therefore asserts:

The development of new international normative instruments, procedures and mechanisms should be based on a careful evaluation of needs and requirements rather than be driven by domestic agendas. Where necessary, such initiatives should be accompanied by the augmentation of resources at the national level by the international community so as to enable states to meet their commitments. If national capabilities are inadequate or deficient, the gap between standards and implementation will remain, if not widen. (Shashank, 2004)

India has criticised Brussels for its double standards. Indian stakeholders have often wondered how the EU espousal of human rights and its promotion of democracy could be reconciled with the political expediency of hugging military rulers responsible for ousting democratically elected rulers. Indians feel that they do not need any ‘ethical lessons’ from a Europe which has ‘long coddled’ military dictators in its neighbourhood (Tharoor, 2007). Many developing countries perceive the EU as not self-critical enough to admit human rights violations, such as racism, xenophobia, discrimination, racial and ethnic profiling, and rights or migrant workers. The EU’s ‘standard response, that it has legislation in place to deal with these human rights issues, is not convincing for many countries, as they see the violations occurring in spite of these laws’ (Macaj & Koops, 2011, pp. 78–79). The standards have to be ‘uniformly applied’ (Puri, 2005).

India, as Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran put it, does not ‘believe in the export of ideology’ or in ‘the imposition of democracy or democratic values on any country’. It is willing to share its comprehensive infrastructure and institutional structure like the National Human Rights Commission with any country which wishes to take advantage of this (Saran, 2006). While India supports human rights, it does not want ‘to give prescriptive solutions from outside’ to problems in a country (Lokesh, 2007). In fact, the Europeans’ ‘one size fits all’ model for the promotion of human rights, democracy and the rule of law including the various instruments appears to be ‘rather insensitive’ for cultural and socio-economic differences and diversity (Boerzel & Risse, 2004, p. 31).

Terrorism and Human Rights

While India was irritated by the debate on human rights violations in Kashmir in the European Parliament, where bulk of the EU debate took place, it was more troubled by the European Council and Commission’s odd raising, even in passing, of the human rights issue in Kashmir, especially in the mid- and late 1990s when India’s fortunes against the Kashmir insurgency were at their lowest (Chaudhuri, 2007, p. 123). The EU has been critical of human rights violations by Indian security forces in Kashmir under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

India has been critical of Western nations’ double standards on human rights—one yardstick for the ‘practitioners of terrorism’ and the other for the governments (Rao, 1992). To India, terrorism is ‘a direct violation of human rights, in particular the most basic rights, the right to life and liberty’ (Sharma, 2006). For India’s political leaders, the European insistence on bringing up human rights, however tangentially, was ‘a red flag not the very least because of a belief that Brussels was ignoring the context in which these human rights violations were occurring’ (Chaudhuri, 2007, p. 123). What perhaps infuriated India most about EU policy was its ‘seeming insistence on making the case for human rights in isolation without recognizing that restoring human rights could only follow the defeat of militancy and that this, in turn was impossible without restraint on Pakistan’ (Chaudhuri, 2007, p. 124). The Kashmir Assembly elections (2003) were probably more decisive for the EU’s muting of its criticism, however mild, of India’s policies in Kashmir. India’s willingness to allow international observers during the Assembly election ensured that even ‘the traditional alliance of human rights NGOs and smaller north European states had little to complain about’ (Chaudhuri, 2007, p. 128).

