March 1, 1999

Another curious case of the dog that didn't bark.

By Swapan Dasgupta

It's reassuring when Indian leaders stop doing their infuriating Uriah Heep act. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee showed the way at this month's G-15 summit at Jamaica's Montego Bay. Having waited for some 15 minutes for the concluding ceremony to begin, an exasperated Vajpayee decided to make a point about the organisers' casual attitude to punctuality. He walked out in a huff, leaving External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh to hold the fort.

To the champions of Third World symbolism, Vajpayee's impatience is heretical. It has become conventional wisdom for Indian foreign policy to continue tying itself in knots over the hoary Bandung legacy that has yielded nothing tangible. Sanctimoniousness made some sense when anti-imperialism was a lived experience and when successive prime ministers had to keep a brave face travelling the world begging bowl in hand. But self-effacement and nuclear-power status sit uncomfortably. We may not be top cat but there is no earthly reason why we should meekly subject ourselves to needless condescension.

Over the past two months, the contours of an assertive foreign policy have started unfolding. The Government established it has an independent perspective of what constitutes right and wrong by granting a visa to Salman Rushdie. The move is contentious but the flak is nothing compared to the brownie points India has won. Now, the foreign minister has even indicated his willingness to entertain a visa application from the persecuted Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen. Earlier this month, Singh also talked bluntly with British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and moved bilateral relations an inch or two away from London's special relationship with Washington.

The point to be stressed is that foreign policy is finally pursuing a defined Indian agenda. Since the Pokhran tests, the US administration has kept up sustained pressure on India to toe the line. Apart from the insistence on NPT and CTBT, there has been a torrent of gratuitous advice from Washington for Delhi to rapidly mend fences with Islamabad. It was a sensible suggestion that Americans never believed India was capable of carrying through. Therefore, when Vajpayee took up Nawaz Sharif's pre-arranged invitation to bus his way to Lahore, it was the American lobby that was stunned into incomprehension. It is, for example, bewildering that there has been few encouraging noises from the Track-II wallahs who routinely burnt candles at the Wagah border. Why is there not even a squeal from the great theological activists who were so miffed by Indian "hegemonism" after the Pokhran tests and who have lobbied the US Congress and the European Parliament to pass strictures against India?

Their silence is a bit like the dog that didn't bark. As long as Indian diplomacy was mired in effete Third Worldism and neighbourhood sabre-rattling, there was a certain predictability to life. The moment a government refined its priorities and began conducting itself in a manner befitting its nuclear status, there is deathly silence. Responsible Pakistani opinion realises it is possible to do business with an Indian Government whose nationalist credentials are impeccable. The peaceniks and do-gooders are, however, loath to subject themselves to voluntary redundancy. It puts a big question mark over who they are actually batting for. Not India certainly.

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