The last line is the key message of this piece.Don't overdo
The trilateral with Russia and China could boomerang on India.
16 February 2007: If you take away the spin, it would appear that the trilateral meeting of the foreign ministers of India, China and Russia was organized in Delhi two days ago so that all the three countries could talk to the United States through one another. The meeting had an eerie similarity with the US-led six-party talks to denuke North Korea that has proved partly successful. Because the US wouldn't talk to North Korea directly, their bilateral had to be upgraded by including four other parties, with China hosting it. While India, China and certainly Russia can and do engage the US, they have perhaps begun to feel a need to use one another to get their own way with America. As to its success, if such is the strategy, it depends from player to player.
Amid the Kosovo Conflict (December 1998), the then Russian prime minister, Yevgeny Primakov, sought the creation of a "strategic triangle" among Russia, India and China. While the Russians and Chinese alternated in pushing the idea with India and between themselves, the Balkans war being the impeller, it made little headway. Russia and China usually blame India for the slow progress. With China, India had no reason to pact in view of the 1962 aggression and because China condemned the May 1998 Indian nuclear test. In letters to the G-8, the PM then, A.B.Vajpayee, identified security threats from China and Pakistan to justify the test. One of the letters was leaked to The New York Times which further enraged China. China more than the rest of P-5 demanded that India roll back its weapons' programme. China remains India's strategic rival. It aims to contain India in South Asia as it succeeded along with the United States and Pakistan during the Cold War. China's "string of pearls" strategy has a general aim to dominate the Indian Ocean and a particular one to contain India. The Indian Ocean is India's lifeline.
India was consternated by the Chinese president, Hu Jintao's recent Africa tour which significantly ended in the strategically vital Indian Ocean island of Seychelles. So alarmed was the US, too, that it dispatched its Mauritius ambassador and a Africa-based naval task force commander to warn off Seychelles' Left-leaning president from giving basing commitments to the Chinese president. To reinforce the point against any contemplated Chinese hegemony in Africa and its Indian Ocean littoral and hinterland states, the US speedily created a combatant command called AFRICOM to be based in the continent and operating from 2008. Apart from overlapping interests in protecting free trade and the sea-lanes in the Indian Ocean, India and the US have also signed a defence framework pact and a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement which may acquire treaty status in months. The second would give India access to civilian nuclear energy and technology in a special, one-off exemption from provisions of US laws, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) guidelines. China opposes the deal without being explicit. It wants it replicated with Pakistan. Besides with China, there is the unresolved border dispute. In November last, when Hu Jintao visited India, the Chinese ambassador provocatively laid claims on Arunachal Pradesh. It effectively destroyed the visit.
For the Indian and Chinese foreign ministers to meet in a trilateral format so soon after cold-to-hostile bilateral engagements, there must have to be an external dimension. It is the United States. While India must partner with the US for all round political, economic and military growth, it also reflexively seeks "strategic autonomy". US policies in the Middle East create instabilities in the Indian neighbourhood. They affect the lives of three-and-a-half million Indians working in the Gulf and India's energy security. At the same time as India opposes Iran's weapons' programme, it also seeks a negotiated settlement of the Iranian crisis, preferably within the structure of the IAEA. It sees some value in engaging with China and Russia on Iran because they have made huge investments in that country and don't want a repetition of the Iraq disaster. But India fully understands the danger and limits of intervention in Iran and won't overplay its hand angering the US. There was no mention of Iran in the India-Russia-China joint statement on 14 February. But there is one more impulse for India to flirt trilaterally. This is to pressure the US on the nuke deal that has conditions unacceptable to the Indian political establishment. Russia and China are also key NSG members and India might hope that a trilateral would soften China on the civilian nuclear agreement. Plus, in a trilateral that does not embed in an alliance, deniability is built in and may even be the norm, while accountability is zero.
