Course Correction

The government has managed to re-establish a measure of autonomy in India's foreign policy.

As the sun sets on the United Progressive Alliance’s (UPA) second term, a look at its decade-long record suggests a welcome course correction from its initial policy of putting all its metaphorical eggs in the United States (US) basket. Despite the many missteps and missed opportunities, as things stand today, India’s foreign policy is closer to its professed aim of seeking strategic autonomy, promoting trade and economic linkages and, most importantly, stability and better ties in the immediate neighbourhood.

The UPA’s predecessor, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance had sought to decisively move India to become a strategic ally of the US. The UPA was initially inclined to continue with its predecessor’s policy vis-à-vis the US, but was constrained by the “red-lines” drawn by its alliance partner, the Left Front. This did not prevent it from signing a defence framework agreement with the US in 2005 and voting against Iran at the behest of the US in two International Atomic Energy Agency resolutions in 2005 and 2006, as this move hurt India’s energy security at a time when India’s fuel imports were peaking.

These missteps, the nuclear deal in particular, strained the government’s relations with its allies, resulting in a break in its alliance with the left. But since 2008, UPA-I and then UPA-II sought to make some course corrections. On a range of international issues, India has moved away from the US “bandwagon”; it refused to vote in favour of military intervention in Libya and in Syria, and recently voiced clear opposition to sanctions against Russia over Ukraine and Crimea.

India has also taken a firm stand at international climate and trade negotiations, and on the issue of intellectual property rights, resisting pressure from the US, the European Union and other developed countries. The US has continually complained about India’s reluctance to introduce more market reforms that would allow greater investment and trade in its favour. But the UPA has done relatively well to handle these pressures and has resisted a wholesale “opening up”. Even though India has expanded security and military relationships with the US through cooperation on anti-terror measures and arms trade, it has been careful not to tie its strategic aims with that of the US, in particular the latter’s ambition to “contain” China. India’s Look East policy has led to a deepening of relations with south-east Asia and countries like Korea and Japan. India re-engaged with Iran, initially through backchannel talks and has now even revived the possibility of partnering Iran on development of the Chabahar port. It has also continued and deepened its engagement with Afghanistan, investing heavily in infrastructure and institution building, but delinking its presence from the vicissitudes of the Afghan-US relationship.

The UPA deserves credit for having resisted pressure for military measures against Pakistan after the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai and for not allowing tensions to escalate after some of the border incidents were given a hyper-nationalist turn by the media. Most importantly, the UPA did not allow India’s relations with Pakistan to become a political resource for the military and fundamentalists there, and thus it helped, in an indirect manner, the democratic process in our western neighbour.

In Nepal, India played a positive role in the early part of the UPA’s tenure, facilitating a peace agreement between the Nepali Maoists and the other democratic parties, which paved the way for the formation of the Nepal republic. Despite a lapse into its old habit of interfering in Nepal’s internal affairs, the Indian establishment now seems to back a policy of not interfering in Nepal’s domestic politics and its torturous process of constitution writing. The UPA also managed to initiate some significant breakthroughs in its relations with Bangladesh on border settlements, water sharing, trade and communications and security cooperation. However, its pusillanimity in Parliament in the face of national chauvinists has meant that relations are now in a bit of a limbo.

Even on Sri Lanka, the UPA government, despite some lapses, managed to steer clear of supporting either the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or the Sri Lankan state, even though it did not perhaps do enough to defend the human rights of the Tamil minority. It has joined other countries in putting pressure on the Sri Lankan government to take steps towards post-war reconciliation and devolve more provincial powers to the north and east, both bilaterally as well as through the United Nations. It has also reached out to the war-ravaged Tamil population with reconstruction and relief measures. The UPA has not been successful in improving relations with China much – held back once again by a hyperventilating media – but important steps have been taken on the border issue as well as building relations in multilateral fora like BRICS and BASIC. Improving bilateral trade with China holds the promise of a future betterment in Sino-Indian ties.

Trade and economic relations have also become central to India’s foreign policy, with the UPA using trade agreements to further diplomatic relations. It has played a proactive role in helping Indian capital find good investment opportunities in Africa and other places too. While dangers remain of this developing into the classic exploitative “imperialist” model of economic relations, in the near term it has been largely welcomed by the African countries and led to a rebuilding of old ties on new foundations.

The UPA tenure might well end in a resounding defeat of the Congress Party and its allies because of unpopular domestic decisions and corruption, but in its foreign policy the UPA leaves behind a largely positive legacy.