11-18-2005, 01:29 AM
http://www.thedailystar.net/2005/11/17/d51117020423.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Plain Words
The Natwar Singh affair
M B Naqvi, writes from Karachi
Fallout from Kunwar Natwar Singh's ouster from India's External Affairs Ministry the other day will not remain confined to Indian politics alone. It is obviously calculated to consolidate the America-India strategic partnership. We learn from Indian media that quite apart from the Volcker Committee Report's aspersions on Natwar Singh as well as the Congress of having indirectly benefitted from UN's Iraqi oil-for-food programme in the 1990s, the outgoing foreign minister of India had become an embarrassment for Manmohan Singh government. The PM disliked him as a relic from Nehru's non-aligned mode of thinking while he whole-heartedly accepted the BJP project of partnership with America. <b>Natwar was even referred to as 'dense' in US official documents which in some Indian eyes made him totally unfit to be India's Foreign Minister. </b>
The immediate issue is about India's vote on Iran's nuclear programme if the US moves the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors at its upcoming meeting on Nov 24. The Americans clearly want the IAEA to refer Iran's non-compliance with NPT complaint to the UN Security Council so that mandatory sanctions can be imposed on Iran, if the US can muster a majority vote in UNSC. They have set their heads on punishing Iran. Meanwhile the wheels of international politics are churning.
Americans face a difficult task. No one really wants to see sanctions being imposed on Iran except the US, Israel and a few of US satellite states; even the European Three -- Britain, France and Germany -- are visibly unhappy at the prospect of having to vote for sanctions on Iran, if the latter does not relent on the issue. Russia and China, both veto-wielding powers, are opposed to punishing Iran and are trying to find a consensus solution. The US expects India to be ready to vote as the US desires.
Americans as well as his colleagues in the government saw Natwar in a politically compromising position: He not merely attended a Moscow SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) meeting where the issue came up and he went along with the Russo-Chinese position; he even talked with the Chinese Foreign Minister in which he agreed with the Consensus idea. <b>Later, he left a statement on the record in which he said 'if the next resolution in IAEA Board was any harsher on Iran, he, as External Affairs Minister, would recommend to his government to reverse the earlier position that India had taken'. </b>That scandalised the pro-America groups in and out of Indian government. <b>It is also interesting to note that the Indian media have trained all their guns on Natwar, while the Volcker Committee had indicted the Congress party as another beneficiary from the Iraqi oil-for-food programme.</b>
Even so it remains uncertain how will India vote. Indian media, on the other hand, appears to be relieved that Natwar is out and the way forward to stand united with America is clear. Still, the question is open: will Manmohan government vote for UN sanctions on Iran? There is little doubt that the good doctor leading the Indian government is anxious to vote as the US desires; he will be supported in this by India's mainstream media. What might restrain him, however, is the stiff opposition from the Indian Left to toeing American line. The September vote against Iran in Vienna was one too many for the Left. The whole Left disapproved it. Some 100 MPs in Lok Sabha bitterly oppose the pro-American policies of South Block.
Meanwhile there was a small window of opportunity when E Three made a compromise proposal, with tacit US approval, that Iran may convert uranium into Hexaflouride but should not proceed any further. It should enrich it in Russian facilities inside Russia jointly with it. Initially it seemed as if this compromise will be acceptable to Iran. But as it happens, Iran and EU remain engaged in secret diplomacy. Iran still seems to stand by the letter of NPT, holding that enrichment of uranium is its NPT given right. The west, of course, refuses to recognise that right of Iran on the basis of its suspicions that Iran will cheat and that it will somehow go on enriching uranium to the level needed in an atomic bomb. Given American determination to prevent any chance of Iran acquiring atomic weapons, the world still has a first class crisis on its hands in which US will demand India's support.
