How INDIA Sees the world

By

Shyam Saran

 

Shyam Saran opens his memoir cum foreign policy thesis, though he denies otherwise, the depiction of India in Hindu cosmology as a southern petal of the four-petalled lotus that floats on the surface of the cosmic ocean.  The petal is broad  as it emerges from the central axis of the blossom, and narrow towards the tip, tracing in its sacred form the physical shape of the sub-continent.  Mr. Saran says it is the geography that influences its foreign policy behavior.  In fact, as another foreign policy expert described the shape of India as an inverted cone in which receives all people, religions and cultures at the top and distill them and deposit within its body-politic and geographic space.  So, in a way it is the geography of India which defines both  its internal composition and external behavior.

 

Rightly, Mr. Shyam Saran says that India has had a sophisticated tradition of statecraft and diplomatic practice and one of consistance theme is the practice of strategic autonomy. The practice of deciding all matters and siding with those whto would be beneficial India.  Though such a practice may not have crystallized in the past, strategic autonomy has been the running theme over the past and most certainly post independence through the policy of non-alignment.

 

The book is divided into four parts, namely, Traditions and History, Neighbours, Wider World and consideration of Climate Change and Mitigation efforts of India in preventing adverse effects.

 

Kautilya’s and age old concepts of leadership, military power and pursuit of power and peace are worthy of note, but such pursuit and practice have not been a consistent theme over many kingdoms and  rulers througout the centuries unlike in China where ambiguity in speech by statesmen and deception in behavior have remained a consistent behavior throughout the centuries.

 

The author calls the relationship of India with its immediate neighbors in South Asia as “challenge of proximity” as India’s giant political and military size  perplexes is smaller neighbors.  The most challenging is India’s relationship with Pakistan which has always been troublesome right from the beginning after partition.  There has been bilateral talks for improving cooperation when relationship was cordial and sudden stoppage of talks when relationship bwcomes bitter.  Since the 90s the dispute over Kashmir has taken centre stage with Pakistan resorting to asymmetric ware fare (cross border terrorism) to drive home its claim to the territory.  The author summarizes the relationship as consisting of talking and withdrawing based on the climate between the two countries, but concludes that a lot more can be achieved by continuing with talks rather than disrupting it.

Indo-Chinese relationship is a power centered one with china, having already reached a higher plian, looks down on India as a lesser power and not deserving a place among the great powers of the world.  Mr. Saran advocates stronger relationship with democratic countries such as the USA, Japan, Australia and countries of western Europe to balance and counter power dissimilarities between India and China.

 

Finally, the author contends that the Indo-US nuclear deal, in which the he played a considerable part, is aimed at enhancing energy security of India without endangering its ‘strategic autonomy’, but there are many knowledgeable nuclear experts who have asserted that India has played into the hands of US and jeopardized its nuclear option without enhancing nuclear power generation.