India's National Magazine
From the publishers of THE HINDU

Vol. 16 :: No. 01 :: Jan. 02 - 15, 1999

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COVER STORY

A muted Indian response

The Indian Government has studiously avoided condemnation of the U.S. military action.

JOHN CHERIAN

THE Indian Government's response to the attack on Iraq by the United States and the United Kingdom was characterised by a circumspect choice of words. After the first night of bombing, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh made identical statements in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. The statements said that the Government was "gravely concerned at and deplores these air strikes". They added that it was "particularly regrettable" that the "unilateral step" had been undertaken at a time when the United Nations Security Council was in session to discuss developments arising from the report of the head of the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM), which the U.N. Secretary-General had forwarded to the Council with his recommendations, proposing alternative courses of action.

The statement further said that the attack "raises serious questions" regarding the functioning of the collective and consultative procedures of the Security Council and "undermines the ability" of the Security Council to verify Iraq's compliance with its relevant resolutions. The use of force, the statements said, "would be counter-productive" and the issue "needs to be resolved diplomatically". They ended with a call for "an immediate halt to the military action".

The Indian Government's response was strikingly muted when compared to the responses of many other countries, which used strong words to criticise the attack on Iraq's sovereignty and territorial integrity. New Delhi did not denounce or condemn the strikes, as Beijing and Moscow did. But even the muted response this time marked a step forward from the time when the U.S. launched missile attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan in August 1998. New Delhi had on that occasion maintained a deafening silence; in fact, a convention organised by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, welcomed the U.S. attacks on Sudan and Afghanistan.

AP
Demonstrators burn an effigy of Clinton in New Delhi on December 18 in protest against the U.S. military action.

In Parliament, how ever, members cutting across the political divide criticised the U.S. "brutality" against Iraq. Members belonging to the Left parties and many of the former constituents of the United Front were vociferous. In the Rajya Sabha, Congress(I) leader Pranab Mukherjee called the air strikes "highly deplorable". Even so, the Congress(I), like the BJP-led Government, did not "condemn" the attacks in so many words. Significantly, Congress(I) president Sonia Gandhi did not react to the attacks.

The Left parties issued a joint statement condemning the attack on Iraq. Activists of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), women's organisations and many other political parties barring the BJP and the Congress(I) staged demonstrations in front of the United States Information Service building in New Delhi.

SENIOR officials in the Ministry of External Affairs insist that India has been following a consistent policy on Iraq. A senior official said that India's "principled position" was "articulated in a balanced way" in the statements. He said that there was no need to use words like "condemn", especially when India was engaged in a critical dialogue with the U.S. The dialogue process, he said, could not be taken forward if one of the parties resorted to "name-calling".

ITAR-TASS/REUTERS
Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov pore over a map of West Asia.

India had also to be sensitive to the feelings of other countries in the West Asian region, the official said; for instance, India has good relations with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, said the South Block official.

A senior official emphasised that India would not support attempts to dictate terms to the Iraqi Government or efforts to dismember the country.

The attack on Iraq figured in the bilateral talks with the visiting Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov. According to official sources, both sides expressed similar views on the subject. Both sides, he said, wanted the U.N. sanctions on Iraq lifted. Iraq owes Russia $6 billion in unpaid debts; it owes India $1 billion. In 1997, India and Russia had signed memorandums of understanding with Iraq to undertake joint ventures in the oil sector. Iraq has the world's second largest known oil deposits.

Indian officials, however, hastened to add that no strategic significance should be read into the joint expression of resolve vis-a-vis Iraq by India and Russia during Primakov's visit.

The Indian Foreign Office seems to have concluded after the latest attacks on Iraq that UNSCOM has outlived its utility. Jaswant Singh told mediapersons that he agreed with the positions of France, Russia and China that UNSCOM in its present form could not resume work in Iraq. But unlike Russia and China, India has not demanded the resignation of UNSCOM chief Richard Butler.

Indian officials believe that India's capability to influence policy in West Asia is limited. Such diplomatic fatalism perhaps springs from the belief that Washington's capacity to undertake unilateral action will remain unchallenged given the geopolitical realities of the unipolar world. Indian policymakers also seem to have concluded that Russia cannot be trusted to follow a consistent policy on Iraq owing to "long-term limitations" stemming from its economic crisis and its dependence on the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The primary goal for those who now shape India's foreign policy is to see that India remains "constantly engaged" with the U.S.

MIKE SEGAR/REUTERS
Chinese Ambassador to the U.N. Qin Hausun condemns the U.S.-U.K. air attack on Iraq.

According to CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Prakash Karat, the Government was forced to issue a statement "deploring" the U.S. attack following the strong international reaction and the fact that the majority of the five permanent members of the Security Council were opposed to it. After the recent attacks the U.S. had become more isolated, said Karat. The BJP, he said, would not go beyond "deploring" the attack as its primary interest was to get the U.S. to recognise India as a nuclear power. "This is an illusion," said Karat. The Government, he said, was always talking about the dialogue with "key interlocutors" when in fact it was only talking to one country - the U.S.

With its recent actions, the U.S. appears to have closed the U.N. route for a solution to the crisis in Iraq. "The stand of Russia and China on the issue will have an impact, internationally," said Karat. He added that the CPI(M) unit in Kerala had given a call to send medicines to Iraq and that spontaneous collections were taking place in many parts of India.