Whither Indian Diplomacy?

[Philip]

Quo Vadis Indian diplomacy? Appropriate lingo to ask the big Q,given the current humiliation of India and its most august Supreme Court by the Italian mafiosos.Are we as Arun J. said being "kicked around" like a football by the smallest of nations? Let's examine the situation and propose remedial measures that need to be taken.Has our diplomacy dropped from the heady himalayan heights of Indira Gandhi to the level of the gutter under Sonia Gandhi's UPA-2? We have had in the last two FMs ,Krishana and Kurshed,two utterly spineless individuals who can best be described in an immortal quite that the individual was "merely a man",and anything but mandarins.

The Maldives is now being run by an anti-Indian pro-Sino/Pak regime that is also anti-democratic.This too with India's history of squashing a Lankan Tamil coup decades ago.

Sri Lanka has done precious little on the political front to devolve powers to ethnic Tamil areas in the island delaying post -war promises to India.It is also in the economic grip of China and being used as a base for anti-Indian activities by the ISI,leave alone traditional western interference in the island's affairs with the greater gameplan of destabilising India from TNadu.

Bangladesh ,despite the current regime's goodwill towards us,prefers military buys from China.So does Burma which is allowing the Chinese increased mil. facilities even as it normalises relations with India.

China.It simply refuses to acknowledge India's existence,except when it suits it.It keeps on moving the borders in its favour and plots and plans against us,through proliferation of nuclear and missile tech to Pak.,to the extent that Pak is now planning to rasie its N-arsenal to take on the US and west!

The US refused to extradite David Headley/Gilani despite his key role in the 26/11 terror attacks,to preserve its duplicitous and despicable relationship with Pak and its ISI.Yet we reward it by buying billions of US arms at exorbitant prices.

Finally,Pakistan.The least said about our diplomacy the better.Pak thrashes India at regular intervals like a dog through its terrorism,but what do we do? Like "man's best friend" ,Man Mohan Singh,Krishna,Kurshed and the MEA, continue to lick its heels and wag their tails hoping for a bone for their good behaviour!

There are many other examples of how India is being treated like a "turd world" wench.The Q now is how should we reform our diplomacy so that we are taken seriously.

[Agnimitra]

Phillip ji, for a thread on diplomacy, we must pay attention to semantics and subtle uses of language. Based on how the English language has been trained into us wogs and dhimmis:

diplomacy = "dip low mercy"
democracy = "de mo ko raasi/raashi" (दे मो को राशि)

As you can see, while Indian English gets to be lingua franca under the current dispensation, the "vernaculars" can still live under it. (Sanskrit is, or ought to be, dead.)

[RajeshA]

Philip ji,

basically it is some henchman of some gang lord who has taken over the steering wheel of my car, taped me, gagged me, and put me in the backseat and is now driving the car recklessly, bumping my car against the poles, pavement side, other cars.

Since it is my car registered in my name, I get to keep all the blame!

So whose fault is it?

[pentaiah]

Institutions have been destroyed
I am very skeptical about true democracy ever coming back in
India

The current regime has divided the population by every possible way
Hindu vs Muslim
Caste against caste
Evanjihadis given free run
Billions of dollars siphoned off to Swiss banks
Judiciary completely corrupted
RAW CBI IB are filled with jokers
The diplomatic corps is penetrated
The armed forces dragged into corrupt deals
Have you ever heard of ex IAF chief in Scandal
Of course Navy started the tradition
With Nanda family doing the pioneering work in defense scam
Then land scams involving all wings of Forces

The list goes on and on

[Pratyush]

What Diplomacy from the UPA?

[Cosmo_R]

Indian diplomacy withered a long time ago

[RajeshA]

Indian diplomacy withered a long time ago

Like sometime around in '47 when Chittagong was awarded to Pakistan! And then we had a snowball effect! With MMS it is now an avalanche!

[SSridhar]

Absolutely. Though there were a few successes here and there (this, in spite of the foreign office including in its ranks such luminaries as MSA or MKBK.), Indian diplomacy, overall, has been a string of unmitigated disaster. There is nothing to wither afresh. I don't blame the diplomats for this, except on one or two occasions. It has been the Indian political leadership. The Know-all Nehru kept the foreign affairs to himself and acted autocratically. In the incumbent coalition, unaccountable outside elements are running the show haphazardly, with impunity and with no connect to either history or future of India. For, history of India they know not and future, they care not.

[SSridhar]

Indian diplomacy withered a long time ago

Like sometime around in '47 when Chittagong was awarded to Pakistan! And then we had a snowball effect! With MMS it is now an avalanche!

Rajesh ji, aren't you referring to Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) ?

[RajeshA]

SSridhar garu,

yes, I meant CHT. That was a Buddhist area, for which there was absolutely no rational grounds for awarding it to Pakistan. I can understand that other areas would have been controversial, but CHT was an open admission of British duplicity and collusion with Paki interests.

JLN should have put his foot down on that! When he didn't, well one knew which way the Ganga was flowing! Then came Kashmir fiasco, Tibet fiasco, 1962 fiasco, "Hindu growth rate", ....

[RajeshA]

For, history of India they know not and future, they care not.

Very true!

[ramana]

An op-ed by Rajiv Dogra in DNA:

The many trials of India

The many trials of India

Rajiv Dogra | Agency: DNA | Tuesday, March 19, 2013

There is an American saying by which “if you hit me once, shame on you. But if you hit me twice, shame on me”. The reference obviously is to the cowardice in case a person gets hit a second time. And the reason why he got hit a second time is because he did not hit back the first time.

But what would you call a person who is being hit and humiliated routinely and does nothing about it? Well, you might say that it is difficult sometimes to do anything if the bully is far stronger. So, the best thing then is to keep taking the blows till either the bully gets tired or takes pity on your condition.

What if the bully himself is weak? How would you classify a person who has the strength to hit back, in fact hit back so hard as to cripple the bully, yet chooses to bury his head in sand? What would you call a person who is hit by every passer-by yet does absolutely nothing about it?

You don’t have to think hard to identify who I am referring to. And you can’t blame the stars for the pitiable state that India presently finds itself in. Every day brings a new shame. Each new morning carries the news of a new humiliation. And we are not even talking about the big boys on the block like China and Pakistan. We are discussing pygmies here, and their recent behaviour.