Bilateral differences don't inform Indo-Russian relations as they bedevil India-China ties. While their closeness during the Cold War hurt India more than the Soviet Union even accounting for Bangladesh's liberation, their present proximity does not antagonize the US, except in dual use trade, safeguarded by international regimes, of which the NSG guidelines is one. For the India-Russia relationship to become controversial, a third power like China fits, which was Primakov's original intent. The US played off China against the Soviet Union during the Cold War (the historic Nixon-Mao conversations of February 1972, for example), and Russia sees compelling reasons to reverse that process now.
At the 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy (9-11 February), where the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, attacked US unipolarity and Nato's eastward expansion, he gave a clue about the emerging importance of the India-China-Russia "strategic triangle". He said that the combined GDP of India and China on purchasing power parity (which may be misleading) was bigger than the US's, while the BRIC states, Brazil, Russia, India and China, had a combined GDP larger than of the EU. Putin said, "There is no doubt that in the foreseeable future, the economic potential of these new centres of power will inevitably get converted into political clout and will strengthen multipolarity."
Russia's rise founded on its energy exports to the EU and to states that broke away from the Soviet Union has alarmed the United States and parts of East Europe once yoked to the Warsaw Pact, now called "New Europe". "Old Europe" sans the UK comprising Germany, France, Belgium and so forth that opposed the Iraq War and US "unilateralism" resonate with Putin when he condemns American unipolarity. Putin is using this difference and the energy lever to prise away Old Europe from the US, in effect creating divisions in Nato and weakening it. The US, which attacks Russia for its "use of energy as a foreign policy weapon", is encouraging Nato's expansion to Russia's borders and deploying missile defense systems there. Putin, in turn, threatens a Cold War-like arms race to penetrate US missile defenses for more nuclear overkill.
But perhaps finding himself still weak to take on the US alone, he is trying to split Europe and simultaneously push the trilateral with India and China. Post his 26 January Delhi summit with Manmohan Singh, Putin was tantalizingly vague about the trilateral. "The prime minister and I discussed trilateral cooperation today," he said. "We did not discuss the matter in detail, but we noted that it is an interesting and useful format." Between then and Munich, he hardened his stand. One intervening development may have spurred the process. Arguing for massive budget outlays for fiscal 2008 before the House Armed Services Committee on 7 February, the new US secretary of state, Robert Gates, among other things, pointed to "the uncertain paths of Russia and China, which are both pursuing sophisticated military modernization programs…."
Like Russia, China's discomfiture/ anger with the US dates back to the Kosovo War, when its embassy was bombed (May 1999), perhaps deliberately. But barring flashes of rage at particular incidents (repeated when a US EP-3 Aries collided with a Chinese F-8, killing the fighter's pilot, April 2001), it has not launched into tirades at leadership level like Putin. Yet, it is one with Russia against perceived US "unilateralism". Recently, its ASAT test brought fresh pressure from the US to bring transparency to its military, and US allies in the region condemned it. Solely Russia defended it, referring to its own earlier test and the US's. Hu's Africa visit and China's Indian Ocean ambitions were directly challenged by the US decision to create AFRICOM. On North Korea, the US views China suspiciously, although it encouraged it to host the six-party talks. China's manufacturing "miracle", the subject of furious US congressional and academic debates, is also becoming a spoiler, partly because China won't appreciate the Yuan concurrent to high growth for more than a decade.
And for US defence secretary Gates, China's ASAT test remains a red rag. In the same defence budget request of 7 February, Gates said, "I think that the Chinese ASAT test is very troubling. And perhaps what is as troubling as the technological achievement is how one interprets it as part of their strategic, their own strategic outlook, and how they would anticipate using that kind of capability in the event of a conflict and the consequences for us of that."
So with the US, as it were, both Russia and China find themselves in the frontlines. Since India has emerged convincingly as a power balancer since Primakov made his "strategic triangle" argument – he may have made it on the basis of the May 1998 Pokharan II test – it finds itself frenetically wooed from all sides. While the US, fearing no immediate strategic competition from India, welcomes its alliance, India's perennial quest for "strategic autonomy" prevents a very close relationship. Seeing itself in demand, it perceives value in using the trilateral format to extract concessions from the US. But all three parties have endlessly repeated that their coming together is not targeted against a third power, meaning the US. However the US reacts to this, at least India should be clear that this gives it limited advantage. It is uniquely placed to enjoy the fruits of good relations with both the United States and Russia. Why would it want to damage this by aligning with a third party which is its proven enemy? Nehru's "friendship" with Chou En-Lai and the consequences for Nehru and India should not repeat.