Indian scholars feel that outsiders do not adequately understand why internal security has been accorded high priority in India due to ‘primordial fears’ that any loss of government control over the maintenance of law and order would encourage fissiparous tendencies and the unravelling of the state. This anxiety forms

an indelible part of the South Asian historical experience and explains why national security is a holy cow; it is therefore considered antinational to criticize the security forces too strongly for human rights abuses, since they are believed to be keeping together the fragile structure of the country. (Chari, 2005, p. 221)

With Kashmir and the Northeast experiencing an exceptional period of calm, there was ‘less reason for the EU to lecture India on human rights’ (Chaudhuri, 2013). India has largely ignored resolutions critical of the human rights record of Indian security forces regularly passed by the European Parliament. It tended to see them the work of ‘a small cluster’ of human rights activists, three or four parliamentarians of Pakistani origin, and a few British legislators who had to cater to Pakistani-origin voters (Chaudhuri, 2017, pp. 64–65). EU diplomats acknowledge that there is also a fine line between human rights and internal security, which comes under India’s sovereign rights and any external oversight is unwelcome (interview with key EU member state senior official, New Delhi, April 2016).

International Dimension

Both India and the EU approach human rights with different conceptions and approaches. These differences are normal and natural given the different histories, cultures, traditions, political systems, worldviews, geographical and geopolitical realities, and because the two are at different levels of socio-economic development. The absence of jointly shared definitions, in fact, ‘a priori limit and indeed nullify the possibilities of actual meaningful cooperation’ (Berkofsky, 2015, p. 87).

Since independence, both ‘in principle and practice’, India has been wedded to non-interference in the internal affairs of states unlike the EU which has ‘a penchant for intervention beyond sovereign boundaries’ (Tharoor, 2012, p. 244). India’s criticism of the NATO intervention in Kosovo (1999) was not only because of Western ‘self-contradictory double standards’ on the issue of human rights, self-determination and sovereignty in international affairs but also because of a possible precedent in the case of Kashmir (Haksar, 1999).

Indian scepticism about the international human rights regime is rooted in India’s strategic culture of strategic autonomy, its problematic domestic human rights situation, the continued domination of the international human rights discourse by the West, scepticism about the UN system regarding human rights. The Indian state and society regard with scepticism Western human rights NGOs and Western governmental human rights diplomacy (Banerjee, 2015, p. 33).

India deals with the EU in a strongly realist tradition and remains wary about humanitarian intervention and the circumstances in which force may be used. India has tended to equate the resort to coercive measures for human rights protection with Western expansionism and ambition to shape, and dominate, the world order (Virk, 2015, p. 109). New Delhi has been deeply suspicious of Western humanitarian organisations and the implications of their activity to India’s national security and concerns that they could become precedents for international intervention in India’s internal affairs.

India continues to be sceptical of international agencies. ‘The function of the watchdog’, New Delhi argues, ‘can be performed only by the people of the country who are the best judge of their needs. Prescriptive norms imposed from outside are counter-productive and contrary’ to the sovereign equality of states recognised in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Saran, 2003; Shashank, 2004). The ‘annual ritual of sitting in judgement over others’ in the UN Human Rights Commission does ‘not move us towards our desired goal’. The guiding principle, New Delhi maintains, has to be that ‘the measures we adopt are proportional to the problems that they seek to address’ (Puri, 2005).

India is reluctant ‘to censure other countries for their violations of human rights. The rare instances in which India does condemn the practices of other countries are due to other impulses than the desire to secure the global human rights order, such as domestic politics or external pressure’ (Mukherjee, 2015, p. 50). New Delhi is very sceptical of naming and shaming particular countries’ human rights records, and has traditionally abstained on, or opposed, country-specific resolutions in forums like the United Nations General Assembly and the Human Rights Council (Stephen, 2015, p. 61). In the UN Human Rights Council, India has abstained on ‘one sided or unbalanced resolutions on country specific situations since we believe that “finger pointing” cannot be an elegant or effective solution to such issues’ (Mukherjee, 2014).

India has been critical of the selectivity whereby Western countries choose to enforce human rights. For instance, India has cautioned that the Right to Protect (R2P) cannot turn out to be ‘a tool legitimizing big power intervention on the pretext of protecting populations from violations of human rights and humanitarian law’ (Singh, 2012). India has two genuine concerns with intervention under R2P: first, about proper authority: who decides, and how, that R2P should be implemented, that is, about selectivity and political will and second, about the unintended, and ultimately non-humanitarian, consequences of an overemphasis on R2P’s interventionist pillar (Virk, 2015, p. 108).