Tiny Maldives looks at us in the eye one day and we are forced to ask the ex-president Nasheed to leave the premises of the Indian high commission where we had given him asylum. We might try to put a gloss over it and say that we had negotiated for his safety with the Maldivian government. But the bitter reality is that within days of that, the same Maldivian government put Nasheed in jail to show you who calls the shots. Yet, we call ourselves an aspiring global power!

Contrast our behaviour in this case with that of little Ecuador. It stood up to the UK, a far more powerful country. And close to a year later, it continues to give asylum to Assange. In contrast, we caved in within a matter of days, and Maldives happens to be one of the smallest countries in the world.

{The malady of Maldives is that INC thinks its Muslim country and that it would effect its electability if it takes a strong stance against it!}

But why just Maldives, look at the way Sri Lanka humiliates us routinely. Fifty thousand Sri Lankan Tamils, some put the figure far higher, were slaughtered during the last days of the Sri Lankan army’s brutality against the LTTE.


{The malady of Sri lanka is that INC wants to play both sides. It lauds Sri Lanka for the suppression of LTTE through the prism of Rajiv Gandhi's assasination. At same time it cant be stern with the LTTE elements due to its tie up with DMK! Its stalling between two fools. It let DMK steal the telecom sector as pay-off for the support. }

Whether the LTTE was a criminal organisation, which needed to be wiped out, is not the issue here. The point is that there was a horrible massacre of innocent civilians that included children, women and the elderly.

The entire world is horrified at the scale of human rights violations committed by the Sri Lankan army against innocent civilians. Yet we hesitate to shed a tear for them in the fear that we might offend Sri Lanka. India was once a champion of the downtrodden; ours was a respected voice in the world against inequities like colonialism and racism. But we seem to have changed tracks; we chose to watch silently as women and children were being slaughtered in our backyard.

It is said that we did so because of the apprehension that a protest might lead Sri Lanka to befriend China and Pakistan. Nothing could be more naïve than that assumption. And nothing more ill-informed. The fact is that Sri Lanka has embraced China and Pakistan with great fraternal affection because it knows India will not react.

And Sri Lanka isn’t done with us yet. Every other day it catches our fishermen and we appeal to its good sense to treat them well. On occasion it has also killed some of our fishermen. Why does it do so? Will it treat China or even Pakistan in the same cavalier fashion? In fact it was forced to release Chinese fishermen within hours, and with apologies, when its navy had recently dared to detain them.

The fact is that the world tramples upon those who are known to be soft. Would Sri Lanka or Maldives have trifled with India in a similar fashion had Mrs Indira Gandhi been alive, and in charge?

A former Ambassador, the writer is a novelist and an artist.

Frankly I dont know. The Indian electorate in its wisdom has not given a mandate to any single party to be protected for atleast the five year term that they get elected and this leads to instability.
The Westminister system of first past the gate allows marginal votes to have high impact. Then the vote of no confidence hangs the sword of Parliment dissolution. She didnt have these problems.

These twin problems lead to stasis and foreign interests can manipulate local issues.

[ramana]

in answer to the question about Mrs G, NVS describes her role in creation of Tamil Tigers.

For Eelam

For Eelam
Since Sinhala chauvinism won’t accommodate the Tamils, they deserve a separate state.
By N.V. Subramanian (20 March 2013)

New Delhi: India’s Sri Lanka policy is in a mess because in the dispute between the Tamils and the Sinhalese, it has chosen to go against the historical course which clearly favours a separate nation-state of Tamil Eelam. (This is an objective assessment and bears no link to this writer’s Tamilian background.) Eelam as and when it is formed will have no impact on the territorial integrity of India and must essentially be viewed in the same manner as the breakup of the Soviet Union after the Cold War.

Till Mrs Indira Gandhi was alive, she positioned India as a mediator in the ethnic dispute in the island nation. Her policy was crafted by the redoubtable diplomat and scholar, G.Parthasarthy, and it constituted some of the best forward diplomacy of its time, innovative, stirring and original. China had not risen to be India’s strategic competitor and encircler in the Indian Ocean as now but the United States was viewed with much suspicion and Pakistan remained inimical. The Cold War was at its peak.

Compelled to increment India’s involvement -- which is the downside of all mediation after a point -- Mrs Gandhi authorized the military training of the Tamil Tigers and other militant groups. Since she had succeeded by similarly training the Mukti Bahini to create Bangladesh and was overly indulgent to Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale to counter the Akalis in Punjab, she did not pause to consider the dangers of fanning the Tamil flames. She fell to Khalistani assassins and her son Rajiv by a quirk of fate to a Tamil suicide bomber.

Rather than cynically exploit the civil war in Sri Lanka, Mrs Gandhi should have pushed for a lasting solution, which can only be a separate Tamil state of Eelam. Granted such a decision was too early in the game, and Mrs Gandhi had genuine fears about a separate Tamil nation-state’s adverse impact on India and Tamil Nadu, which at least till the 1960s showed fissiparous tendencies. But how did she expect to control the Tamil groups she was militarily training or hope that they would follow her dictates and stop short of demanding a separate nation? They didn’t, as later events, and the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, showed.

Rajiv Gandhi did not have the benefit of brilliance advisors like the old GP, as G.Parthasarthy was affectionately called in diplomatic circles; he had an army chief, General K.Sundarji, who thought in terms of obliterating the Tamil groups, which can’t have been India’s sensible intention; and there were the derring-do types in the foreign office, including the Indian high commissioner in Sri Lanka, J.N.Dixit, who spoke and acted irrationally most of the time. The result of all this was the second disastrous decision to deploy the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka, which, contrary to its nomenclature, turned against one party in the dispute, namely the Tamils, who it was meant to protect in the first place.

When geography separates and splits one community, any shared loyalty cannot be taken as a given. It is not axiomatic, in this case, that the Tamils in Sri Lanka would or will support the Tamilians in Tamil Nadu and by extension the Indian state on every count. Even if a Tamil Eelam comes about in the future -- as this writer intuits -- it does not automatically follow that India will have a winning hand there forever and till eternity. International politics does not work that way. Seeing the context and keeping within it, one must work for small gains, and see dramatic breakthroughs as a bonanza, nothing more, nothing less.