Written by N.V.Subramanian, Editor, Newsinsight.net
Must watch for Jingos.Explaining the Transformation of India's Foreign Policy
Speaker : Sumit Ganguly, Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations, Indiana University
Date: November 28, 2006
Length: 80 minutes
Event Series: Dean's Office Presents
Description: On November 28, the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs hosted Sumit Ganguly, the Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations at Indiana University in Bloomington. Dr. Ganguly discussed the post-Cold War transformation of India's approach to foreign policy.
Dr. Ganguly is the author, editor or co-editor of a dozen books on South Asia. His most recent books are Fearful Symmetry: India and Pakistan Under the Shadow of Nuclear Weapons (co-authored with Devin Hagerty) and More Than Words: U.S.-India Strategic Cooperation Into the Twenty-First Century (co-edited with Brian Shoup and Andrew Scobell). He is currently at work on a book, India Since 1980.
Introduction by LBJ School Dean James B. Steinberg.
Topics Covered:
Cold War, Non- Alignment, Fall of the Soviet Union, Indian Insecurity, China [1971], Patch-up with US, US - India Partneship and Prospects, India on UNSC [Required Quid pro Quo's wrt. USA ], Iran, Sonia Gandhi's quest for PM'giri, BJP [as usual.. ], P.V. Narasimha Raoji, Gujarat Riots, MMSand his Paki Adventure. + Q/A
Thankfully, this "diplomat" was passed over for the post of Foreign Secretary. He could have been a serious embarrassment.Objectively, too, the US remains very important to each of the three countries, and the foreign ministers cannot be faulted for their caution. At the same time, President Vladmir Putin's extremely significant, blunt address at the Munich security conference earlier this month, China ASAT test, and India's conscious efforts to reach out to Iran and Myanmar are signals to the US that all three countries intend to follow an independent foreign policy that serves their respective national interests.
…
Another exciting and potentially very significant area of cooperation is high technology. If the three countries pool their assets and synergise their strengths, they could emerge as an alternative nucleus for development of futuristic technologies, and break the current technological dominance of the West. Information technology and biotechnology have already been identified as areas meriting special attention.
Touche. He was indeed seriously embarrassing at a lecture he addressed abroad. A pet theory is to route Russia's oil and gas reserves through China over the Himalayas into India to realise this grand entente.Sri K wrote:Proof that the Foreign Policy Establishment in India have way too many Russia-rakshak and Cheen-rakshaks:
Are leaders of India, China and Russia ready for a radical breakthrough?Thankfully, this "diplomat" was passed over for the post of Foreign Secretary. He could have been a serious embarrassment.Objectively, too, the US remains very important to each of the three countries, and the foreign ministers cannot be faulted for their caution. At the same time, President Vladmir Putin's extremely significant, blunt address at the Munich security conference earlier this month, China ASAT test, and India's conscious efforts to reach out to Iran and Myanmar are signals to the US that all three countries intend to follow an independent foreign policy that serves their respective national interests.
…
Another exciting and potentially very significant area of cooperation is high technology. If the three countries pool their assets and synergise their strengths, they could emerge as an alternative nucleus for development of futuristic technologies, and break the current technological dominance of the West. Information technology and biotechnology have already been identified as areas meriting special attention.
Ramanji:ramana wrote:There is a spate of articles about the tripatriate coming together of Russia, China and India. So there is some anxiety about what it means among the chatterati. So I suggest people read the op-eds and come to conclusions.
The govt circles seem to want some sort of grouping to happen after all its three of the BRIC. The nationalists want to use the non alignment card. Last time this happned the LSe types ensured that India did not particpate in any grouping. That was a must for the West. Recall K.M. Pannicker's dictum that there are four nations that can dominate the world- USA, Russia, China and India. All others are allies of these.
So need to see all this in context.