Although it is only a foreign policy issue, it meshes in with other social and economic policies. <b>Natwar has unwittingly helped sharpen the Left-Right divide in India.</b> Left parties generally oppose the World Bank-IMF policies -- the offsprings of Washington Consensus -- that were so dear to the previous BJP-led government, are now wholeheartedly supported by the UPA government. After all, this economic paradigm had been initiated by Dr. Manmohan Singh himself in 1991 as Rajiv Gandhi's FM. Both much of UPA and NDA share the love of these 'reforms' as well as preferring a strategic alliance with the US in place of the earlier non-alignment. They both dislike the Left. <b>Where the two alliances differ is in the definition of Indian Nationalism: UPA's is, by definition, Nehru's secular, composite Indian nationalism while BJP's nationalism is suffused with Hindutva; the difference is mainly theoretical and historical, without much practical distinction today.</b>
If the present configuration of Indian politics lasts -- i.e the Manmohan government is able to square the circle of hunting with American hound and running with the Iranian hare -- everything will depend on Indian Left's threshold of tolerance: when will the UPA government moves too far to the Right to withhold cooperation? Its decision will not be easy. Most of the old communist certainties have disappeared except one: while there is no strictly definable Left programme, the emergence of the US as sole hyper power, going flat out for global domination, can be identified as the chief legitimate object of Leftist opposition. While imperialism and crude capitalism -- the leitmotif of Washington Consensus -- are still the demons to fight, though what socialist construction now looks like has become uncertain.
Manmohan government is not easily assailable on the assumption that the Left cannot afford to topple it; it will be too frightened by the prospect of NDA winning over a few of UPA constituents. While there is weight in this rather self-serving assumption of rightward-inclined Congress leaders, it is also too facile not to say cynical. The decisiveness required by the Left to implement such a decision cannot be taken for granted. Like everywhere else, the Indian left too is in a flux. <b>India's CPM is now ready, really, to follow the example set by Deng Xiopeng in superimposing free markets over what was designed as a planned economy.</b> WB Chief Minister is now welcoming fixed private development investments. Amidst other changes, they may not be able to ditch what was basically a Nehru's legacy? Anti-Imperialism will certainly be too difficult to drop. Natwar's departure from office and Left's acceptance of it in practice thus may not be easy.
Among all the political reactions to the Volcker Committee Report, few regard it to be anything like a competent judicial determination. How much politics is in it is hard to say. Whether it was entirely free of US political purposes or expediencies is also hard to say. Anyhow, its pronouncements will lead to political action by Indian practitioners of realpolitik who are not novices in its arts and crafts.
Indian Rightists will use the report to tighten their grip further over the Congress and the UPA Government. By the same token, the Left will be forced to take equal opposite action. Left-Right polarisation in Indian politics thus stands to be sharpened by another anti-Iran vote, <b>while the process of Left's self-definition should quicken.</b>
MB Naqvi is a leading columist in Pakistan.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Plain Words
The Natwar Singh affair
M B Naqvi, writes from Karachi
Fallout from Kunwar Natwar Singh's ouster from India's External Affairs Ministry the other day will not remain confined to Indian politics alone. It is obviously calculated to consolidate the America-India strategic partnership. We learn from Indian media that quite apart from the Volcker Committee Report's aspersions on Natwar Singh as well as the Congress of having indirectly benefitted from UN's Iraqi oil-for-food programme in the 1990s, the outgoing foreign minister of India had become an embarrassment for Manmohan Singh government. The PM disliked him as a relic from Nehru's non-aligned mode of thinking while he whole-heartedly accepted the BJP project of partnership with America. <b>Natwar was even referred to as 'dense' in US official documents which in some Indian eyes made him totally unfit to be India's Foreign Minister. </b>
The immediate issue is about India's vote on Iran's nuclear programme if the US moves the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors at its upcoming meeting on Nov 24. The Americans clearly want the IAEA to refer Iran's non-compliance with NPT complaint to the UN Security Council so that mandatory sanctions can be imposed on Iran, if the US can muster a majority vote in UNSC. They have set their heads on punishing Iran. Meanwhile the wheels of international politics are churning.
Americans face a difficult task. No one really wants to see sanctions being imposed on Iran except the US, Israel and a few of US satellite states; even the European Three -- Britain, France and Germany -- are visibly unhappy at the prospect of having to vote for sanctions on Iran, if the latter does not relent on the issue. Russia and China, both veto-wielding powers, are opposed to punishing Iran and are trying to find a consensus solution. The US expects India to be ready to vote as the US desires.