India, unfortunately, did not approach the Sri Lanka crisis step-by-incremental-step, and the consequence is the mess today. The third blunder after the military training of militant groups and the Indian Peace Keeping Force’s deployment in the island was the decision to support Sri Lanka in its all-out war against the Tamil Tigers lead by V.Prabhakaran. China gave full war aid to the Sinhala military and India, led by non-thinkers in Delhi, pitched on the side of the Sinhalese and the Chinese against the Tamils. The Tamils are your insurance against the chauvinistic Sinhala state turning against you in alliance with China, and that insurance policy has been set on fire. Of course the Sinhala government did not stop at killing Prabhakaran; it butchered masses of Tamil non-combatants and murdered Prabhakaran’s young son. When Delhi forces its attention away from the distractions of domestic politics to reappraise its Sri Lanka policy, the Sinhalese government plays the China card, real or imaginary. This is no way to manage and conduct international politics.

Unfortunately, by its deviousness and venality, the United Progressive Alliance regime has destroyed domestic political consensus to a degree that India cannot take a united stand on foreign concerns. But that has to be overcome, and this is not a luxury that can await a functioning post-2014 non-United Progressive Alliance government. Tamil Nadu’s political parties, chiefly the AIADMK and the DMK, must be advised to temper their mutual competition on the Tamil issue, and assist the Centre in formulating a sensible and doable Sri Lanka policy. And this, to this writer’s mind, is accepting the inevitability and finality of an independent state of Tamil Eelam and doing all that is strategically necessary to bring it to fruition. Essentially, this must be an Indian project, because Sri Lanka lies in India’s backyard, and the world community could be involved later.

Tamil Eelam will be a pragmatic and just solution to the continuing ethnic tragedy in Sri Lanka.

How about the option of merging with India and creating the Eelam state within greater India? Until the colonials started coming in the area Sri Lanka was part and parcel of the Pandyan kingdom on and off.

Another point in favor of NVS is creation of Macedonia from Serbia did not unravel Greece.

Nor creation of Eritrea nor splitting Sudan.

Only thing is Eelam should not be a EvanJihadi hotbed.

And above all it will temper Sri Lanka's urge to bring in outside powers.

And even more than that it completes the Gupta-Chalukya project halted by the centuries.

[Javee]

China gave full war aid to the Sinhala military and India, led by non-thinkers in Delhi, pitched on the side of the Sinhalese and the Chinese against the Tamils. The Tamils are your insurance against the chauvinistic Sinhala state turning against you in alliance with China, and that insurance policy has been set on fire.

This is exactly what the problem is. GoI in its blind hatred on VP, let down the tamil population in SL, at least the north and eastern people. Now we are left fiddling our noses; Pakses will run this country down, and when they do, we will have another Pakistan, a state with weak democratic pillars and a rabid population baying for minorities blood.

[SwamyG]

Ramana garu: that is what I have been saying, make Srilanka part of India. If India does not threaten Srilanka, Srilanka will create trouble. China, Pakistan, Europeans, missionaries ityadi will fish in the troubled waters. India gives these options to Srilanka:
1. Be your own country and mend your ways, treat each other fairly.
2. Become a part of India as one or two states.
3. Sinhalese get their own country, the Elam becomes a state of India.

[Prem]

How do you check, stop and wipe out this Rot and Khot caused by undesired Vote, bleeding Bharat toward slow Maut? We missed the opportunity in 47, undermined our own hard earned freedom at the cost of many patriot lifes by not agreeing to the TOP and then imposed social engineering with Maulana in charge.

[Prem]

Ramana garu: that is what I have been saying, make Srilanka part of India. If India does not threaten Srilanka, Srilanka will create trouble. China, Pakistan, Europeans, missionaries ityadi will fish in the troubled waters. India gives these options to Srilanka:
1. Be your own country and mend your ways, treat each other fairly.
2. Become a part of India as one or two states.
3. Sinhalese get their own country, the Elam becomes a state of India.

SwamiG, first is to gain enough financial, military strength that no dog bark at Indian elephant and no mouse roar in front of Dilli Billi. This is why the current UPA Sarkar have been doing treachery in messing up both factors. How will Lanka Government behave if they are provided the cool shades of 1500 Artillery pieces 24/7? Maldives by now should have been our Puerto Rico or Guam and Lanka as Hawwaii.

[SwamyG]

Me not a imperialist, I prefer cultural influence, alliances, trade partnership ityadi. Neighbors like Pakistan, China or Srilanka leave no choice but cause India to be on guard.

[habal]

before the endgame began to be played out in Sri Lanka, Rajapakse himself floated a proposal towards India if SL could be included in an Indian confederation. At that time, there was a lukewarm response to this proposal. This proposal came about at same time when a proposal to extend the electricity transmission grid to SL was being considered.

[Agnimitra]

Gurus, a question: Is it possible that at this point Indian diplomacy has become so weak and feckless that if SL were to attempt another annexation of Maldives (and subsequent uprooting of Islamism there), GoI's Salman Khurshid would only be able to stand and watch (and perhaps moralize for good effect)?

[ramana]

Carl, I think Sri Lanka is on a Reconquista mode.
First the LTTE and then Tamils and now SL Muslims.
They want peace of homogenity at all costs.

If they want Maladives let them.

[Agnimitra]

ramana ji, I also feel that if they want Maldives we ought to let them. In fact, if SL and Burma can carry forward a reconquista all the way into India and CA, let them!

[ramana]

Could be psoted in the Indian Interests thread also...

NVS at NewsInsight.net

http://www.newsinsight.net/Politics,nea ... age=page-1

Politics, near & far

India has slipped internationally because of a weak prime minister and government.
By N.V. Subramanian (27 March 2013)

New Delhi: International politics is connected to domestic politics in ways that are, in the Indian context, at any rate, either not accepted or understood. In the presidential system, the popular vote unifies international and domestic policy decisions in one person, over and above the checks and balances and advices provided by the elected legislature, the cabinet and the bureaucracy. In a totalitarian system or one of limited democracy like Russia’s, political and establishment forces inevitably propel a strong leader into a supreme position, such as with Vladimir Putin earlier, and with Xi Jinping in China now. A strong leader makes for a strong nation, and it is pointless disputing this logic.