Partly true.ramana wrote:There was concerted effort by the post Independence generation to woo China to be on India's side but Mao had different plans. In the end its his loss for this China is not what he struggled for and imposed such drastic measures on the population.
Chiang Kai-shek’s visit to India (February, 1942)
23
It was by no means accidental that, more than two years after Nehru’s trip to
China, Chiang Kai-shek chose the early stages of 1942 to repay the Indian
leader’s visit. A few weeks earlier, in fact, Nehru had been released after his
lengthy prison sentence; moreover, some months before, in mid 1941,
Germany had attacked the Soviet Union, and then in late 1941 the japanese
attacked Pearl Harbour and quickly overran large parts of Southeast Asia. In
January 1942, after the fall of Manila, the Japanese offensive had already
reached Malacca, Sumatra, Borneo and above all Burma, signifying a greater
threat to India.
Faced with this threat, China was extremely worried about the profound
rift within the Congress (in particular between Nehru and Gandhi) as well as
the continuing deadlock in the talks between London and the Congress.
The main aim of the official visit by Chiang, his wife and the Chinese
delegation was on the one hand to put pressure on the British so that they
would accept the Congress’s requests for self-determination, thus creating the
best conditions for a full use of India in the anti-Japanese and anti-fascist war
with beneficial effects on the war effort being undertaken by China in that
period. On the other, Chiang aimed to have a moderating effect on the more
radical positions within the Congress, thus, in the final analysis, appeasing
British hopes and at the same time demonstrating to the international
community his own prowess as leader and statesman.
Chiang Kai-shek thus received assurances from the Viceroy that he would
indeed be able to meet his friend Nehru, even though his project to finally
meet Gandhi was more difficult to realise. Chiang, in fact, had insistently
asked, for reasons of etiquette and courtesy, to be allowed to go personally to
Sevagram, near Wardha, where the Mahatma Gandhi resided, but he had
run into strong resistance from the British authorities. Only a courteous yet
firm message written by Churchill himself, which underlined the
importance of avoiding any possible friction between the different parties in
question during such a delicate phase, finally convinced the Chinese leader to
abandon his plans.
Chiang finally met Gandhi in Calcutta on February 18th. The five or so
hours of their meeting underlined, as was also made clear by the two men
themselves, substantial political differences.
23
The part which follows is largely based on the following sources: Crozier, 1976; Furuya, 1981; Huang,
1995-96; India Office Records….; Jiang zongtong milu, 1978-; Proceedings of Conference on Chiang Kai-
shek and Modern China, vol. IV, 1987; The Collected Wartime Messages…, 1969; Wu, 1987; Zhonghua
Minguo waijiao shi cidian, 1996
Page 18
14
Gandhi illustrated his own strategy based on non-violence and non-co-
operation, and Chiang Kai-shek underlined that this strategy was certainly
appropriate within the Indian context, but not necessarily that of other
countries. Chiang got the impression that Gandhi was too absorbed by the
cause for his own country to have a sufficiently realistic vision of the
international situation.
In his turn, a few days after the meeting, Gandhi wrote to Vallabhai Patel
24
a short but very meaningful message about his impression on Chiang Kai-
shek. He wrote
25
:
I would not say that I learnt anything, and there was nothing that
we could teach him.
The meeting with Nehru, however, was much more politically productive.
It reinforced in both leaders the conviction that only close co-operation would
allow the two countries to play a significant and autonomous role in those
years and in the post-War period that was to follow.
In a series of interviews and declarations made to the Indian and British
press in the days following his meeting with Chiang Kai-shek and his wife
(February 10th), Nehru often emphasised the great importance of the
Chinese leader’s visit in terms of the friendship and co-operation between the
two countries. At the same time, however, he was determined to reject any
interpretation according to which the visit might lead to a radical change in
the Congress’s policy towards Great Britain. As for Chiang, it seems
significant that during the last day of his stay in India (February 21st) he
wanted, in his “Message to the Indian Peopleâ€
No, some Indians fantasized bringing China to India's side, and some Indians still do. This fantasy arose from a combination of wishful thinking, fundamental misunderstanding about China, and of course, and ideological aversion to the West.ramana wrote:There was concerted effort by the post Independence generation to woo China to be on India's side but Mao had different plans. In the end its his loss for this China is not what he struggled for and imposed such drastic measures on the population.