Social Issues in Multilateral Trade Negotiations

India and the EU have different interests and differing perceptions about the human rights and social issues in multilateral trade negotiations. New Delhi regarded the developed countries’ demand for the inclusion of social clauses relating to labour and sustainable development as non-trade issues in multilateral negotiations. The EU established a link between trade and labour standards in 1994 in the context of the relationship with developing countries through the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP).

Between 1993 and 2000, increased international competition and growing unemployment prompted most European governments to advocate a binding linkage between labour standards and trade rules. During both the Singapore (1997) and Seattle (1999) rounds of World Trade Organisation negotiations, India was a vocal critic of any such linkages and was apprehensive that the abolition of child labour would be used to restrict market access of developing countries to Europe and undo their comparative advantage in labour-intensive, low-wage production.

The debate is fundamentally about whether the trade sanctions approach is a legitimate instrument to promote and ensure respect for human rights. Trade sanctions, New Delhi maintained, would not secure universal human rights of workers because international labour standards do not cover the majority of unorganised and informal sectors where the majority of workers in the developing countries is concentrated. Moreover, trade-restrictive measures would adversely affect the interests of workers in both the developed (as higher import costs would result in lower real wages) and developing countries (restrictions on employment opportunities) (Mehta & Chatterjee, 2006). Only economic growth, New Delhi maintained, could foster human rights and labour standards in developing countries.

Economic and Social Rights

Historically, developing countries led by India have insisted that all rights, including economic, social and cultural as well as civil and political, have the same status and should be respected equally. However, given the political and ideological divisions of the Cold War, this perspective of the 1970s was strongly opposed by the West (Mukherjee, 2014). The Europeans consider social and economic rights ‘can be relative, while civil and political rights are absolute rights. In this sense, the latter are more fundamental than the former’ (Balme, 2008, p. 152). The human rights situation in most developing countries, however, is related to the fundamental developmental problems that they confront, namely, poverty, overpopulation, illiteracy and scarcity of resources. As a result, the enjoyment and implementation of human rights is contingent on a certain minimum level of economic development (Mani, 1998, p. 136; Puri, 2003; Shashank, 2004). The EU, on the other hand, has ‘an excessive focus’ on civil and political rights at the expense of social, economic and cultural rights (Jurado, 2006, p. 128).

Human Rights versus Consular Issues

The denial of visas, according to Indian officials, is not a visa or consular issue but constitutes human rights violations especially when a visa is denied preventing a spouse from joining his/her partner. There are differences between India and Europe about the right of family. India has found European ideas about disharmony and forcible family separation not to be valid. Interventions by the European state into ‘the private lives of families are not consistent with Indian culture, and India feels it has been treated insensitively by certain European countries’ (Srinivasan, 2015, p. 32). Denmark’s refusal in 2011 to extradite a mercenary called Niels Holck (also known as Kim Davy) involved with airdropping weapons into India due to India’s alleged poor jail conditions and poor human rights record was not well received (Srinivasan, 2015, p. 32). There have also been instances of spouses not being allowed to join their husbands despite all requirements having been met. The EU can ‘easily hide behind competences and the border between human rights and access to territory as immigration/consular issues is tenuous’ (interview with Deputy Head of Unit, Human Rights and Democracy Unit, Brussels, 10 December 2008).

Eurocentrism

The Europeans come with clichés and stereotypes in their heads. They are conditioned by an essentially Eurocentric world view about India, which leads to falsifications of not only perceptions but interactions and analyses regarding India (Das, 2006, pp. 914, 917). The EU, as Kinzelbach points out, is ‘very clear about the fact that it does not intend to change its own position in the [human rights] dialogue and rather aims at getting the other actor to accept the EU’s view and, indeed, to act on the EU’s expectations’ (Kinzelbach, 2009, p. 15). The Europeans often regard India with ‘the superiority complex befitting a repository of reason and enlightenment’. Thus, it is only natural for ‘non-European outsiders often react adversely to old-style Eurocentric reasoning and Euro-narcissism’ (Srinivasan, 2015, p. 32).