In a Westminster system such as India’s, the problem comes when the national parties suffer erosion in strength and countrywide presence, and become dependent on other groupings and forces, regional, linguistic, chauvinistic, regressive, and so forth. The problem has been compounded by the Congress which has turned its back on strong leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and P.V.Narasimha Rao who crafted their own foreign policy to prefer weak, nominated prime ministers today. This is a function of the fear and insecurity of the current Nehru-Gandhis, which compelled Sonia Gandhi to choose the lacklustre and powerless Manmohan Singh as prime minister. Her son and heir, Rahul Gandhi, will apparently prefer P.Chidambaram for PM if the country should have the misfortune to vote the United Progressive Alliance to power again. In style, Chidambaram may be different from Manmohan Singh, but he would be a substantial non-performer like the present prime minister.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, on the other hand, has Narendra Modi who will make for a strong prime minister. Under Modi, India is bound to have a strong and independent foreign policy, because it would flow from the nature of his distinct individuality. Modi faces powerful opposition within his own party, in the National Democratic Alliance, and generally among the political class. Which is why he seeks to address the people, the electorate, above the heads of power-brokers. What Modi is trying to do in the process, although he may be unaware of it, is that he is unifying the country on some higher principles and interests, values that cut across regions, castes and communities, linguistic chauvinism, politics of victimhood, and so on. The links to all this and domestic politics is clear.


{India adopted the Westminister system thinking it could rely on a homogenous selected middle class. However the decades after Indepenence saw this concept eroded and the different groups pulling in thir directions. Hence the language of the sixities calling such pulls as "fissiparous" directions! However a living body has to adapt and achange. Domestic and foreign policy have to be changed to suit the people and not an elite siloed group.}

What is less obvious but discernible if you look for it is that this unification is necessary for India to pursue a strong foreign policy and be perceived as a strong nation. When a system does not incarnate supreme power in one person, the people have to come together to strengthen the hands of an indirectly elected head of government. This process of unification does not happen on its own. It has to be spurred. And the only potential prime minister candidate who is doing it today is Narendra Modi, whilst his rivals are engaged in competitive divisiveness. Nitish Kumar is begging for Bihar to be granted special status. The Congress is using Nitish’s weakness to prise him away from the National Democratic Alliance. In other different ways, the Congress is splitting other parties and dynastic groupings. This politics of divide and rule of the Congress has naturally and inevitably divided the country, and given it a weak and effete prime minister. How on earth can India compete with the likes of China or the other great powers lead by single-minded individuals?

In other words, the links between international and domestic politics cannot be discounted or minimized. If the prime minister was a self-sustaining national leader, the Tamils’, Teesta and Sir Creek issues would not have acquired their present state-specific salience. A prime minister cannot conduct foreign policy in isolation of domestic politics and local sensitivities. In the end, everything is politics. The wretched Indian establishment does not understand this simple but all-too-critical point. The Ministry of External Affairs and its scented babus believe international politics to lie in another sphere, in a terrain entirely divorced from domestic politics. Reality is the opposite. Domestic politics dictates foreign policy. The Chinese have always conducted international politics on that philosophy. It stems from their belief that they are the centre of the universe, citizens of the Middle Kingdom. Learning from the Chinese example, India must return to the roots of its greatness and build upon it. The separation of international from domestic politics must end.

{On the contrary the babu-politician nexus very clearly understands everything is about power and ensures that their grouping retains the power. If this creates weakness on domestic or foreign policy htey dont care so long as they retain pwoer. In India everything is about retaining power. Nothing stops BJP from offering Bihar a better package then INC will give for development of Bihar is a supreme national interest for India. Nitish Kumar is using the excuse of getting a pacakage to distance himself from BJP. Its not the pacakage but his aversion to losing power.}

[SwamyG]

This could be posted in several threads, I post it here to raise some spirits and bring smiles: http://www.globalresearch.ca/brics-go-o ... ll/5328662

Reports on the premature death of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) have been greatly exaggerated. Western corporate media is flooded with such nonsense, perpetrated in this particular case by the head of Morgan Stanley Investment Management.

Reality spells otherwise. The BRICS meet in Durban, South Africa, this Tuesday to, among other steps, create their own credit rating agency, sidelining the dictatorship – or at least “biased agendas”, in New Delhi’s diplomatic take – of the Moody’s/Standard & Poor’s variety. They will also further advance the idea of the BRICS Development Bank, with a seed capital of US$50 billion (only structural details need to be finalized), helping infrastructure and sustainable development projects.

Crucially, the US and the European Union won’t have stakes in this Bank of the South – a concrete alternative, pushed especially by India and Brazil, to the Western-dominated World Bank and the Bretton Woods system.

As former Indian finance minister Jaswant Singh has observed, such a development bank could, for instance, channel Beijing’s know-how to help finance India’s massive infrastructure needs.

[Prem]