Ramanaji:ramana wrote: Anyway to have negative relations with a neighbor who is running top speed into others control is not in India's interest.
I think this is the post-Independence construct. The reality is that Nehru articulated the world view of the Indian freedom movement. Many writings by leaders of that period are similar. however soon after independence most of them died or whithered and Nehru alone prevailed and ipso facto the view got stuck to his name.Sri K wrote: Because of Nehru's unique stature in post-independence India, India's foreign policy was entirely determined by one person's whim. Now, there are many voices emerging, not all with a worshipful attitude toward Nehru's legacy. This is a development we should all welcome.
Well, I think at least Sardar Patel and Rajai would have disagreed with Nehru's view, so I don't think Nehu represented a consensus view. But Nehru's view prevailed, because of his unchallenged stature, and because Patel died and Rajaji moved away from Congress soon after independence. And Nehru's view survived his death, because of the dynastic rule, and the sycophantic nature of Congress politics.ramana wrote: I think this is the post-Independence construct. The reality is that Nehru articulated the world view of the Indian freedom movement. Many writings by leaders of that period are similar. however soon after independence most of them died or whithered and Nehru alone prevailed and ipso facto the view got stuck to his name.
As for the highlighted sentence, is the e-mail in your profile your real one?
Ramana is talking of the world view of the nationalist freedom fighters of Nehru's era. They had similar world view including Sardar etc.Sri K wrote:Well, I think at least Sardar Patel and Rajai would have disagreed with Nehru's view, so I don't think Nehu represented a consensus view. But Nehru's view prevailed,ramana wrote: I think this is the post-Independence construct. The reality is that Nehru articulated the world view of the Indian freedom movement.
I think its fair to say that Patel like Nehru wanted India to have an independent foreign policy guided by Indian interests.Sri K wrote:did the Sardar share Nehru's world view or not?
They disagreed with his policy of engagement and his policy for international relationskshirin wrote: Nope. Many in Nehru's generation disagreed with him.
“Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people.â€
Retired MEA folks will populate clubs in dilli or settle in some cushy pad abroad.During the late 50s, a large number of area studies centers were setup in Indian universities so that India can develop its own experts. I know one center was at SV uty in Tirupati on SE Asia. Where are the centers and what is their product? Do they graduate any PHDs or only MAs? I know MEA relies on its own experts and shuns everyone else. At least retired MEA folks can populate these centers and increase awareness in the public.
I agree. Congressmen of that generation in politics (closer to Patel and therefore sidelined immediately after Independence) actually used to tell me where precisely they disagreed with Nehru's policies -- and the critique went along the lines of Johann's post. The costs in terms of development has been quantified by economic experts.Johann wrote:I think its fair to say that Patel like Nehru wanted India to have an independent foreign policy guided by Indian interests.Sri K wrote:did the Sardar share Nehru's world view or not?
On the other hand everything I have read and heard suggests that Sardar Patel had quite a different view of what those interest were given the differences in their views over economics and the realities of international relations.
Nehru was Gandhi's choice, and Gandhi also extracted a promise from Patel that he would not challenge Nehru. Besides which Patel didnt live long after independence, unfortunately. ...
One area which would have been different was Nehru's indifference to export driven growth, something Patel with his experience in private industry would have valued. The result would have been a much larger Indian private sector with decades of experience competing in international markets.
...I think under Patel India's foreign policy would have looked a lot like foreign policy under Narasimha Rao or Vajpayee.
