It is only natural that the question of the proposed sale of British arms to South Africa should have dominated the discussions between Mr. Heath and Mrs. Gandhi during his brief State visit to this country.
It is an issue of critical importance in view of the storm of protest it has aroused among African countries and its likely consequences for the future of the Commonwealth. It could not be swept under the carpet for the sake of politeness.
It is quite on the cards that a British decision to sell arms to South Africa will mark the beginning of the dismemberment of the Commonwealth. The process will be irreversible, whatever the number of countries immediately involved; because other African member-governments will come under strong pressure from public opinion to follow suit.
As a founder-member of the Commonwealth and a firm opponent of South Africa’s apartheid policies, India cannot be indifferent either to the British proposal or to its consequences. But this is not all. India’s vital interests will be hurt if communist influence is strengthened in East Africa as a result of the British move.
New Delhi does not and cannot possibly formulate its position in those terms. But anyone who looks carefully at the requirements of India’s foreign policy in the ‘seventies should have no great difficulty in appreciating this point.
Unfair
Though the question has often been discussed in the British Press in terms of financial gains, it is perhaps unfair to Mr. Heath to say that he has allowed himself to be tempted by the sizable South African market for arms. It is indeed possible that he is convinced that a strong South African navy can help to cope with the growing Soviet naval presence around the Cape.
Not many people outside the ranks of the Conservative Party in Britain will accept this explanation. Most outside observers are in fact convinced that instead of countering Soviet naval activities, the sale of arms by Britain to South Africa will facilitate the Kremlin’s task in East Africa. The countries in the region may or may not offer port facilities to the Russian navy. But they will certainly be better disposed towards it than they are now. They may even come to look upon it as an ally in the developing confrontation with South Africa.
The British Government might have been justified in ignoring this risk if there were strong grounds for it to believe that the Kremlin will indeed use its naval presence around the Cape to harass Western merchant fleets in an emergency. But such a view is wholly untenable. Soviet leaders are not such imbeciles as to attempt anything so stupid. Washington clearly recognises this point. That is one reason why Mr. Nixon has been opposed to the British move.
Some of the British leaders now in power are clearly haunted by the experience of the last two wars when the German submarine fleet posed a serious threat to their country’s trade and therefore to its survival. Sir Alec Douglas-Home, who initiated the move to sell naval equipment to South Africa, is undoubtedly one of them. But Mr. Heath should have recognised that developments in weapons technology have made those concepts wholly out of date.
Two additional points are relevant in this context. First, the thrust of the Soviet navy is clearly in the direction of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. This trend will be strengthened once the Suez Canal is reopened. It is self-evident that the South African navy cannot patrol these areas. Secondly, Moscow will use its presence in the Indian Ocean partly to eliminate the possibility of direct Western intervention on the pattern of the Anglo-US action in Jordan and Lebanon in 1958, partly for countering Chinese influence in the area and consolidating its own position.
India’s Response
This is an unavoidable development in that Russia has for the first time acquired the capability of making its presence felt all over the world and it cannot be expected to adopt an attitude of self-abnegation. Britain cannot hope to restore its old position and treat the Indian Ocean as a British lake for all practical purposes as in the old days, whatever Mr. Heath may do either by himself or in co-operation with the United States. Uncontested Anglo-US interventions are out of the question and countries like India have no reason to regret the change.
If the US and Britain attach sufficient importance to the area and wish to match Soviet naval presence, they will have to act openly and directly. They cannot achieve their objective either through a discredited proxy like South Africa or on the cheap. In plain words they will have to deploy their own fleets.
What should be India’s response to these developments? Ideally, New Delhi is opposed to the presence of all external powers in the Indian Ocean and wishes that they neither maintain old bases in the area nor establish new bases there. But since such a solution is not available, two other considerations must influence New Delhi’s attitude and policy.
It cannot take a dim view of the presence and expansion of the Soviet fleet in the Indian Ocean inasmuch as it is part of Russia’s larger effort to contain Chinese influence. India will have to be wary of China even if the relations between the countries improve because New Delhi cannot redress the overall military imbalance vis- a-vis Peking on its own. But it cannot also view with equanimity a situation in which Russia acquires such predominance in the region that it is in a position to dominate the Indian scene.
Does this mean that New Delhi should welcome the Anglo-US naval presence in the region as a counterweight to Russia? The answer to this question is “no”. In any case so long as the United States and Britain follow policies which are highly unpopular in West Asia and Africa they cannot offset the increase in Soviet influence in the region.
It is in this larger perspective that India’s opposition to the British proposal to sell arms to South Africa should be viewed in London. The same reasoning accounts for New Delhi’s deep interest in a peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
British leaders are as a rule pragmatic. But they have been guilty of grave mistakes in the past. Mr. Eden’s decision to enter into a conspiracy with Israel and France to attack Egypt in 1956 was perhaps the most disastrous of these. Mr. Heath’s move to sell arms to South Africa may not be comparable with it. But its consequences can be equally grave.
The world scene has changed so drastically since the early ‘fifties that it is no longer realistic to think of Indo-British ties in terms of that period. But it may be useful to recall that Mr. Nehru’s decision to stay in the Commonwealth and to maintain the closest possible relations with Britain in spite of its pro-Pakistan attitude on the Kashmir issue was not inspired wholly either by sentiment or considerations of trade. He believed, and rightly so, that friendly ties with London would be useful for influencing Washington and for gaining access to sophisticated modern technology. Ottawa also figured high in his calculations on these two points.
Still Useful
India is not trying to play a worldwide role today and therefore does not need to exert that kind of pressure on Washington through friendly capitals. But the old approach can still be useful.
Similarly, while Britain’s importance as a trading partner has declined and will inevitably decline further if it joins the European Economic Community, it will still play a significant role as a member of that powerful economic grouping if and when it joins it.
Peking has shown a better appreciation of the future role of Western Europe as a counterweight to both the super-powers than New Delhi. The latter has in fact been preoccupied with its relations with the United States and the Soviet Union, with the result that it continues to think in terms of the outdated concept of defending its policy of non-alignment by balancing one against the other. It is about time that policy planners in New Delhi paid enough attention to Western Europe and Japan. Mr. Heath s visit will have been useful if it persuades them to realise that a rapidly changing world scene calls for a new perspective.
The Times of India, 12 January 1971