Lifafa Lal
Economic diplomacy, Indian style

For a benign actor, India has had an energetic run on the foreign policy front in the last decade.With a robust rate of economic growth under its belt, India’s master tacticians were not merely striking some remarkable deals — like the Indo-US Nuclear Agreement — and expanding diplomatic reach to the rest of the world.In a major shift of gears, India was found playing the economic card — either by way of pledging billions of dollars as aid and soft loans or by entering into trade pacts — to serve the dual purpose of market access as well as strategic interests.Most of these initiatives were aimed at bolstering, or safeguarding, country’s interests in economically important Africa, Europe and ASEAN regions. But India made two distinct attempts, in Afghanistan and neighbouring Bangladesh, to iron out anti-India sentiments through economic development and claim a stronger grip over regional geopolitics.The medicine is not new. India used it successfully in Bhutan. The difference lies in scale, the volatile political climate in these countries and, their geopolitical importance.And, the next couple of years will prove, how it shapes India’s geopolitical prospects in the region.
AF-PAK FOCUS
True to its ‘Af-Pak’ focus, India has been more proactive in Afghanistan ever since the overthrow of Taliban, by US-led NATO forces, in 2000.India built cultural bridges through prompt humanitarian aid (in the form of food and healthcare) and offered a large number of scholarships to Afghan students and others.Significantly, it offered a $2 billion aid (approximately Rs 11,000 crore) to build key infrastructure projects, ranging from road, power, telecom and others.India is not the largest donor in Afghanistan. But, it surely aims to reap the maximum harvest of the reconstruction programme, by helping the land-locked Afghanistan reduce its dependence on Pakistan (which does not enjoy the best of relations with Kabul).This can be achieved by opening new trade routes through Iran.UNKNOWN FRUITS
Theoretically, this is similar to Nepal’s initiative to reduce dependence on India by virtue of Lasha-Kathmanu ‘Friendship Highway’ (China is also building a rail link connecting Nepal), but is of greater significance.Ideally, this spree of development activities should free Afghanistan from the stranglehold of the Taliban, which does not approve of Indo-Afghan friendship.The initiatives should work in the interests of sanctions-hit Iran. India should get a strategic toehold to reach out to energy-rich West Asia, bypassing Pakistan. And, last but not the least, economic diplomcy should help India to rival China’s geopolitical ambitions.The plan is grand. India is pursuing it for more than a decade. But, the fruits are yet to be tasted.“What will happen, after the US combat forces pack their bags from Afghanistan, next year?” a former Indian diplomat to the UN was recently found asking. The discomfort is palpable and, not without reason.For the moment, India has little option apart from reposing faith on its prudent use of soft power in a land that always retaliated against hard power.

[Lilo]

Now SA delivers a thappad to MMS and his coterie of (lazy, but perfumed) Forin affice babus

BRICSwall: Zuma has no time for PM, keeps him 40 km away

The Indian delegation has returned quite upset from South Africa and for good reason, because this is, perhaps, the first time that the Indian Prime Minister has gone to a country and failed to hold a separate meeting with the host.

There was no grand diplomatic stand-off with the South African government, just poor planning and organisation that squeezed out the bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and South African President Jacob Zuma, said sources.

What probably hurt more was that Singh was the first among the BRICS leaders to reach Durban on March 25, a day before the summit, and still Zuma could not find the time while he played the proper host to his Chinese and Russian counterparts. In the end, Singh managed to hold separate meetings with all BRICS leaders except Zuma.

The Chinese side had turned Xi's visit into a state visit, which meant South Africa had full-fledged bilateral fare laid out, with agreements and deals being signed on the side. While Zuma had to give nearly an entire day to Xi in Pretoria, he could not ignore Russian President Vladimir Putin in Durban because Moscow had converted the trip into a "working" visit which meant formalised bilateral content like adding some new clauses to their bilateral treaty of friendship and cooperation.

As a result, India and Brazil seemed relegated. India, perhaps, a bit more. For starters, the South African government took control of all hotel accommodation in and around Durban since heads of states and government of some 18 African countries were also to be there for a retreat with BRICS nations on March 27.

It's not clear how the dice rolled, but the Prime Minister found himself allotted a resort in Zimbali, 40 km from Durban while the Brazilian, Russian and Chinese leaders were lodged in hotels within Durban, close to the venue where the summit was held over two days. Almost as a consolation, the retreat with the African countries was held at the Zimbali resort after the summit was over.

So, Singh had to travel into the city on both days of the summit, March 26-27, and also suffer the long delays in the programme. On the first day, Singh wound up from Durban around midnight, whereas he was to be back in his resort by 10 pm according to his schedule.

This was also the day he was originally slated to meet Zuma, but it did not work out because the South Africa-Russia bilateral meeting overshot by an hour. The original plan was for Singh to meet Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff around 5:45 pm, which happened. After that was the meeting with Putin at 6:15 pm and then with Zuma at 6:45 pm, following which was the cultural programme and banquet for the BRICS leaders.

Due to the delay in the South Africa-Russia meet, the PM could meet Putin only at 7:30 pm — for about over an hour, he was seated in a "holding room" allotted to each country at the summit convention centre. And once he was done with Putin, it was time for the cultural programme to start.

Unlike Singh, the Brazilian President, who was to meet Zuma after the meeting with the PM, refused to wait and left for her hotel — an option unavailable to the PM as his location was out of town. Thereafter, the banquet, which was to finish by 9:30 pm, wrapped up only by 11:30 pm.

The next day was even more bizarre for the Indian delegation. First, what was to start with a family photograph of the BRICS leaders, began with a restricted meeting of leaders. This switch in order put protocol in a mess. And lengthy plenary statements meant that what was to end by 2 pm after a luncheon, actually concluded an hour later, delaying the departure of the leaders for the African dialogue and retreat in Zimbali.

The India-China bilateral meeting was slated for 5:45 pm on that day at Zimbali, just after the retreat which was scheduled to end by 5:30 pm. Instead, not only did the retreat start an hour late, it stretched until 7:30 pm. Each African leader was to speak for three minutes, but no one kept to time. And the worst violator was Zuma himself who spoke for 25 minutes and even mocked that a "Zulu minute" is a little longer.

Suddenly, after the retreat, the South African foreign minister wanted Singh to meet Zuma quickly for 15-20 minutes. By then, the Indians were livid at the lack of care for protocol, and simply refused to comply at such short notice. Singh needed a half-an-hour breather and that was not acceptable to the South African side.

The Indian delegation was then focused on the Xi meeting, for which the senior officials wanted Singh rested and prepared. At Brazil's request, since Rousseff was to leave the same night, India swapped slots for the meeting with Xi. As a result, the meeting eventually happened at 9 pm — a good four hours off schedule.

India was, however, not the only delegation frustrated by the poor time-keeping. At one stage, an irritated Chinese delegation member is learnt to have told the South Africans that the first gift from Beijing to them has to be a good Chinese watch.

India miffed at S Africa's protocol chaos during PM's visit: report

The Indian government is angry at the South African president's failure to hold bilateral talks with its Prime Minister during last week's BRICS summit, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

The Indian delegation headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was keen to have a meeting with President Jacob Zuma on the sidelines of the summit in Durban from March 26-27.

