BackThe Manmohan doctrine
Instead of minting fancy expressions, India is best served by pursuing clear-headed ideas about its neighbourhood and the wider world
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A fortnight ago Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed India’s ambassadors and high commissioners. It is an annual feature. But this time, it was held to be something different. Singh highlighted five points that he thought had come to define India’s foreign policy. (Excerpts of his address along with the five points can be found here: bit.ly/1bXRfeg). These have been hailed as the Manmohan Singh doctrine by some.
That tranquil appreciation of India’s priorities is in stark contrast to what is happening in its neighbourhood and the manner in which New Delhi is responding to these events.
Consider the situation in the Maldives first. There, the country’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed, was ousted rudely last year. After much persuasion, he was allowed to contest the presidential election in September this year. But such is the institutional animus against him that no sooner did he emerge as a frontrunner that his re-election was nixed. From the judiciary to the police to the armed forces of that country, all acted in unison against him. Some deft electoral engineering undid him: a third candidate, who switched in the favour of his main rival, trounced him in the final round of voting. What was India’s response? As after his ouster, we are ready to work with the new government and all within a span of 24 hours. This blows a big hole through the fifth point of the Manmohan Singh doctrine, that our foreign policy will be based on values of which secular, liberal democracy is a key one. That value was demolished in broad daylight in the Maldives and we said we are ready to work with a government formed on the grave of those values.
For the moment, just for the moment, excuse this. After all, in a Hobbesian world there is a permanent gap between values and the realities of power. Therefore, a realistic framework where we realize the limits of our ability to intervene in other countries is in our best interest. Now consider how we dealt with Sri Lanka during the recent Commonwealth summit there. Under pressure from political parties in Tamil Nadu, the Prime Minister was prevented from attending the summit. This was founded on the misguided belief that not going to Colombo would somehow help the Tamils in that country. In fact, the demands to “do something" have been considerably stronger—such as opposing that country’s human rights record at international fora. This is interference, pure and simple. And it is futile.
What explains this disarray? At one level, India has not devoted sufficient thought about its role in the world. There are, of course, vague ideas such as being a Great Power, seeking permanent membership at the UN Security Council or, of late, a refurbished version of non-alignment.
But in the end, the actual dealing with countries takes place on a case-by-case basis. That passes off as some kind of adulterated realism. As the two cases above show, it is not. The danger in this approach is that it descends into incoherence very quickly. And that is already happening. Within weeks of its enunciation, the gap between what it seeks to do and what India is capable of is evident to all. Sure, one can say that in time it will yield results. But don’t put too much hope in that.
The other aspect is India’s domestic situation. It is well known that Prime Minister Singh is not a mass leader as mass leadership is commonly understood. When he became the Prime Minister in 2004, it was expected that his relative shielding from the rough and tumble of routine politics would enable him to take hard decisions. Leaders subject to electoral pressures very often shy away from venturing in those domains where their political existence can be threatened. Foreign policy is one area that is at a remove from these concerns. In his first term, he did exhibit such independence in this area. But increasingly, his lack of a political base has caught up with him as regional leaders—wholly devoid of any understanding of this subject—assert themselves. His lack of political strength is telling and the disarray in domestic politics has now been elevated to India’s dealings with its neighbours. It is no surprise that his couching of foreign policy priorities is worded in vague generalizations.
Indians love the word doctrine. It is a badly abused word. The US had the Monroe Doctrine—to prevent European interference in the Americas—that was executed with firmness by generations of American leaders. The Manmohan Singh doctrine is a figment of imagination of those who have coined the expression. It is no better than the Gujral doctrine of yesteryears, one that is barely remembered today. The Singh doctrine is as homeopathic as was the Gujral doctrine. Instead of minting fancy expressions, India is best served by pursuing clear-headed ideas about its neighbourhood and the wider world.
Siddharth Singh is Editor (Views) at Mint. Reluctant Duelist will take stock of matters economic, political and strategic—in India and elsewhere—every fortnight. Comments are welcome at siddharth.s@livemint.com. To read Siddharth Singh’s previous columns, go to www.livemint.com/reluctantduelist-
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