06-10-2006, 12:23 AM
<!--emo&:argue--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/argue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='argue.gif' /><!--endemo--> Must India have and act on a Monroe Doctrine of its own? Or must the country go for a modified version of the doctrine? Far from academic is the debate on these questions that Indian foreign policy and security experts of a certain description have set in motion. The debate can portend a danger that merits note by the peace-preferring majority in the region.
The questions are a natural corollary to recent developments seen as the dawn of an India-US "strategic partnership." The developments - including a US-India nuclear deal and President George Bush's mission to India that promised even more in a common cause of "democracy" - have raised hopes here of a greater regional role for the leading and largest country of South Asia. The debaters are, in fact, discussing a role for India that is remarkably similar to the one that its strategic partner seeks to arrogate for itself in the international arena.
The Monroe Doctrine, propounded by US President James Monroe in 1823, demanded a discontinuation of all efforts by European powers to colonize the Americas and offered US non-intervention in European affairs in return. The avowedly anti-colonial doctrine then rapidly degenerated into one for an especially US form of colonialism. Bush, as we know, has carried this neo-colonialism far beyond the USA's own backyard.
India's variant of the document, as peddled by its votaries, gives the country the right of interference and intervention, including the military kind, in the internal affairs of its immediate neighbors. The "strategic partnership," according to them, reinforces this right.
There have been two major instances of such intervention in the past. The first was India's all-important role in the Bangladesh war of 1971, which created a new state that has not become a staunch ally of the country. The second was the intervention in Sri Lanka by an Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) in the 80s, which proved a costly mis-adventure and led (according to the official version) to the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The experience has served to keep India away from military embroilment in neighbors' affairs ever since.
There are two instances, again, where pundits of the "strategic partnership" camp would like India to intervene now - effectively, if not militarily, in the immediate context. It is Nepal, where the masses have just overthrown a hated monarchy, to which these experts want India to turn its attention first. They see an opportunity in the current visit to India of new Nepal prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala for four-day talks on cooperation in many fields, especially the economic.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government is under considerable pressure from these quarters to try to conclude an India-Nepal Treaty to replace the pact of 1950, which has no popular support in the Himalayan nation all these years. The counsel for a revised treaty, "more representative of the times we live in" as one of these experts puts it, is being proffered and pressed despite the clear mandate to Koirala against signing any new treaty now from two major political blocs in Nepal - the Seven-Party Alliance (SPA) in power in Kathmandu and the Maoists, whom the SPA seeks to bring into the political mainstream.
Along with the treaty, the experts are also selling the idea of pro-active New Delhi moves to tame the Maoists. The subject deserves separate treatment at the end of the Koirala mission, but it is already clear that the Indian government will be increasingly under pressure to participate in Nepal's ceasefire process, possibly under the auspices of the United Nations (with the Maoists willing to accept UN monitoring of the process). Such participation by India, obviously, can come perilously close to military intervention.
Sri Lanka, according to the same experts, provides the second opportunity for India to spread its wings under the "strategic partnership." With the "peace process" between Colombo and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) breaking down and armed conflict rocking the island nation again, they argue, it is time for New Delhi to think of options other than a defense pact with the Sri Lankan regime under President Mahinda Rajapakse. This subject, too, merits a separate discussion, but the main point of the security think-tank is that the Singh regime should not let embarrassing memories of the 80s stop it from intervening.
Says C. Raja Mohan, an eminent member of this elite club of experts: "India staying aloof from the peace process in Sri Lanka has not helped in any way. India now needs to prepare itself for a more direct role as well as build an international coalition to raise the pressure on both parties to see reason." This course is commended all the more for the failure of Norway as a mediator in the conflict.
The experts, ably aided by editorial writers, insist upon the international dimension also as an inevitable corollary to the newfound "strategic partnership." The support of Washington and its Western allies for an enlarged regional role for India, it is argued, makes eminently possible the country's intervention in its neighborhood as part of a multilateral initiative. This indeed will be the "smart intervention," as some put it.
Bangladesh may not figure as a case for immediate or early intervention in the campaign, but the far right in India has long projected the country's eastern, Islamic neighbor as a source of "demographic invasion." Not surprisingly, the fervently patriotic calls for India to adopt an interventionist role in its proximity raise fears in the nation born of an Indian military intervention over three decades ago. And it is a Bangladeshi critic who has brought out best a striking similarity between the Bush doctrine and the interventionism that the Indian experts advocate.
Writing in Dhaka's Daily Star two years ago, when a Maoist blockade of Kathmandu led to calls for India's intervention in Nepal, former Bangladeshi general Shahedul Anam Khan said that these were based "on the now commonly touted rationale of President Bush: the principle of preemption. If India's interest is threatened, and its predominance in South Asia diluted, it would do well not to stick to soft options only but go for the more direct (and the more dangerous) option" The similarity between the two doctrines has only become more striking.
Advocates of a modified version of the Monroe Doctrine for India, modified to provide for multilateral interventionism, ignore a major fact of history. The doctrine may have let the US stay insular for a long period, but India will be denied such a luxury under the "strategic partnership." Can India hope to play the regional role the campaigners envisage without becoming a camp-follower in the Bush crusades elsewhere?