But according to the Sunday Express, the entire schedule drawn up by the host country was in disarray and the two leaders were unable to hold talks.

Meanwhile Zuma did manage bilateral meetings with his Chinese and Russian counterparts.

Singh was scheduled to meet Zuma on March 26 but the plan had to be abandoned because the bilateral meeting between South Africa and Russia overshot by an hour, the paper said.

On March 27, South Africa's foreign minister wanted Singh to meet Zuma quickly for 15-20 minutes. But by then, according to the Express, the Indians were livid at the lack of respect for protocol and refused to comply at such short notice.

The paper said the Indians were also upset by the accommodation arrangements.

Singh and Indian diplomats were allotted a resort at Zimbali, 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Durban, while the Brazilian, Russian and Chinese leaders were lodged in hotels within the city.

Singh had to travel into the city on both days of the summit and also suffer long delays in the programme, the Express said.

A foreign ministry spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment on the newspaper report.

Last year Zuma vowed that trade between South Africa and India would reach $15 billion per year before a self-imposed 2014 deadline, and both sides agreed to increase commercial exchanges.

[RajeshA]

BRICSwall: Zuma has no time for PM, keeps him 40 km away

I think people simply don't want to meet with MMS because they can't even hear what he is whispering beneath his breath, and it is certainly impolite to ask somebody to repeat what one said this time more clearly and loudly.

MMS should try sign language and an interpreter! Or he can whisper in Punjabi and have an interpreter with over-acute hearing doing the translation. Or may be he should pass written notes across the table, or even a dossier or two!

Khurshit is Khur-shit! Too bad in India there is no flogging for such diplomatic debacles!

[Lilo]

x-post

India's influence wanes on world stage - G.Parthasarathy, Business Line

Nations lose international influence and power when they are either militarily unprepared or floundering economically. We are still to recover psychologically from the humiliating military defeat inflicted by China in 1962.

THEN…

The 1962 conflict led to an adventurist Field Marshal Ayub Khan seeking to seize Kashmir and failing to do so, in a largely inconclusive conflict in 1965. This conflict had disastrous diplomatic consequences, with the once-friendly Soviet Union seeking the role of a mediator, while readying to supply weapons to Pakistan.

India became a basket case, dependent on the Soviet Union for arms and on the US for IMF assistance, to deal with a balance of payments crisis. With begging bowl in hand, India sought American food aid, as chronic food shortages led people to the verge of starvation.

Things turned for the better when Indian agriculture revived, through a “Green Revolution” spearheaded by then Agriculture Minister C. Subramaniam. The Soviet Union came out in support of an economically self-reliant, rhetorically Left-leaning Indian Government.

The dark shadows of 1962 receded when, backed by the Soviet Union, India emerged victorious, while pitted against a Nixon-Mao-Yahya Khan Axis, in the 1971 Bangladesh conflict. By the early 1990s, however, the Soviet Union collapsed and we had to mortgage our gold reserves to stay afloat.

A malevolent Clinton Administration was prepared to go to any length in pressurising the Russian Federation to end cooperation even in space with India, in a relentless effort to “cap, roll back and eliminate,” India’s nuclear weapons programme. Our prestige sank so low that we were humiliated in an ill-advised contest against Japan for a seat in the UN Security Council in 1997.

It was only when the economic reforms and liberalisation initiated by Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao took effect that India’s economy recovered, for India to withstand global economic sanctions, which the country faced after the nuclear tests of 1998.

A chastened Bill Clinton visited India once he realised that it was pointless to sanction an economically vibrant country. The NDA Government under A. B. Vajpayee observed the fiscal prudence required to not let runaway inflation set in.

The UPA-1 built on all these developments. Global nuclear apartheid against India ended, with India assuming a larger global profile by its participation in forums like G-8, G-20 and BRICS.

…AND NOW

But, the UPA political dispensation still remains wedded to populism and fiscal irresponsibility. Few remember that the economic disaster in 1991 followed a populist loan waiver for farmers by then Prime Minister V.P. Singh. {VP Singh, the destroyer of India}

Now, fiscal deficit has crossed 5 per cent of GDP, and growth is down to 5 per cent levels. A populist Environment Minister brought in regulations destined to inordinately delay project clearances. New investments are becoming scarce, as Indian entrepreneurs seek greener pastures abroad. Every rating agency, foreign investor and foreign government knows that India has become a difficult investment destination.

BRICS FARCE

It is now commonly mentioned that BRICS would be better served if India is replaced by Indonesia, where economic management is prudent and sound.

The current joke is that while corruption is present everywhere in emerging markets, one sees “efficient corruption” in China, but “inefficient corruption” in India!

With the current account deficit at 6.7 per cent of GDP in Q3 of 2012-13, it was ludicrous for New Delhi to be advocating a BRICS Investment Bank. India will be a relatively minor player, given China’s vast reserves and potential. This at a time, when observers believe that we may have to seek a bailout from the Western dominated IMF, whose influence the BRICS Bank is designed to erode.

Reports from Durban that South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma did not bother to meet our Prime Minister, and was busy feting President Xi Jinping and President Putin, are disturbing. Moreover, while other Heads of Government were housed comfortably in Durban, Manmohan Singh was made to stay 40 kilometres away from the Conference venue. Indian prestige and credibility today are at its lowest in recent years.

In Maldives, we have been out-manoeuvred by a wily President Waheed, who skilfully bought insurance from China and Pakistan. On Sri Lanka, we have vacillated in the UNHRC.

In the process, we have gratuitously offended a friendly neighbour and not persuaded public opinion in Tamil Nadu of the merits of our stand.

Moreover, we should ask ourselves whether our diplomacy has really helped a friendly Prime Minister, facing serious challenges from Islamic extremists in Bangladesh.

These issues will hopefully, receive attention, when the Budget session of Parliament resumes.

[Lilo]

Upset over arms treaty, India may cancel its delegation to UK

The UN General Assembly on Tuesday adopted the first-ever treaty to regulate the $80-billion-a-year conventional arms trade. The assembly voted 154-3 for a resolution that will open the treaty for signature from June. India abstained from voting.

