Author: Seema Sirohi
Publication: Outlook
Date: May 26, 2003
URL: http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20030526&fname=Mishra+%28F%29&sid=1&pn=1
Introduction: Brajesh Mishra gets
tips from American Jews on how to win friends and influence people-the
right ones
It was a pretty public enunciation,
made in front of 1,200 dinner guests of the American Jewish Committee (AJC),
never mind the euphemisms from National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra
and subsequent caveats from nervous Indian diplomats. Last week, India
spoke out, leaving little ambiguity in positioning itself besides Israel
and the US in terms of shared interests and common dangers. Short of using
the term "alliance" for the triangular bonding, Mishra proposed, offered
and expounded on just about everything to make the case-that the three
countries must fight terrorism together.
It was the context that lent his
words their full import. His only evening in Washington was spent addressing
the annual dinner of the AJC, one of the most influential Jewish bodies.
What's more, Mishra was the featured guest, with Spanish premier Jose Maria
Aznar, for an evening that was themed 'A Tribute to US Allies'. And he
came after
a "substantive" 20-minute meeting
with President Bush in the Oval Office centred around India's recent peace
initiative.
But whether Mishra's trip to the
US was thought up to accommodate the dinner or the confluence was mere
serendipity would be splitting hair. The Indian embassy and AJC officials
had been in touch since February to find a big Indian guest for the evening.
Mishra obliged and in one splash painted a picture where India, Israel
and the US walk into the sunset together. All three democracies.
The AJC dinner is a significant
event in Washington's political and social calendar, the list of guests
often extending to presidents and prime ministers. Bush addressed it in
2001, giving the group "special credit" for being a guiding light of foreign
policy. Vaclav Havel, the Czech philosopher king, has praised the AJC for
helping to create "an order of security and peace in Europe". Former secretary
of state Madeleine Albright almost hung a halo on the group when she said,
"Around the equator and from pole to pole you have done more than preach;
you have taught. The benefits of your teaching have spread like manna upon
the water." The edgy Indian representatives are in exalted company.
Israel and the American Jewish community
reciprocate, to a degree, India's kindred aspirations. They see in India's
predicament an echo of Israel's: the picture of a lonely, modern lighthouse
in a sea of instability, Islamic radicalism, semi- democratic and fully
autocratic regimes is what fills out this shared territory. Moreover, India
has no history of anti- Semitism, nothing to hamper the "natural affinity"
felt by a people who have been hounded by history.
All this bonding has an urgent,
practical utility too. For India, influential Jewish groups can do some
heavy-lifting with Washington's bureaucracy, which hasn't embraced the
Indian gestalt quite yet. New Delhi has long envied the easy acceptance
of Israeli interests as America's own. The intellectual, methodical work
by Jewish groups to spread their wings across legislative and executive
branches of the US government is being eagerly emulated by Indian Americans.
Indian strategists hope to harness
the budding Jewish goodwill so as to penetrate the recesses of established
thinking on South Asia from another direction. It will require some deft
footwork to reconcile this proximity with New Delhi's historic support
for the Palestinian cause. For instance, by not abjuring its old line,
and saying it is only against US "double standards" on terrorism. But that
is not much of a damper.
The Jewish side is beginning to
cotton up to this partnership. Says Jason Isaacson, AJC's director of government
and international affairs: "In time you'll see an evolution in US government
thinking. The threat of terrorism is a strong point for the alliance.We
have raised it at the highest levels. We are doing our part to emphasise
the common thread." He feels there is now "an increased sensitivity from
the time when talking about Kashmir or India-Pakistan issues meant everything
was carefully balanced, spoonful by spoonful." In the public realm too,
the debate on India is better informed and has gone beyond official Washington
ambivalence.
The chumminess will grow when the
AJC opens an office in New Delhi in the next few months, though no date
has been set. An Indian figure who's been helping AJC liaise with key ministers
in the NDA government will be formally named the representative, Issacson
said. Established in 1906, the AJC today is an NGO with a $35 million annual
budget, 33 regional offices, 1,25,000 registered members and four international
offices in Jerusalem, Warsaw, Geneva and Berlin. It has consultative status
with the UN. It is a 'policy guru' of sorts in the spectrum of Jewish groups
that range from the hardcore political action committees to hardline anti-Muslim
outfits. A common objective is to keep American policy squarely pro- Israel.
Any deviation warrants swift retribution at the polls.
It is this network that the bjp
covets and would like the 1.8 million-strong Indian American community
to replicate. "The bjp has taken a special interest in cultivating us but
it was the Congress that established full diplomatic relations with Israel.
I have been to India seven times in the past eight years," Isaacson said.
"This was the most public acknowledgment of the relationship between India
and Israel," he added.
It seems India's coming-out party
had been in the works for a year. Mishra took the plunge-softening the
impact only by not naming or denouncing other countries. He recalled the
prime minister had declared India and the US "natural allies," that Bush
had asserted the two countries had common strategic interests. He noted
that many Congressmen present at the dinner were friends of Israel and
that "they are also friends of India". He announced to applause that India
will "receive Prime Minister Ariel Sharon soon on an official visit".
"India, the US and Israel have some
fundamental similarities. We are all democracies, sharing a vision of pluralism,
tolerance and equal opportunity. Stronger India-US relations and India-
Israel relations have a natural logic," Mishra offered, going on to say
that as "the main targets of international terrorism, democratic countries
should form a viable alliance against terrorism" that should have the "political
will and moral authority" to take action. From the existing anti-terrorism
coalition, "a core of democratic societies has to gradually emerge" which
can take the problem head-on, he said.
Clearly, the subtext was: certain
partners in the war on terrorism with dubious credentials may stay out.
Hopefully his message was delivered to the White House by Andrew Card,
the chief of staff, who sat on the dais listening carefully. The audience
also had nearly 30 Congressmen, several former US ambassadors, the current
Chinese ambassador, Jewish representatives from 46 countries, key lawyers
and Wall Street deities.
Moving along new foreign policy
avenues, Mishra covered considerable ground in a short, well-crafted speech.
He pleased his Jewish audience when he said no distinction should be made
between "freedom fighters" and terrorists. It was a fallacy, he added,
that terrorism can only be eradicated by addressing its root causes. "This
is nonsense. Terrorist attacks against innocents have no justification."
It was a googly designed to please Israel and to remind the Bush administration
to look the problem square in its face vis-a-vis Kashmir.