The Europeans are opinionated and ‘come to the table with pre-conceived notions’. They often tend ‘to judge from a very Eurocentric, romanticized and politicized angle’ (interview, New Delhi, March 2016). They have the ‘the luxury to give recommendations, which are not relevant in the Indian context’ (interview, New Delhi, March 2016).

Indians have ‘an allergy’ against being lectured to. One of the great failings of the India-EU relationship has been the tendency of Europe ‘to preach’ to India on matters like human rights which it considers quite competent to handle on its own (Tharoor, 18 May 2012). India dislikes being ‘talked down’ to by the EU about prosperity, stability and human rights with ignorance about the other party’s compulsions. India is affronted when even small member states of the EU, such as the Nordic and Baltic countries, deliver sermons on relations with neighbours, human rights, nuclear non-proliferation and international law (Srinivasan, 2015, p. 26). In fact, there is not a single human rights problem about India that has been exposed by Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch or any European institution, which has not been revealed first by Indian citizens, journalists and NGOs and handled within the democratic Indian political space (Tharoor, 2012). The Europeans, as a former Indian Ambassador to the EU put it, are in ‘no position to judge us because we have our own traditions, constitution and legal system. We have enough democratic safeguards and are willing to correct, if necessary, on our own’ (FPRC Journal-13).

Elite Perceptions

Indian elites felt that the EU displayed arrogance about its prosperity and stability and about human rights, not very understanding about the compulsions of the other parts of the world (Jain & Pandey, 2012, p. 338). Some political elites felt that ‘frequent lectures on human rights and human violations’ must be avoided and the EU should not try ‘to push these values down people’s throats’ (interview with political columnist, media elite, New Delhi, 16 March 2012). Another political columnist criticised the EU of being extremely ‘selective’. When it came to China, many of the elites felt that EU seemed to have ‘a different rule-book’ (interview with political columnist, media elite, New Delhi, 16 March 2012). The business elite asserted that the EU’s attempts to link trade with ‘extraneous’ issues like labour standards and environment created obstacles in negotiations (Jain & Pandey, 2012, p. 337; 2014, p. 160).

Conclusions

Both India and the EU are democracies, but both of them approach human rights with different conceptions and perceptions. India has been critical of the adjudication and selective enforcement of human rights norms by international institutions and major powers, especially because both international institutions and norms have facilitated meddling in domestic affairs. In fact, three of the five major EU foreign policy priorities—the advancement of human rights, prevention of violent conflict and the promotion of good and democratic governance—are ‘areas that are deep in Indian sovereignty minefields’ (Chaudhuri, 2014, p. 10).

India has been critical of the incoherence in the EU’s domestic and external human rights policy. For instance, whereas the EU calls upon third countries to accede to certain UN human rights instruments to which not all EU member states are themselves party, for example, the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture. Developing countries are also unhappy that while the EU repeatedly emphasises the universality of human rights standards, no EU member state has acceded to the UN Convention on the Rights of All Migrant Workers even though the United Nations considers this a core human rights convention (King, 2011, pp. 96–97). The EU has neither developed minority rights within the acquis communautaire, nor do the member states subscribe to a single standard (Pentasuglia, 2001, pp. 3–38; Witte, 2000). Not all EU member states accept minority rights: Belgium, Greece and Luxembourg have not ratified the convention, and France has not even signed it (Smith, 2008, p. 127). Thus, demonstrable failure by the EU member states ‘to meet the standards they urge on others naturally blunts the EU’s international credibility’ (King, 2011, p. 98) and lead many beyond Europe to wonder how effective the EU itself is in upholding human rights in its own backyard.