NEW DELHI: Stung by the UK's reluctance to accommodate its concerns in the negotiations for the global Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) approved by the UN general assembly last Tuesday, the government has decided to send a strong message of its displeasure to the UK.

A high level defence delegation's visit to the UK slated for April 9-11 could either be cancelled or significantly scaled down as a mark of protest, TOI has learnt. Defence secretary Shashi Kant Sharma was to lead the delegation comprising representatives of all three services.

The UK has been one of the champions of ATT and New Delhi holds it responsible for the fact that hardly any of India's concerns were accommodated in the agreement. India had abstained from voting on the treaty saying the draft was weak on terrorism and non-state actors and compromised security and defence interests of major arms importing countries.

Intense consultations are underway in the government on the future course of action since Tuesday's vote, in which the treaty was passed with 154 votes in favour, three against and 23 abstentions. India, China and Russia were among the countries that abstained.

In fact, TOI has learnt that the external affairs ministry has conveyed to the UK that its unhelpful attitude will have serious consequences for defence purchases by India from that country. Even during the negotiations for the treaty, India seems to have warned the UK that defence cooperation between the two countries was going to suffer.

Top sources confirmed to TOI that the MEA was not in favour of cancellation of the visit and had told the defence ministry in writing to communicate India's unhappiness but wanted the engagement to continue.

Sources said the defence ministry had sought the MEA's opinion before deciding on the trip. The foreign ministry, which had warned UK of adverse consequences, wanted the defence ministry to make a strong statement but not by cancelling the trip as this could lead to avoidable rancour in relations. While France too was among the 154 nations which voted in favour of ATT at the UNGA, it was very supportive of India's concerns during the negotiations.

Over the last week, consultations were underway between the PMO, MEA and the MoD over the steps to be taken to convey India's extreme displeasure over UK's lead role in pushing through the treaty. It is not yet clear if the government is contemplating any further steps to convey its disappointment.

British PM David Cameron welcomed the ATT saying Britain should be proud of its role in the negotiations {and this is the same bugger who shamelessly turns up on India's doorstep hat in hand, and proposes a "Strategic Partnership" in defence sector}. Britain was also the leading country behind the move to put the draft treaty to vote in the UNGA.

India's lead negotiator Sujata Mehta had argued that the treaty was weak on terrorism and non-state actors and those concerns found no mention in the specific provisions of the treaty. "India cannot accept that the treaty be used as an instrument in the hands of exporting states to take unilateral force majeure measures against importing states without consequences. The relevant provisions in the final text do not meet our requirements," she had said.

India believes that the treaty should make a real impact on illicit trafficking in conventional arms and their illegal use, especially by terrorists. While New Delhi's concern was about terrorists targeting the Indian state, the US and the UK ensured a flexible language in this context so that they could continue to arm rebels in states such as Syria.{Khalistanis, North East secessionist groups , LTTE ,Kashmiri Jihadi groups all are being offered refuge and their existence prolonged through life support - to use them on a rainy day}

India also feels strongly that the treaty is heavily weighed in favour of arms exporters, who can invoke unforeseen circumstances to cancel a contract.

That the treaty was passed with such overwhelming vote in UNGA (154-3) with almost no other country sharing India's concerns on weapons supply to non-state groups is a Total Fail on the part of our diplomacy.

[chetak]

Absolutely. Though there were a few successes here and there (this, in spite of the foreign office including in its ranks such luminaries as MSA or MKBK.), Indian diplomacy, overall, has been a string of unmitigated disaster. There is nothing to wither afresh. I don't blame the diplomats for this, except on one or two occasions. It has been the Indian political leadership. The Know-all Nehru kept the foreign affairs to himself and acted autocratically. In the incumbent coalition, unaccountable outside elements are running the show haphazardly, with impunity and with no connect to either history or future of India. For, history of India they know not and future, they care not.

As long as the Indian political system repeatedly sees the perverse need to induct mufti mohammad sayeed as home minister or e ahamed of the muslim league or finally an openly communal salman kursheed as ministers in the MEA, we will be licking boots, diplomatically speaking. All these are guys who have actively damaged Indian interests. Why would someone like nitish kumar need to visit pakiland?? How can we complain when all the mentioned paragons of virtue are secular onlee??

[ramana]

More than communal his NGO was stealing from the handicapped. How much respect will he get in foreign countries which most likely have funded those NGOs?

Anyway if you read between the lines in the SA report, its the need to get MMS rested before his key meetings that was a factor. Meetings will over run and start late especially if you stay in a resort 40km from the meeting place!!!

Need to find out the genius who selected that location when all other guest were elsewhere! He should have thought about MMS health and age.

[ramana]

X-Posted from whine thread!!!

Enemies of the state are busy internationalizing Loc issue, as if we are at fault. External affairs minister is on a trip to Antarctica (Probably discussing strategic relationship with penguins) .



Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar calls for OIC probe into LoC ceasefire violations, Salman Khurshid still missing in action

[SSridhar]

Need to find out the genius who selected that location when all other guest were elsewhere! He should have thought about MMS health and age.

Probably some diplomat had not stayed in that resort before !

[ramana]

Looks like the consensus of the IFS fraternity to speak no ill of the serving is breaking down due to extreme incopetence when nepotism prevails.

World Politics Review:

Frustrations mount for India at UN

Five Indian soldiers serving with the United Nations peacekeeping operation in South Sudan were killed in an ambush last week that also left seven civilian U.N. staff dead and four more troops wounded. Such casualties are grimly familiar for the Indian army, which has lost more personnel on blue helmet missions than any other country’s military. But the attack capped off a difficult few weeks for India at the U.N., marked by diplomatic disputes over the rules of peacekeeping and the new Arms Trade Treaty. Cumulatively, these episodes may reinforce doubts about New Delhi’s commitment to the U.N. system.

Although Indian officials argue that their country has been dedicated to the U.N. since the days of Nehru, their current attitude to the organization is characterized by a mixture of ambition and ambivalence. They yearn for the status and leverage of a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. Yet they remain wary of submitting to multilateral arrangements -- such as the nonproliferation treaty, which India has never signed -- that could reduce their freedom to build up their national defenses.

