New
Delhi can never compete with Islamabad
in wooing Washington
K.P. Nayar
NEARLY
a decade of being 'nice' to the Americans as a policy is coming
to its logical cul-de-sac in New Delhi's Raisina Hill. That policy
started with stray, isolated gestures during the days of P.V.
Narasimha Rao's prime ministership, when South Block was told
by 7, Race Course Road, the prime ministerial home, that the USA
was the most important foreign policy priority for India and that
the Americans needed to be wooed.
These
individual instances of taking that extra step to please the Americans
became sacrosanct and was converted to policy once Frank Wisner
arrived in New Delhi as the US ambassador. The mandarins of South
Block are sticklers for protocol. They were horrified when the
then foreign secretary decided to invite Wisner to his official
residence at 3, Circular Road for dinner within days of his arrival.
Not
even a tentative date had been discussed for Wisner to present
his credentials to the 
Rashtrapati
(President). Diplomatic convention dictates that a new ambassador
does not meet officials of his host country until after he has
presented credentials. Such a convention is not limited to India.
It applies to all world capitals except a few like Washington,
where the president has no time for ambassadors for months and
months after they have arrived.
Or
Baghdad, where Saddam Hussein may never receive an ambassador's
credentials at all, as it happened to the previous Indian ambassador
to Iraq. In Washington, they get over this problem by asking ambassadors
to function as ambassadors right away after the State Department
goes through the formalities, pending the formal credentials ceremony
at the White House.
In
Baghdad, on the other hand, several meetings are fixed with the
president, the ambassador is driven to different locations, his
cars are switched for reasons of security and the ceremony is
aborted at the 11th hour and 59th minute as a message comes on
the cell phones of protocol officials that Saddam feels it is
unsafe for him to present himself at the ceremony. With several
such aborted credentials ceremonies behind him, the ambassador
finally starts work in sheer desperation after handing over his
letter of credence to the Iraqi foreign ministry.
But
to get back to Wisner's experience, the foreign secretary's dinner
invitation to the new US ambassador was viewed by many then as
an affront to the president. Rashtrapati Bhavan was then engaged
in an exercise of streamlining its dealings with foreign missions
and the ministry of external affairs. The foreign secretary's
office first tried to bully the president's secretariat and get
Wisner ahead of the queue of ambassadors waiting for their first
formal meeting with the head of state. The invitation for dinner
was extended when the president's secretariat refused to be bullied
and told South Block that Wisner would have to await his turn
like every other envoy who was new to India. But the cosy dinner
chat at 3, Circular Road was a signal from the MEA that Wisner
could start functioning as 'His Excellency' without waiting for
the president to receive him, as protocol required.
In
the years that followed, as the print media and television created
illusions of a special relationship between India and the US,
it became an unwritten rule not only in South Block, but also
in North Block ' even in Akbar Bhavan where protocol, customs
and other issues concerning foreign missions are handled ' that
officials had to go that extra mile to be extra nice to the Americans.
Even
as other diplomatic missions grumbled, the US embassy in New Delhi
received special treatment in the issuance of cards which allowed
diplomats access to airports right up to the departure gates to
the aircraft, to mention one example of little consequence. But
the trouble with such an attitude, especially in a foreign office,
is that once you bend the rules, there is no limit to the requests
you get and the concessions you are able to make.
That
was what happened in the run-up to Bill Clinton's visit to India
in March, 2000. The Americans told the Indian embassy in Washington
that the US marines who were going into India in connection with
the visit would land in New Delhi without visas. The embassy was
appalled. But the Americans said that the Marines were used to
going into countries without having to carry their passports.
In fact, many of them had no passports. But the embassy stood
its ground, and in the end, every US Marine who went to India
carried a valid passport with a visa for India duly stamped on
the document.
More
recently, when the secretary of state, Colin Powell, was going
to New Delhi, some smart alec in the Indian government proposed
that journalists accompanying Powell should be issued gratis visas
by the Indian mission in Washington. The proposal may have been
carried out but for another official who said it would create
a scandal in the Indian media. Because the US embassy and consulates
in India charge the usual fees from journalists ' even those accompanying
Indian prime ministers to the US. Reciprocity, for a change, won
the day.
The
change in attitude that Raisina Hill is now going through does
not mean that officials will henceforth be nasty to the Americans.