It is difficult to explain the Ministry of External Affairs reticence in criticising EU member states’ track record in human rights. In recent years, New Delhi has raised questions about the human rights situation in the EU beyond issues concerning Indians. India has generally been reactive/defensive and reluctant to raise difficult questions about the human rights situation in the EU. This has probably been the result of a lack of meaningful cooperation/coordination among line ministries and/or lack of adequate understanding among Indian officials about the inherent nature of a political animal like the EU. In fact, the interaction on human rights between India and the EU has tended to be between two unequal partners: India, a country responsible for the security of its people and for maintaining law and order, and the EU, an association of countries which is not responsible for law and order and therefore with no track record of its own on human rights violations to defend (anonymous reviewer’s comments).

It is too early to say whether any perceptible change is visible in the EU’s human rights policy towards third countries in view of the issues that India confronts in dealing with terrorism since in the wake of recent terror incidents the EU itself has been tightening security laws and introducing sweeping securitisation and surveillance measures which have impinged human rights in more than a dozen EU member states. Recent studies of the EU’s evolving asylum and immigration policy highlight the prioritisation of ‘security’ and ‘order’ issues at the expense of the human rights values that the EU claims to promote in its external relations (Jurado, 2006, p. 127).

The EU too has realised that it is desirable to avoid counterproductive confrontations at high-level meetings while India usually agrees to talk about controversial issues as long as confidentiality is guaranteed (Coulon, 2006, p. 343). India will continue to be engaged with the EU on human rights. The human rights dialogue will be held, but not always annually. Their proceedings are not made public and have ‘a formulaic appearance’. The Indian side does not take them ‘too seriously’ (Chaudhuri, 2017, p. 65). Thus, human rights will continue to be ranked rather low in New Delhi’s policy agenda and interaction with the EU.

To most stakeholders in India, the EU’s understanding of the social milieu in India and the problems of the 5000 years old Indian society appears to be ‘incomplete and even superficial’. On many of these issues, the EU’s ‘policies and prescriptions at times, are far too intrusive and even penal in nature, thus rendering them counterproductive’. What the EU needs to do is to adopt ‘a more pragmatic and helpful approach’ (Ram, 2002, pp. 6–7). Thus, the diplomacy of human rights ‘remains different, and at places contradictory, in part because the realities and perceptions of strategic interests differ among the developed and developing States and because values, even when otherwise fully shared human rights “values”, acquire different meanings in time, place and circumstance’ (Baxi, 2010, p. 9).

The EU’s espousal of issues like human rights and the so-called social issues appear to lack a clear understanding of countries like India. The EU, a former Indian Ambassador to the EU stated, does not seem ‘to appreciate the nature and significance of India’s pluralistic multireligious and cultural secular democratic polity’ (Ram, 2002, pp. 5–6). All these issues are ‘deep-rooted and will take time to be resolved’ (Ram, 2002, p. 7). Indian society, another former Indian Ambassador to the EU, pointed out is ‘vastly different’ from European societies. This leads to ‘vastly different approaches in addressing human rights issues; the Europeans respect how India is trying to cope with the problem and address the issue, but they don’t quite understand our social milieu and situation’ (interview with a former Indian Ambassador to the EU, March 2016). The Europeans simply have no idea of the political skills that are needed and how difficult it is to resolve India’s social problems.

The EU’s ‘staunchly upright stance’ on human rights presents problems in its relationship with India. The EU will therefore need to develop ‘a new approach, less confrontational and more constructive, and not judge each case within a vacuum’ (Renard, 2010, p. 6). In the ultimate analysis, the responsibility for initiating and implementing the multitude of structural, economic, social and political reforms necessary to improve human rights implementation must be taken by Indians themselves. External players can only play a supportive role and their capacities to bring about fundamental change are necessarily limited.