Author: Editorial
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: June 4, 2004
URL: http://www.samachar.com/features/040604-editorial.html
Natwar Singh should never have been
made the Foreign Minister in the first place. In less than a week, the
self-opinionated Natwar has come close to undoing the good work done by
the Vajpayee Government in the field of foreign relations. The former career
diplomat has shown a remarkable lack of tact and responsibility in handling
his new job.
With an ossified mindset, this haughty
`cold warrior' has proposed and then himself disposed in quick succession
a lot of pieces on the chessboard of international diplomacy. He has given
notice of re-ordering this country's relations with the US only to assert
a few days in the face of open disquiet in Washington that these ties will
continue more or less as before. In one of his hare-brained ideas, he has
talked of a common nuclear doctrine for India, Pakistan and China. Of course,
both China and Pakistan were not interested in the Indian Foreign Minister's
proposal. China reacted with complete silence to Natwar's idea to nix it
fully while Pakistan politely dismissed it as `new and innovative.'
In the coming weeks and months you
can trust Natwar to come up suo motu with many such `new and innovative'
ideas which he will be obliged to discard as soon as these leave his fervid
mind. Arrogance in thought and behaviour makes for poor diplomacy.
But it is in the context of Pakistan
that the new Foreign Minister indulged his weakness for verbal `innovation'
the most. Keen not to give credit to the previous Government for its bold
initiative in devising the roadmap for peace with our western neighbour,
Natwar needlessly harked back to the Shimla Agreement as the almost exclusive
format for the Indo-Pak talks.
A petty mind had allowed petty politics
to inform his response to the on-going peace process with Pakistan. Shorn
of niceties, Natwar argued publicly that the Indira Gandhi-Zulfiqar Ali
Bhutto pact alone could be the framework for these talks while the contribution
of the Vajpayee regime in making these possible could be wholly obliterated.
Natwar talked of holding the dialogue with Pakistan under the so-called
" China model." Since he had spent time outside government picking holes
in the foreign policy of successive non-Congress regimes, Natwar was clearly
smarting under the impression that only he knew how to conduct foreign
relations while others were novices at this game. As the foreign policy
spokesman of the opposition Congress Party he had threatened to review
the arrangement between India and Pakistan under which the peace dialogue
was initiated.
Quite predictably, General Musharraf
reacted with an unconcealed anger to the `innovativeness' of Natwar. He
bristled at the idea of the `China model' for the Indo-Pak talks. Natwar,
still riding the high horse of the Shimla Agreement, quite churlishly asked
the Pakistan President to consult his Foreign Minister. Given that the
Pakistani ruling elite has strong reservations about the Shimla Agreement,
which reminds it of their humiliation in the Bangladesh war, given that
a new and mutually acceptable framework was in place in the Islamabad Declaration,
there was no need for Natwar to harp ad nauseam on the Shimla Agreement.
If the 1972 Agreement was such a
great document, Natwar owed an explanation to the nation as to how it had
failed to achieve anything tangible by way of improvement in the Indo-Pak
relations. Indeed, the gains of the Indian armed forces made on the battleground
were squandered by Indira Gandhi on the negotiating table in Shimla. The
Shimla Agreement served no national purpose in advancing either the cause
of peace or the resolution of the intractable Kashmir dispute. Since the
Shimla Agreement, Pak-inspired mayhem and militancy had been injected into
everyday life in Kashmir. So much for his fealty to the Indira-Bhutto Agreement.
Now, what is the way ahead on the
Indo-Pak front? Mercifully, the damage had been contained for the time
being with the Foreign Secretary, Shashank, reaffirming in an official
statement the new Government's faith in the Islamabad Declaration as the
framework for bilateral relations between India and Pakistan. But the danger
of Natwar acting as a bull in a China shop in the Foreign Ministry will
persist so long as he is the External Affairs Minister. He lacks the requisite
behavioural and mental restraint and skills to be a successful negotiator.
Being needlessly combative and arrogant cannot be equated with consummate
diplomacy.Natwar should be moved out of the MEA before he messes up further
with our foreign policy in general and with the ongoing peace process with
Pakistan in particular.
