India Needs Sustained and Credible Outreach on Terrorism 

My favourite story of timely and clever diplomatic intervention in pursuit of securing global support for an internationally unpopular Indian action still remains that of Naresh Chandra getting Henry Kissinger to support India’s nuclear tests in 1998. Chandra, who had been Union cabinet secretary during Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao’s tenure was then Indian ambassador in Washington DC.

The United States, like many signatories to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), had been an implacable opponent of India’s nuclear programme and was opposed to India becoming a nuclear weapons power. Successive governments had tried without success to convince the US that with China becoming a nuclear power India had no option but to also go nuclear.

When, in 1995, Prime Minister Narasimha Rao tried to conduct nuclear tests the US exerted enormous pressure to dissuade him. He backed off partly because the economy was not yet on firm ground and partly because general elections were around the corner. In the event, he briefed his successor, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who finally took the decision to test in May 1998.

Well aware of how Washington DC would react, Naresh Chandra reached out to the very distinguished and influential American diplomat and intellectual, Henry Kissinger. Kissinger, the ultimate realist and student of power and diplomacy, viewed India going nuclear as inevitable given China’s rising power in Asia. Would he say that to US media? Of course he would. Within minutes, before the US media and government reacted to the tests, Kissinger was on television defending India’s decision. That’s diplomacy.

Also read: Five Questions That Indian MPs May Have to Face Abroad

A waste of taxpayer money?

During my brief tenure as media advisor to the prime minister I found few Indian diplomats displaying Chandra’s kind of initiative or having his kind of reach across government, academia and media. Perhaps today there are even fewer such talented diplomats in major capitals. I am, therefore, not surprised with the response India got from the so called ‘international community’ and global media to her actions against Pakistan in response to the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir.

This appears to have also been the assessment of the Union government since it has decided to depute multi-party delegations of Members of Parliament to convey India’s point of view to policy and opinion makers across a range of countries. Of course the world would know that Indian political and public opinion would be united in the face of the kind of dastardly terror attack in Pahalgam.

That the government has opted to make a point of displaying such unity overseas is a comment on its self-assessment of its own credibility and that of the ruling party.

Few around the world would change whatever opinion they have already formed, favourable or unfavourable, about the Pahalgam incident and of India’s response, after interacting with this groups of MPs. This parliamentary outreach, which appears to be more about displaying national unity than about making a credible case globally, may well be a waste of taxpayer money. Moreover, such episodic intervention is no substitute to sustained interaction with world opinion.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with US President Donald Trump. Photo: X/@narendramodi

The president of the Indian National Congress, Mallikarjun Kharge has posed an important question.

The prime minister, Kharge observed, has made 151 trips overseas over the past 11 years, visiting 72 countries. He has pursued a highly personalised diplomacy, hugging leaders around the world. He has received several national honours. He has visited the US 10 times. Yet, for all that effort he is now constrained to depute an assortment of MPs to canvas India’s case because international opinion was found wanting when it came to supporting India’s military response to terrorism.

India today has more think tanks and international relations experts than ever before. Some of them spend a lot of money trying to win friends and influence global opinion. International relations experts and retired diplomats are prolific with their newspaper columns, media appearances and participation in seminars and conferences around the world.

Yet, for all that activism, when it came to a major national security issue, all the investment made in this globe-trotting and conferencing has not helped win significant support for India’s response. At its best, there was unalloyed expression of sympathy and condemnation of terrorism. At its worst, the world’s major economies dished out a $2 billion loan to Pakistan in the midst of the hostilities.

The purpose of making this point is not to find fault with government, diplomats, members of parliament, scholars and the media. But to ask why the global response was so muted despite years of our explaining our views on cross-border terrorism and Pakistan’s culpability. What does it tell about how events in India and South Asia are being viewed around the world. There is need for introspection.

The precedent for such a multi-party political outreach being cited, that of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao sending the leader of the opposition, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to Geneva to speak for India at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights is a misleading one. Since the issue was about human rights violations in India getting an opposition party leader to speak for the government was a clever tactic. This time the issue is, as far as global opinion is concerned, whether or not India was right to respond militarily against Pakistan to a terror attack without establishing the link between the terrorists and Pakistan, as was done in 2008 after the Mumbai attack.

International opinion has been firmly with India in condemning the terror attack and terrorism as a political weapon. However, it has been muted on the question of whether India’s military response was warranted. There is also growing international unease at the direction politics has been taking across the sub-continent. From Myanmar and Bangladesh to the East to Afghanistan and Pakistan to the West, democracy and democratic institutions have been challenged.

India used to be a beacon of hope for democracy in the region. That reputation has taken a knocking. It remains to be seen if this parliamentary outreach will burnish India’s democratic credentials. Remaining true to our constitutional values is the best way to convince the world of the credibility of our actions, at home or across the border.

Sanjaya Baru is an author, former newspaper editor and former adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.