Less than four months ago, India concluded a two-year term as a temporary member of the Security Council. This was widely portrayed as a trial run for permanent membership and, as I have noted previously, Indian diplomats pressed hard for council reform during that time. But they made little immediate progress, and there has since been a good deal of domestic criticism of India’s diplomatic performance, especially its failure to define clear strategies to manage the Libyan and Syrian crises.

In a stinging opinion piece published this January, former Foreign Secretary Krishnan Srinivasan accused the government of a disorganized and ad hoc approach to Security Council affairs, concluding that “India did not display the independence to carve out a distinctive made-in-India foreign policy.” Hardeep Singh Puri, the outgoing Indian ambassador to the U.N., shot back that Srinivasan was offering “incorrect facts and absurd assumptions” and had in fact “lost it completely” with many of his criticisms.

While the debate over India’s role in the Security Council is likely to continue for some time, the end of its tenure was expected to take some of the pressure off Indian officials. But two U.N. processes kept them on the defensive. The first was the final round of negotiations on the Arms Trade Treaty in the U.N. General Assembly, which culminated in late-March and the first days of April. India has long been skeptical toward the treaty, which is meant to stop the export of conventional arms to governments that could commit human rights abuses or war crimes.

India, as the world’s single biggest arms importer, worries that exporters could use this as an excuse cut off its military supplies. (Ironically, India’s most likely foes, China and Pakistan, also dislike the treaty.) Indian analysts also complain that the agreement will have little effect on the supply of arms to the guerrillas fighting Indian rule in Kashmir and other parts of the country. During the final drive to get a consensus agreement on the treaty in March, Western diplomats feared that India would refuse to support it.

In the end Iran, Syria and North Korea blocked consensus instead, and the Arms Trade Treaty was put to a General Assembly vote on April 2. While 154 countries voted in favor, India was one of 23 states that abstained. Other abstainers included China and Russia, and there are serious doubts over whether the U.S. Senate will ratify the agreement. Still, the episode highlighted Indian concerns that the U.N. does not protect its interests.

Similar concerns have arisen during discussions of the U.N. peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). As I noted in this column last week, the Security Council voted in late-May to launch a new “intervention brigade” to “neutralize” militias in the serially chaotic eastern part of the country.

India, which has had troops in the DRC for more than a decade, is worried that moves such as this will put its peacekeepers in danger. (It does not help that the Congolese government has previously criticized the performance of Indian units on its territory.) The Security Council aimed to mollify India and other major peacekeeping players by underscoring that the experiment in the DRC is not a precedent for operations elsewhere. Yet there are bigger principles and national pride at stake for New Delhi here.

India currently has nearly 7,000 troops in U.N. operations. As Sushant K. Singh and I argue in a contribution to a forthcoming book on India and multilateralism, Indian officials are obsessed with the question of who controls these personnel. They dislike the fact that the Security Council has ultimate authority over what Indian peacekeepers do -- Indian diplomats used their recent stint in the Security Council to argue for greater consultations with troop-contributing nations over such command decisions. In the past, New Delhi has threatened to pull all its forces out of U.N. missions altogether unless it was guaranteed more command positions.

Debates like the one over the intervention brigade in DRC and fatalities like those in South Sudan only amplify hard questions about India’s engagement in U.N. operations. Does New Delhi have sufficient say over how its forces are used? What national interests do the losses in South Sudan serve? Why does India’s contribution to U.N. missions not make any appreciable impact on debates on Security Council reform?

These questions converge with the dilemmas arising from India’s temporary seat on the Security Council and its discomfort over the Arms Trade Treaty. Why has India struggled to drive new policies at the U.N., instead finding itself in the position of opposing initiatives backed by a large majority of other states? Does this pattern derive from errors in New Delhi or the increasingly anachronistic distribution of power in the Security Council?

These are not new questions, but they have been magnified by the criticisms of India’s performance in the Security Council and the diplomatic difficulties India has encountered at the U.N. over the past months. India’s ambitions for greater status at the U.N. are unlikely to be satisfied in the near future or even in the medium term. As a result, its ambivalence toward the organization will only grow stronger.

Richard Gowan is the associate director for Crisis Management and Peace Operations at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation and a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. His weekly column for World Politics Review, Diplomatic Fallout, appears every Monday.

Photo: Permanent Representative of India to the U.N. Hardeep Singh Puri addresses the Security Council, New York, January 31, 2012 (U.N. photo by Paulo Filgueiras).

[Vayutuvan]

From the above article posted by Ramana garu, the following caught my eye.

They yearn for the status and leverage of a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. Yet they remain wary of submitting to multilateral arrangements -- such as the nonproliferation treaty, which India has never signed -- that could reduce their freedom to build up their national defenses.

So the author slips in "NPT signing" and is saying that it is one of the failures of the diplomacy. But in actuality, it is a policy decision which is not negotiable through diplomacy.

[Philip]

The failure has been to stand up for our interests strongly enough to inspire other smaller powers to do the same along with us.We have lost the goodwill that existed when the NAM was in its heyday,that too when we were far poorer ,but infinitely richer in a moral sense,fighting for the oppressed and underdog .These days,we been have looking to Washington for almost ever important decision-especially those relating to Pakistan, and in trying to balance the equation are playing second fiddle in the BRICS set up.,where Rusiaa and China are the dominant nations.

[ramana]

Pak murders Sarabjit Singh in jail

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 825823.cms

May you get moksha

And may MMS get what is his due.

[pentaiah]

My he rest in the abode of Bharat Mata
a True Singh the Sher and modern day Bhagat Singh
Shaheed Sarabjit Singh

[Prem]

May he come back again to serve again.
Bring his Body home and give him proper last rites. Let Aam Admi honor him and see the criminal negligence of our politicians.

[Sushupti]

"vasamsi jirnani yatha vihaya
navani grhnati naro 'parani
tatha sarirani vihaya jirnany
anyani samyati navani dehi
nainam chindanti sastrani
nainam dahati pavakah
na cainam kledayanty apo
na sosayati marutah"

And may Ishwara opens the gates of heaven for him as promised.

"yadrcchaya copapannam
svarga-dvaram apavrtam
sukhinah ksatriyah partha
labhante yuddham idrsam"


And on the our plane of existence.