Absolutely true. I know that there is a lot of praise here on the forum for PVN's policies. But IMO, he was a realist. He had no other option given the state of India's foreign exchange reserves. But then other than Nehru and to some extent IG, the rest of India's leaders have been realists at least in terms of foreign policy as well as economic policy. The biggest factor supporting your "gun to the head" proposition is the backpedalling in reforms that occurred as soon as the immediate BOP crisis had passed in the mid to late 1990s. The second phase of reforms began occuring only when the Indian political establishment realized that China via its own economic policies was opening up such a vast lead in its *total strength* index over India, that India had no other option but to gets its act together if it did not want to become part of pax China. In that sense, Indian policies though grounded in realism have always been reactive.ShauryaT wrote:What PVN may have done without a gun on his head (the BOP crisis) and a breakdown of the USSR is anyone's guess?
Where were his other options or models? Cuba?
Lot of people who have only little knowledge about Sardar and others leaders are posting in this thread. The generation which was part of the nationalist independence movement had similar experience during the freedom movement. After independence they had to face a world which was going through tremendous changes with communism consuming the entire world.kshirin wrote:
I agree. Congressmen of that generation in politics (closer to Patel and therefore sidelined immediately after Independence) actually used to tell me where precisely they disagreed with Nehru's policies -- and the critique went along the lines of Johann's post. The costs in terms of development has been quantified by economic experts.
In foreign policy, the influence of the Brits over the US also played a role in alienating the US and India from each other.
The BOP crisis of India took shape in March 91. Tightened further by April 1991. By June, when the PVN government came in - PVN had no choice but to act on the issue. So the BOP issues were well known by the time PVN was sworn. MMS was appointed in the new government and in July MMS gave his budget speech. The USSR was well on its way to disintegration in the summer of 1991 and by August the situation in the USSR unraveled completely.ramana wrote:PVN was the person in charge of the 'think tank' in INC before the elections in 1991. One of the things they recommended was economic reforms. They did not know the extent of the emptyness in the Treasury at that time. When he took charge as PM there was no alternative to implementing the reforms. The IMF & BOP issue were another filip to the effort. Breakdown of FSU happened after the reforms were announced. Its impact was on Foreign Policy and not economic reforms which were underway.
After the bye election poll results which showed disenchantment with the reforms they had to stall them. That is the reality.
There is some inside information. Lot of the policies where written before in 1989 and before.ShauryaT wrote:
The BOP crisis of India took shape in March 91. Tightened further by April 1991. By June, when the PVN government came in - PVN had no choice but to act on the issue. So the BOP issues were well known by the time PVN was sworn. MMS was appointed in the new government and in July MMS gave his budget speech. The USSR was well on its way to disintegration in the summer of 1991 and by August the situation in the USSR unraveled completely.
So, if PVN was recommending reforms - then NONE of these policies were ever reflected in the congress manifesto of 1991. At best, it may have been reforms by stealth, which were being done on an ad hoc basis since 1985 and not the structured reforms, initiated as a result of the BoP crisis.
What is known is that PVN was on his way to retirement in 1991. His stints in the previous Congress governments were in the FP areas and not economy.
Was it disenchantment or just the anti-incumbency factor? If good policies produce adverse electoral reaction then no politician will touch those. The first phase of reforms in early 90s, which were indeed concptulaised earlier, were good but did not seem to tackle any of the core issues and hardly impacted on the population. Growth probably faltered due to failure to push through bolder reforms (plus reservation policies, Pay Commission report etc.). Some of these were tackled under the BJP (first push towards privatisation -BALCO, which ran the full gauntlet of scruitny - telecom reforms) but very few of Nextgen reforms were contemplated until now, when the need to match the blistering growth with infrastructure provision is finally yielding results. There was a good article on this by SA Aiyar which I posted earlierramana wrote:PVN was the person in charge of the 'think tank' in INC before the elections in 1991. One of the things they recommended was economic reforms. They did not know the extent of the emptyness in the Treasury at that time. When he took charge as PM there was no alternative to implementing the reforms. The IMF & BOP issue were another filip to the effort. Breakdown of FSU happened after the reforms were announced. Its impact was on Foreign Policy and not economic reforms which were underway.
After the bye election poll results which showed disenchantment with the reforms they had to stall them. That is the reality.
