Abstract
This volume is a compilation of Professor M.L. Sondhi’s writings on India’s foreign policy. He was a multi-faceted personality who began his career as a diplomat but later joined Jawaharlal Nehru University as a faculty. In 1967, he was elected as a member of parliament from New Delhi on a Bhartiya Jan Sangh ticket. He was a member of the Foreign Policy cell of the Bhartiya Janata Party during the 1980s and 1990s. He was a regular commentator on international affairs and was passionate about few issues, which he highlighted regularly through his writings.
The volume has been edited by Harsh Pant. Its divided into five sections: (i) Non-alignment and its discontents; (ii) India in the Indo-Pacific; (iii) The Tibet conundrum; (iv) India and West Asia; and (v) The Global Order: The United Nations and Nuclear Weapons. Pant has tried to weave together Professor Sondhi’s ideas in a useful ‘Introduction’. Most of the articles in the volume are commentaries. Reading through the articles one gets the impression that probably no one from the right has been able to critique India’s foreign policy the way Professor Sondhi was able to do so.
The foundations of India’s foreign policy were laid during the freedom movement. The principles of India’s foreign policy, that emerged then, have stood the test of time: a belief in friendly relations with all countries of the world, the resolution of conflicts by peaceful means, the sovereign equality of all states, independence of thought and action as manifested in the principles of non-alignment, and equity in the conduct of international relations. Some of these principles are being revised in the post-Cold War period. Since then the foreign policy goals of the country across regimes have been to promote multi-polarity in international relations and is against hegemonism of any kind. India seeks multi-dimensional engagement with a multi-polar world and charts an independent course in its foreign policy by not joining with any major power.
The Nehruvian worldview, which emerged during the struggle against colonialism and the Cold War years, wanted to keep India out of global power politics and strengthen the country internally. On this commitment, it was important for the country to pursue an independent foreign policy based on non-alignment. Professor Sondhi’s thinking on foreign policy comes from a different worldview. It was based on promoting national interest largely through the instruments of power. Therefore, he had alternative opinions on the basic foundations of Indian foreign policy, such as non-alignment, strategic autonomy, relations with the big powers, specifically China, and on the issue of Tibet. His point of view was that the aim of Indian foreign policy should not have been to seek ‘good and friendly relations’. The aim should have been to seek the best possible relations which are consistent with a country’s national interest.
He was one of the early critics of India’s non-alignment policy. According to him, it has hindered India in achieving global influence and ‘prevented India from anticipating future hostile attitudes’. Non-alignment has not helped against the challenges that emanate from two aggressor states—communist China and Pakistan. It did not help during the 1962 war. Because of non-alignment, India has lacked the ability to understand the objectives of the enemy. It has resulted in depriving India of flexibility in the choice of means in a rapidly changing world. The post-Cold War challenges cannot be solved by the mantra of non-alignment and Third World solidarity. In fact, he foresaw the decline of the non-alignment movement and argued that dismantling non-alignment might be politically expedient.
This fitted in well with his views on India’s goals on strategic autonomy. He was against strategic autonomy and argued that national security can be safeguarded only through coherent linkages with major world actors and not through constrained strategic autonomy. He wanted India to build linkages with the USA, Japan and Israel. There is an assumption in his thinking that if India wanted to create an alliance with the USA, it would have happened. Looking at the geo-political scenario of the 1970s and the 1980s, this was hardly a possibility. His position cannot explain whether India would have been able to cut Pakistan in half during 1971 and conduct the so-called peaceful nuclear explosions in 1974 if it were not for its strategic autonomy. Nehru’s policies followed by Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi helped India in the thick of the Cold War to remain impervious to pressures from outside. India remained more independent of Western pressures compared to other countries. Professor Sondhi was also in favour of strong Indo-Japanese relations but does not discuss why a strategic relationship with Japan was not possible during the Cold War years.
Despite recognising the geopolitical shifts as a consequence of the 1971 war, he still argued that Indian policymakers failed to capitalise on the collapse of Pakistan in 1971 and build a new regional order in Asia. In his understanding, the liberation of East Pakistan should have been followed up with an Indian challenge to Chinese power political interests in Tibet. He writes ‘Bangladesh and Tibet would have served as the two foundation stones of a democratic and resurgent order and made a dent in the ideological structures of both Islamic and communist fundamentalisms’. Indira Gandhi failed to take advantage of the post-1971 geopolitical situation. India did not utilise the opportunity to actively project self-determination within Pakistan. He believed that India should have supported the Pakhtunistan freedom movement as well. Instead, India had been defensive against the propaganda offensive of Pakistan. However, the value of coercive diplomacy against Pakistan was provided a context only during and after Operation Parakram. According to him, the military mobilisation since December 2001 showed that controlled military escalation is sometimes necessary to induce external attention to one’s interest. There is no such thing as deft diplomacy unless it has the backing of punishment. The Indian leadership should build on the success of coercive diplomacy.
