India's foreign affairs: Thoughts for the New Year

Salman Haidar, The Statesman, Asia News Network, Calcutta

In the realm of India's foreign affairs, the new year has dawned rosy pink. There is a sense that much has been achieved in the last 12 months, and the course is set for further advance. Indeed, the government's handling of foreign relations can be an important asset in an election year.

This is underlined by the drama and circumstance of the Prime Minister's visit to Islamabad. What the visit will amount to cannot be gauged as this piece is being written, but there is a warm glow of expectation, a hope that something big will happen. What has already taken place will only reinforce the sense of achievement in dealing with Pakistan, the most challenging area of foreign relations.

On India's other flank is the border problem with China, something that takes us back to the defeat in the 1962 war. Vajpayee was in China a few months ago, on what was from all accounts, including Chinese, a very successful visit. It seemed that at last India and China were in a mood to sort out this matter, and high-level talks have commenced.

An early payoff for India has been a softening of China's position on Sikkim: During the visit itself, Chinese functionaries drew attention to some of their maps that no longer showed Sikkim as independent. At the same time, arrangements were concluded for the resumption of trade across the border pass, Nathu La. It began to seem as if the government's new approach to an old problem had yielded dividends.

Behind these regional events looms a strikingly altered relationship with the U.S., the sole superpower of the day. Decades of mistrust have been erased, to be replaced by what looks like an association of comfortable mutual understanding. On some matters of real concern to India, of which terrorism is near the top of the list, a genuine convergence of interest is to be seen.

This fast expanding relationship has become the anchor of a role for India as a principal actor in wide swathes of the Indian Ocean and Asia, in keeping with the status to which it is entitled by its size, resources and talents. At last, it would seem, India is coming into its own.

Such rosy pictures inevitably have their obverse and there are many shortcomings. Even so, one must welcome signs of addressing long-standing problems with the neighbors. Being mired in regional difficulties has diminished India, and whenever we seem ready to do something about problems in our vicinity, our stock immediately rises.

Today's doings are no exception, neither are they as innovative or unusual as may be supposed. Several previous efforts have been made, to similar acclaim. The test doesn't lie in signaling of good intention alone but in taking practical measures to put difficult problems behind us. Here, nobody has got very far.

How to convert benign intentions into effective measures on the ground is a formidable task, and for this there is no realistic method other than a serious dialogue that probes the innermost intentions of the different parties. Perhaps Vajpayee's visit to Islamabad will initiate such a dialogue with Pakistan.

With China, a high-level dialogue on the border has already been initiated, but this doesn't mean by itself that the problems have become any easier to resolve. A final border settlement will necessarily involve territorial adjustment that may not favor India in all sectors. To make this acceptable to Parliament and to the country as a whole, will be a tough job with plenty of political risk.

In the coming year, one must hope that these will not be the only neighborhood matters that command New Delhi's attention. The record over the last few years of our dealings with smaller South Asian neighbors is very mixed. They have smarted under what seems to them the lofty disinterest of India, preoccupied with global matters, conscious of its enlarging significance in the world, with little time to spare for the annoying problems on its periphery.

Yet, it is these countries above all that are not to be ignored. It is here that our essential interests will always lie and where much is to be gained through careful management. We need look no further than Bhutan which has pulled many of our chestnuts out of the fire: Its courageous campaign against insurgent groups on its territory has done India an immense favor.

It is a demonstration of how forbearance and sympathetic understanding of shared problems can lead to very useful results, for India and for others. We need to strengthen cooperation with countries grouped around us whose biggest complaint is that we are insufficiently interested.

For all its rosy hue, the new year can't gloss over the problems that remain unresolved and require more than cursory treatment. A successful South Asian Association Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Summit will hopefully re-establish South Asia as an area of primary concern for us. The global status we seek begins in this region near home. Our major problems with Pakistan and China require us to be patient and persevering.

And as for the grander reaches of foreign policy that our opening to the U.S. has provided, that is something to be pursued with determination. But it shouldn't be at the cost of inadequate attention to our neighbors, with whom we are fated to live in perpetuity.

The writer is a former Foreign Secretary, Government of India.