Disclaimer: sorry to state that I don't have link or source for either this article or earlier article posted in Cong undemocratic ideology.
The questions are a natural corollary to recent developments seen as the dawn of an India-US "strategic partnership." The developments - including a US-India nuclear deal and President George Bush's mission to India that promised even more in a common cause of "democracy" - have raised hopes here of a greater regional role for the leading and largest country of South Asia. The debaters are, in fact, discussing a role for India that is remarkably similar to the one that its strategic partner seeks to arrogate for itself in the international arena.
The Monroe Doctrine, propounded by US President James Monroe in 1823, demanded a discontinuation of all efforts by European powers to colonize the Americas and offered US non-intervention in European affairs in return. The avowedly anti-colonial doctrine then rapidly degenerated into one for an especially US form of colonialism. Bush, as we know, has carried this neo-colonialism far beyond the USA's own backyard.
India's variant of the document, as peddled by its votaries, gives the country the right of interference and intervention, including the military kind, in the internal affairs of its immediate neighbors. The "strategic partnership," according to them, reinforces this right.
There have been two major instances of such intervention in the past. The first was India's all-important role in the Bangladesh war of 1971, which created a new state that has not become a staunch ally of the country. The second was the intervention in Sri Lanka by an Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) in the 80s, which proved a costly mis-adventure and led (according to the official version) to the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The experience has served to keep India away from military embroilment in neighbors' affairs ever since.
There are two instances, again, where pundits of the "strategic partnership" camp would like India to intervene now - effectively, if not militarily, in the immediate context. It is Nepal, where the masses have just overthrown a hated monarchy, to which these experts want India to turn its attention first. They see an opportunity in the current visit to India of new Nepal prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala for four-day talks on cooperation in many fields, especially the economic.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government is under considerable pressure from these quarters to try to conclude an India-Nepal Treaty to replace the pact of 1950, which has no popular support in the Himalayan nation all these years. The counsel for a revised treaty, "more representative of the times we live in" as one of these experts puts it, is being proffered and pressed despite the clear mandate to Koirala against signing any new treaty now from two major political blocs in Nepal - the Seven-Party Alliance (SPA) in power in Kathmandu and the Maoists, whom the SPA seeks to bring into the political mainstream.
Along with the treaty, the experts are also selling the idea of pro-active New Delhi moves to tame the Maoists. The subject deserves separate treatment at the end of the Koirala mission, but it is already clear that the Indian government will be increasingly under pressure to participate in Nepal's ceasefire process, possibly under the auspices of the United Nations (with the Maoists willing to accept UN monitoring of the process). Such participation by India, obviously, can come perilously close to military intervention.
Sri Lanka, according to the same experts, provides the second opportunity for India to spread its wings under the "strategic partnership." With the "peace process" between Colombo and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) breaking down and armed conflict rocking the island nation again, they argue, it is time for New Delhi to think of options other than a defense pact with the Sri Lankan regime under President Mahinda Rajapakse. This subject, too, merits a separate discussion, but the main point of the security think-tank is that the Singh regime should not let embarrassing memories of the 80s stop it from intervening.
Says C. Raja Mohan, an eminent member of this elite club of experts: "India staying aloof from the peace process in Sri Lanka has not helped in any way. India now needs to prepare itself for a more direct role as well as build an international coalition to raise the pressure on both parties to see reason." This course is commended all the more for the failure of Norway as a mediator in the conflict.
The experts, ably aided by editorial writers, insist upon the international dimension also as an inevitable corollary to the newfound "strategic partnership." The support of Washington and its Western allies for an enlarged regional role for India, it is argued, makes eminently possible the country's intervention in its neighborhood as part of a multilateral initiative. This indeed will be the "smart intervention," as some put it.
Bangladesh may not figure as a case for immediate or early intervention in the campaign, but the far right in India has long projected the country's eastern, Islamic neighbor as a source of "demographic invasion." Not surprisingly, the fervently patriotic calls for India to adopt an interventionist role in its proximity raise fears in the nation born of an Indian military intervention over three decades ago. And it is a Bangladeshi critic who has brought out best a striking similarity between the Bush doctrine and the interventionism that the Indian experts advocate.
Writing in Dhaka's Daily Star two years ago, when a Maoist blockade of Kathmandu led to calls for India's intervention in Nepal, former Bangladeshi general Shahedul Anam Khan said that these were based "on the now commonly touted rationale of President Bush: the principle of preemption. If India's interest is threatened, and its predominance in South Asia diluted, it would do well not to stick to soft options only but go for the more direct (and the more dangerous) option" The similarity between the two doctrines has only become more striking.
Advocates of a modified version of the Monroe Doctrine for India, modified to provide for multilateral interventionism, ignore a major fact of history. The doctrine may have let the US stay insular for a long period, but India will be denied such a luxury under the "strategic partnership." Can India hope to play the regional role the campaigners envisage without becoming a camp-follower in the Bush crusades elsewhere?
Disclaimer: sorry to state that I don't have link or source for either this article or earlier article posted in Cong undemocratic ideology.