He saw all relationships in terms of a geo-strategic balance of power. However, it was with regard to China that Professor Sondhi’s writings display certain clarity. Describing China as ‘a belligerent expansionist power that will not hesitate to use any means at its disposal to threaten its enemies, especially those in its immediate neighbourhood’ he argued that Chinese policy of military and territorial expansionism remains unchanged. China’s ultimate ambition is to become a regional power and eventually a superpower. At a time when US power seems to be ebbing, the Chinese are gearing themselves up to fill whatever vacuum may occur in Asia.
According to him, to negotiate with China from a position of strength, India can play the Tibet card—support the legitimate rights of the Tibetan people and press China to accept the Dalai Lama’s proposal to make Tibet ‘a self-governing democratic entity’. The Tibet cause was very close to his heart. He was scathing in his criticism of India’s Tibet policy suggesting that ‘outright appeasement and sacrificing the interest of the Tibetan people have not brought peace and tranquillity to the Himalayas for the last 30 years or so. India’s conciliatory attitude has made China more aggressive and demanding’. India is entitled to withdraw her recognition of Chinese sovereignty over Tibet, for this recognition was conditional on China’s respect for Tibetan autonomy and adherence to the assurances given to the Government of India. India should not only recognise the Tibetan government-in-exile but he also discusses a strategy in six points to free Tibet from ‘Chinese overlordship’.
His views on China seem to have changed after 1988. According to him India must adopt a flexible attitude and carry on with the promotion of Indo-Chinese relations. However, a rapprochement with China does not mean surrender on matters, which have a direct bearing on the country’s long-term interests and security. He still argued that India stands to gain if Tibet was restored to its earlier status of a buffer state. Even in 1991, he writes ‘Chinese imperialism cannot be maintained in the context of a new world order. In the multi-polar international system of the 1990s, the world community can secure the withdrawal of Chinese military power from Tibet and restore the independent status which existed in Lhasa before the PLA moved in’. He had immense faith in a free Tibet and even in 1992 he believed that ‘a free Tibet (will) rejoin the comity of nations’.
Professor Sondhi was one of the earliest thinkers to call for a reassessment of India’s West Asia policy. All throughout, he had been advocating strong Indo-Israeli relations. He saw this relationship also clearly in terms of a geo-strategic balance of power—growing apprehension of a future Chinese challenge to US primacy and India as a regional counter-weight to Chinese domination— welcomed by the USA. A powerful progressive India, bolstered by Israeli techno-logical expertise is a prospect that should suit American goals. A trilateral Indo-American-Israeli tie should be beneficial to all sides. But India has been confronted with this problem of how to change its policy towards Israel without offending the Arabs? There is recognition that India needs a coherent and efficient policy against International terrorism and Israel is in a unique position to share its intellectual and institutional strength for dealing with this challenge. India accorded full diplomatic relations to Israel in 1992 much after the Camp David accords signed in 1978. As India improves its relationship with Israel, the problem in this relationship will be Israel’s approach to Palestine—a cause India cannot completely abandon.
Writing in 1997, Professor Sondhi stresses the need for a new vision by rebuilding foreign policy not for aggrandisement but for a global leadership role for India in which it shares in international power and decision-making responsibilities. From such a perspective, it is an entirely legitimate aim for India to initiate policy ideas and proposals from Asia as an equal partner with China and Japan, not through the non-aligned rhetoric but through coalition-building. Rather, what would probably be far more important in the emergence of a new confident nation prepared for the twenty-first century is the continuation of the rapid economic growth since the 1990s that has transformed India’s economy to a level which has put the country in the company of the emerging economies, and not simply coalition-building. Geopolitically, the challenge now is to find the difficult balance between the pursuit of national interest like any other nation-state and a commitment to the ideal of a world governed by democratic values and institutions.
This is a very important volume, which gives an alternative perspective on Indian foreign policy and challenges some of the core principles. Many of Professor Sondhi’s arguments articulated in the context of the Cold War are becoming increasingly relevant in the post-Cold War period. Sometimes it becomes difficult to follow the evolution in his thinking as in few of the articles the date and source of publication is unknown. It is also inevitable in the nature of this compilation that the same arguments are repeated a number of times. The volume would also have been immensely useful for scholars and researchers if the publishers would have also included an index at the end.