This newspaper's 'India Poised' campaign has touched a chord. Observers speak of India's geo-strategic advantages, its economic dynamism and record growth, political stability, proven military capabilities, its nuclear, space and missile programmes, the entrepreneurial energy of our people and the country's growing pool of young and skilled manpower as assuring India's future.
But the greatest asset of all may be something less tangibly measurable — our soft power. The term 'soft power' is all the rage today. It was coined by Harvard's Joseph Nye to describe a country's ability to alter the behaviour of others through attraction rather than sticks or carrots.
Hard power is necessary but has its limitations: Afghanistan and Vietnam have taught us that the side with the larger army doesn't always win. But the side with the better story, the more attractive culture, and more numerous channels of communication, always does better than the one which only has guns.
This is hardly news. When France lost the war of 1870 to Prussia, one of its most important steps to rebuild the nation's shattered morale and enhance its prestige was to create the Alliance Francaise to promote French language and literature throughout the world. French culture has remained a major selling-point for French diplomacy ever since.
The UK has the British Council, the Swiss have Pro Helvetia, and Germany, Spain, Italy and Portugal have, respectively, institutes named for Goethe, Cervantes, Dante Alighieri and Gulbenkian. Today, China has started establishing 'Confucius Institutes' to promote Chinese culture internationally.
But soft power does not rely merely on governmental action: for the US, Hollywood and MTV have done more to promote the idea of America as a desirable and admirable society than the Voice of America or the Fulbright scholarships. "Soft power," Nye says, "is created partly by governments and partly in spite of them."
What does this mean for India? It means giving attention, encouragement and active support to the aspects and products of our society that the world would find attractive — not in order directly to persuade others to support India, but rather to enhance our country's intangible standing in their eyes.
Bollywood is already doing this by bringing its brand of glitzy entertainment not just to the Indian diaspora in the US or UK but to the screens of Syrians and Senegalese — who may not understand the Hindi dialogue but catch the spirit of the films, and look at India with stars in their eyes as a result.
(An Indian diplomat friend in Damascus a few years ago told me that the only publicly-displayed portraits that were as big as those of then-President Hafez al-Assad were those of Amitabh Bachchan.) Indian art, classical music and dance, Indian fashions, have the same effect.
Indian cuisine, spreading around the world, raises our culture higher in people's reckoning; the way to foreigners' hearts is through their palates. In England today, Indian curry houses employ more people than the iron and steel, coal and shipbuilding industries combined.
When Indian filmmakers or sportspeople succeed internationally or when Indian writers win the Booker or Pulitzer Prizes, our country's soft power is enhanced. (Ask yourself how many Chinese novelists the typical literate American reader can name. Indeed, how many non-Western countries can claim a presence in the Occidental mind comparable to India's?)
And when Americans speak of the IITs with the same reverence they used to accord to MIT or Caltech, and the Indianness of engineers and software developers is taken as synonymous with mathematical and scientific excellence, it is India that gains in respect. The stereotyped image of the Indian is no longer the 'half-naked fakir' but the computer geek.
In the information age, as a society with a free press and a thriving mass media, with a people whose creative energies are daily encouraged to express themselves in a variety of appealing ways, India has an extraordinary ability to tell stories that are more persuasive and attractive than those of its rivals.
This is not about propaganda; indeed, it will not work if it is directed from above, least of all by government. But its impact, though intangible, can be huge.
To take one example: Afghanistan is clearly a crucial country for our national security. But the most interesting asset for India in Afghanistan doesn't come out of our diplomacy, but from one simple fact: Don't try to telephone an Afghan at 8:30 in the evening.
That's when the Indian TV soap opera Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, dubbed into Dari, is telecast on Tolo TV, and no one wishes to miss it. It's the most popular television show in Afghan history, considered directly responsible for a spike in the sale of generator sets and even for absences from religious functions which clash with its broadcast times.
Saas has so thoroughly captured the public imagination in Afghanistan that, in this deeply conservative Islamic country where family problems are usually hidden behind the veil, it's an Indian TV show that has come to dominate society's discussion of family issues.
I have read reports of wedding banquets being interrupted so that the guests could huddle around the television for half-an-hour, and even of an increase in crime at 8:30 pm because watchmen are sneaking a look at the TV rather than minding the store.