Not at all. It only means that protocol will strictly apply to
the Americans just like anyone else. Several factors have prompted
such a change. There is a new minister for external affairs and
his minister of state has put in his papers. South Block also
has a new foreign secretary. Unlike his well-liked, but comprehensively
ineffective predecessor, Kanwal Sibal is determined to exercise
his authority, judgment and discretion.
So
when Powell packed his bags to leave for New Delhi in July, it
was put to the new minister in South Block, Yashwant Sinha, and
to the prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, that protocol should
take precedence over gestures. Sinha was convinced that Powell
should only meet him and not the prime minister.
This
was not meant as a snub to the visiting secretary of state. Sibal
took the view that all visiting foreign ministers should only
meet their Indian counterpart and not run around New Delhi chatting
with everyone from Sonia Gandhi to Chandra Shekhar. That was no
way to do business with foreign governments. Powell would not
have met either Vajpayee or the deputy prime minister, L.K. Advani,
in July if the Indian embassy in Washington had not raised Cain.
The
Indian ambassador to the US, Lalit Mansingh, pointed out that
the president, George W. Bush, had received Jaswant Singh, Sinha's
predecessor in South Block, in the Oval Office. Bush had spent
25 minutes with Advani while he was meeting the national security
adviser, Condoleeza Rice, in her office. The defence secretary,
Donald Rumsfeld, had received Jaswant Singh, when he was defence
minister, with special honours.
The
ambassador's rationale was grudgingly accepted at 7, Race Course
Road, but in the process neither the British foreign secretary,
Jack Straw, nor his French counterpart, Domin- ique de Villepin,
who were both in India around the same time as Powell, got to
meet Vajpayee. Protocol could not be jettisoned again and again.
Sinha
and Sibal also believe that niceties are no substitute for policy.
Being nice can help, but only upto a point. Besides, south Asia,
they reckon, is entering a new period of hard, often uncomfortable,
realities in its dealings with the US. Look carefully at what
is happening within Pakistan. And the changes that are taking
place in US-Pakistan relations.
Most
people in India did not even notice a prophetic statement to Pakistan
television by Richard Haass, the director of policy planning at
the State Department, when he was in Islamabad after his visit
to India last month: 'I don't think it is any exaggeration to
say that out of all of our bilateral relationships, probably the
US-Pakistani relationship is the most changed for the better over
the last year or two years. This change was already happening
before September 11th. When we came into office, we were determined
to improve the US-Pakistani relationship ' which, by the way,
had begun to improve somewhat even under the previous administration,
toward the end. It is quite remarkable how far we have come. Pakistan
now is, I think, one of the top four recipients of US assistance
programs...Our militaries are cooperating much more...So I think
there has really been extraordinary progress.'
The
question that was asked of Haass did not require such an effusive
reply. He could have got away with much less. That he said what
he did only shows that he meant every word of it. And that is
something which South Block is beginning to grasp as the dust
settles on the events since September 11, 2001. Meanwhile, within
Pakistan, the only common thread among the various political parties
' make no mistake on this score ' is their competing claims to
get into America's good books. Soon after the elections in her
country, Benazir Bhutto was in Washington trying to convince the
assistant secretary of state, Christina Rocca, that her party
was the best bet for the Americans.
The
very first statement, after the elections, by the alliance of
Islamic parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, said: 'We are ready
to cooperate with the US in the war against terrorism, but the
Americans should not expect support from us in the war against
Islam or Muslims.' Why, right from the morrow of the September
11 terrorist attacks, the MMA had word from Bush himself that
America's war is against terrorism and not against Islam.
So
the Islamic parties in Pakistan would have reason to cooperate
with the US if and when the need for such cooperation arose in
Washington. In any case, Indians should not forget that Maulana
Fazlur Rehman, the MMA's choice for prime ministership, used to
be an honoured guest at the State Department in the first half
of the last decade when he was chairman of the Pakistan national
assembly's foreign relations committee and an ardent international
lobbyist for the Taliban.
In
the final analysis, the whole of Pakistan and its political establishment
' including the Islamic parties ' are like ripe fruit for the
Americans to pick from. India is different, and therefore, New
Delhi can never compete with Islamabad in wooing Washington. Which
is why there is a new, hard look at foreign policy now under way
in the MEA and in the prime minister's office. -Telegraph,
Kolkata
