Learn right lessons from NSG debacle

The strategic centrepiece of the sophisticated but muscular address by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the American Congress during his visit to the United States last month was a strong reiteration for India’s admission into the 48-member Nuclear Suppliers Group. Mr Modi’s exposition of India’s position in his Mann ki Baat to an American audience was a masterful performance as shown by the standing ovation he got. The initial impact appeared to have had a good effect towards developing a consensus between those supportive of India’s claim for admission as a “special case” when the NSG met in Seoul on June 23. However, events dictated otherwise, and India’s NSG bid failed against the combined manoeuvres of China and its client state Pakistan, which is the depository of countless illegal transfers of nuclear technology from its patron. For now, India has stepped back to assess the results of what has been for all intents and purposes the diplomatic equivalent of a “reconnaissance in force”, feeling out and testing the terrain, assessing the opposition against it and preparing the country for the next move ahead.

It can be assumed, however, that barring the totally unforeseen, India’s basic parameters will be unchanged: the country will continue to be a non-signatory to both the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Also, India will be a state possessing nuclear weapons, while progressing its objectives of acquiring enrichment as well as reprocessing technologies. In the ongoing “game of thrones” between the US and China at the global level, India will remain vigorously opposed to any equation with Pakistan in quid quo pro proposals by interested third parties on a piggyback entry into the NSG by the latter.

While it is undoubtedly the role of a spoilsport, under the existing circumstances, India is left with no other choice. Earlier, India might have been amenable to such proposals, despite the reservations of a large chunk of domestic public opinion, but the machinations of the Sino-Pakistan nexus seen in Seoul will have changed all that. The confabulations in Seoul and earlier at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tashkent have sent out another sub-textual signal — a reiteration of India’s resolve to contest with all comers, any issues seen to have a bearing on our security or national interests.

Prominent amongst them is the “String of Pearls” around India crafted by China in the Indian Ocean Region, aimed at containing India’s influence. India’s response could be in the form of a strategic counter-arrangement — such as a “Necklace of Diamonds” established around China’s maritime peripheries by a “coalition of the willing”. These will be the countries that are uncomfortable in the shadow of the Dragon, anchored by India at one end and possibly Australia at the other. It could be backstopped by the US — a sort of “Seato in reverse”, but without the burden of the outmoded Reagan-Thatcher era radicalism based on Cold War political and nuclear theology.

Here, the delightfully onomatopoeic BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) grouping of Indian Ocean countries in the Bay of Bengal region may be of interest. It could be used for further exploration by Indian policymakers, with its mix of purely economic issues, along with a security-oriented sting in the tail of counter-terrorism and transnational crime-fighting. Meanwhile, in its single-minded preoccupation with the US, India must not make the mistake of ignoring Russia — a country that, with all its faults, has been India’s all-weather friend. It is now asserting itself again in Crimea and Ukraine.

With its composite “Eurasian” identity, Russia occupies the core of the “heartland” postulated in 1904 by geostrategic thinker Sir Halford Mackinder. That country is rising to its feet again from the rubble of the Soviet empire, though bloodied by its own “clash of civilisations” with radicalised Islam in the “bear trap” of Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Emirates of North Caucasus. India will have to craft a more balanced foreign policy in tune with today; keeping on an even keel with no major tilts either way, a reversion to a quasi-Nehruvian neo-nonalignment, but more hard edged in practice.

It is worth remembering that there are no “matters of the heart” in international realpolitik, and our policymakers must be mindful of Lord Palmerston’s classic dictum: “There are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies, only permanent national interests.” The US has deftly brushed off India’s over-effusive quest for a special relationship. India’s political leadership should have learnt by now not to further weave any unrealistically romantic dreams. New Delhi’s options have fortunately not been affected by the drifting smoke of Brexit as in the age of Islamic State, it’s also relevant that in May 2016 both India and Pakistan will have completed 18 years as nuclear weapon states with actively adversarial relationships.

This relationship is aggravated by Pakistan’s exploitation of its perceived nuclear standoff with India to actively sponsor and support separatist terrorism by jihadi tanzeems in Kashmir and elsewhere and to bleed India by its old strategy of “death by a thousand cuts”. Within the country, warped political perceptions have allowed strange politico-religious hobgoblins like Zakir Naik, Asaduddin Owaisi and their Hindutva counterparts like Sadhvi Prachi and Yogi Adityanath to flourish and take root, like poisonous toadstools, propagating religious extremism and sectarian hatred unchallenged by authority. In these times of turmoil engulfing its own “near abroad”, India must “praise the Lord and pass the ammunition”, drawing inspiration from the heritage of Chanakya, India’s first national security adviser, and his enunciation of “sam, daan, danda, bheda” — an ancient strategic culture now even more relevant in the context of Pakistan’s new jihad in Kashmir.