One Reuters dispatch recounted how robbers in Mazar-i-Sharif stripped a vehicle of its wheels and mirrors recently during the telecast time and wrote on the car, in an allusion to the show's heroine, Tulsi Zindabad. That's soft power, and India does not have to thank the government or charge the taxpayer for its exercise. Instead, Indians too can simply say, Tulsi Zindabad.
I hope this is funded by non governmental funds. There are many SI businesses that deal in China trade.Chennai Centre for China Studies
Almost every university in the US has a Centre for China Studies. That country has also dozens of other institutions established by various groups of scholars and academics for the same purpose. The reason is obvious: China has already acquired the status of a counterpoise to the US and, probably, the only possible global power capable of challenging its hegemony in the near future. China has come to have a hypnotic hold over other countries too, in view of its economic performance, its Defence and military capabilities, the rapid advances it is making in science and technology as well as in research and development, and its determined diplomatic offensives in Africa, Central Asian States and elsewhere.
The number of China-centric think-tanks may not be that large in Europe, the UK and Japan, but their contribution to the corpus of knowledge on China is still considerable.
In India, the Institute of Chinese Studies, located in the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, the China Centre of the Institute of Asian Studies Institute set up by the Observer Research Foundation, the Centre for East Asian Studies under the auspices of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, and the South Asia Analysis Group are notable for keeping interest alive in this field with seminars and publications.
Their first drawback is that they are Delhi-based. This is not something special to centres devoted to studies on China: Other types of scholarly and academic pursuits too have tended to gravitate to Delhi, bypassing other parts of India, especially the South.
The institutes undertaking China studies in India are also small in number, their activities being largely confined to circles close and familiar to them in and around the nation's Capital. This has had the effect of lessening their impact on intellectuals and opinion-makers in the rest of the country and their ability to press into service the immense talents and expertise available outside of Delhi and adjoining States.
To an extent, thereby, their capacity to generate awareness in, and disseminate information and knowledge on, events and issues pertaining to India-China relations as also China per se in the whole of India, has been compromised.
Welcome initiative
In this background, one cannot but welcome the recent initiative to establish a Centre for China Studies in Chennai. It is the brainchild of Mr D. S. Rajan, formerly a Director in the Cabinet Secretariat, a specialist on China with command of the Chinese and Japanese languages, who has served in Beijing, Tokyo and Hong Kong and watched and written about developments in China and South-East Asian countries for more than three decades.
Since renowned academics and eminent former policy-makers in government are associated with the move, it starts with the advantage of being able to draw on their experience of handling national and international political, economic and security issues.
If the Chennai Centre has to carve out a niche for itself in a context in which there is no dearth of papers produced and seminars and conferences held round the world on every conceivable aspect bearing on China, it will have to stand out with a distinctive appeal of its own in terms of quality, depth of scholarship, credibility, authenticity and its penchant for original and even audacious thinking.
It should boldly go into India-China relations, particularly with reference to China's role in the nuclear build-up of Pakistan, the continuing border dispute and `hot spots' such as Tibet and Taiwan, and come up with workable solutions. It could also provide pointers to the future evolution of Chinese polity and the way it could affect the emergence of a stable and peaceable world order.
B. S. RAGHAVAN
Averell Harriman having an affair with Pamela Churchill also apparently helped the "greater war effort"..... I remember an article which goes something like this: " The President's special envoy sleeping with the Prime Minister's daughter-in-law was the best thing that could happen to the Whitehall Mandarins. This helped take some edge off Roosevelt's point that the issue of the nations subjugated by the British have to be tackled while the Allies deal with the Nazi threat".President Roosevelt was strong supporter of Indian Independence but the Americans were misled by the British. The British told the Americans that even though there were 2.7 M Indians fighting in the WWII, the overwhelming majority of them were Muslims. This misinformation was deliberately fed to the Americans. The British argued that since Gandhi and the Congress Party started the quit Indian Movement at the height of the second WW, they could not be trusted to side with the allies in the confrontation with the Soviet Union.
