Polaris  

Lessons from Nixon’s frostiness.

A running theme on Polaris has been India’s reluctance to clearly signal its strategic objectives. This has often had detrimental effects on our foreign policy. It has lost us potential friends and allies and allowed adversaries to freely misrepresent Indian intentions. Coomi Kapoor, drawing upon Kalyani Shankar’s book on Richard Nixon and Mrs. Gandhi, reminds us that both effects have long marred our foreign relations (HT Pragmatic):

A memorandum of conversations between Chinese Premiere (sic) Chou En-Lai and Nixon in February 1972 in Beijing shows that Chou shared Nixon’s intense dislike of the Nehru family. It is interesting that our enemies view Nehru book Discovery of India as evidence of Nehru’s expansionist ambitions, whereas Indians see Nehru as a flag bearer for pacifism.

Chou said to Nixon ” It is also a great pity that the daughter has taken as her legacy the philosophy of her father embodied in the book “Discovery of India”. The Chinese premiere seemed to feel that Nehru had visualized a greater Indian empire including Malaysia, Ceylon, etc “It would probably also include our Tibet”, Chou added resentfully. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was to voice a similar sentiment while talking to Nixon in 1973. “Pakistan is not the only neighbour of India which has suffered–Nepal, Sikkim, Burma and China have all suffered similarly. Living in peace with India does not mean Indian hegemony in South Asia.”

There are several reasons why Pakistan has generally had better relations with the USA than India. Apart from strategic considerations, the fact is that Pakistanis knows how to roll out the red carpet and pull out all the stops for important guests from abroad. Charlie Wilson’s War gives a riveting account of US Congressmen Charlie Wilson being wined, dined, entertained and showered with gifts in Pakistan. Wilson returned the favour sanctioning doubling of the diversion of secret funds to the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviets. Pakistan has been very successful in its strategy to woo influential friends in important place (sic). We Indians, by contrast, have budget restrictions, a bureaucratic approach and an attitude problem.

Even before he became president Nixon had a soft corner for Pakistan. When he was out of power he had visited the country five times and all sorts of courtesies were extended to him. In contrast Nixon visited India twice as a private citizen and each time he received “a minimum of appropriate protocol.” In fact on a visit to Prime Minister Gandhi’s office after 20 minutes Gandhi became impatient and asked the accompanying official from the MEA in Hindi how long was her guest going to stay. [Indian Express]

Despite recent improvements—which are certainly not inconsequential—both our insistence on basic protocol and ambiguity of intention continue to restrain us. One American official based in Washington put it to me bluntly: ”The Pakistanis have long known how to run circles around you guys in this town.”