Americans as well as his colleagues in the government saw Natwar in a politically compromising position: He not merely attended a Moscow SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) meeting where the issue came up and he went along with the Russo-Chinese position; he even talked with the Chinese Foreign Minister in which he agreed with the Consensus idea. <b>Later, he left a statement on the record in which he said 'if the next resolution in IAEA Board was any harsher on Iran, he, as External Affairs Minister, would recommend to his government to reverse the earlier position that India had taken'. </b>That scandalised the pro-America groups in and out of Indian government. <b>It is also interesting to note that the Indian media have trained all their guns on Natwar, while the Volcker Committee had indicted the Congress party as another beneficiary from the Iraqi oil-for-food programme.</b>
Even so it remains uncertain how will India vote. Indian media, on the other hand, appears to be relieved that Natwar is out and the way forward to stand united with America is clear. Still, the question is open: will Manmohan government vote for UN sanctions on Iran? There is little doubt that the good doctor leading the Indian government is anxious to vote as the US desires; he will be supported in this by India's mainstream media. What might restrain him, however, is the stiff opposition from the Indian Left to toeing American line. The September vote against Iran in Vienna was one too many for the Left. The whole Left disapproved it. Some 100 MPs in Lok Sabha bitterly oppose the pro-American policies of South Block.
Meanwhile there was a small window of opportunity when E Three made a compromise proposal, with tacit US approval, that Iran may convert uranium into Hexaflouride but should not proceed any further. It should enrich it in Russian facilities inside Russia jointly with it. Initially it seemed as if this compromise will be acceptable to Iran. But as it happens, Iran and EU remain engaged in secret diplomacy. Iran still seems to stand by the letter of NPT, holding that enrichment of uranium is its NPT given right. The west, of course, refuses to recognise that right of Iran on the basis of its suspicions that Iran will cheat and that it will somehow go on enriching uranium to the level needed in an atomic bomb. Given American determination to prevent any chance of Iran acquiring atomic weapons, the world still has a first class crisis on its hands in which US will demand India's support.
Although it is only a foreign policy issue, it meshes in with other social and economic policies. <b>Natwar has unwittingly helped sharpen the Left-Right divide in India.</b> Left parties generally oppose the World Bank-IMF policies -- the offsprings of Washington Consensus -- that were so dear to the previous BJP-led government, are now wholeheartedly supported by the UPA government. After all, this economic paradigm had been initiated by Dr. Manmohan Singh himself in 1991 as Rajiv Gandhi's FM. Both much of UPA and NDA share the love of these 'reforms' as well as preferring a strategic alliance with the US in place of the earlier non-alignment. They both dislike the Left. <b>Where the two alliances differ is in the definition of Indian Nationalism: UPA's is, by definition, Nehru's secular, composite Indian nationalism while BJP's nationalism is suffused with Hindutva; the difference is mainly theoretical and historical, without much practical distinction today.</b>
If the present configuration of Indian politics lasts -- i.e the Manmohan government is able to square the circle of hunting with American hound and running with the Iranian hare -- everything will depend on Indian Left's threshold of tolerance: when will the UPA government moves too far to the Right to withhold cooperation? Its decision will not be easy. Most of the old communist certainties have disappeared except one: while there is no strictly definable Left programme, the emergence of the US as sole hyper power, going flat out for global domination, can be identified as the chief legitimate object of Leftist opposition. While imperialism and crude capitalism -- the leitmotif of Washington Consensus -- are still the demons to fight, though what socialist construction now looks like has become uncertain.
Manmohan government is not easily assailable on the assumption that the Left cannot afford to topple it; it will be too frightened by the prospect of NDA winning over a few of UPA constituents. While there is weight in this rather self-serving assumption of rightward-inclined Congress leaders, it is also too facile not to say cynical. The decisiveness required by the Left to implement such a decision cannot be taken for granted. Like everywhere else, the Indian left too is in a flux. <b>India's CPM is now ready, really, to follow the example set by Deng Xiopeng in superimposing free markets over what was designed as a planned economy.</b> WB Chief Minister is now welcoming fixed private development investments. Amidst other changes, they may not be able to ditch what was basically a Nehru's legacy? Anti-Imperialism will certainly be too difficult to drop. Natwar's departure from office and Left's acceptance of it in practice thus may not be easy.
Among all the political reactions to the Volcker Committee Report, few regard it to be anything like a competent judicial determination. How much politics is in it is hard to say. Whether it was entirely free of US political purposes or expediencies is also hard to say. Anyhow, its pronouncements will lead to political action by Indian practitioners of realpolitik who are not novices in its arts and crafts.
Indian Rightists will use the report to tighten their grip further over the Congress and the UPA Government. By the same token, the Left will be forced to take equal opposite action. Left-Right polarisation in Indian politics thus stands to be sharpened by another anti-Iran vote, <b>while the process of Left's self-definition should quicken.</b>
MB Naqvi is a leading columist in Pakistan.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->