President Brezhnev’s visit to New Delhi at this time when the Soviet leadership is preoccupied with developments in Poland is a measure of the importance he and his colleagues in the Kremlin attach to relations with this country. On her part, the Indian Prime Minister, Mrs. Gandhi, has left no room for doubt that she fully reciprocates their desire to strengthen Indo-Soviet ties.
But friendship between two sovereign nations is seldom based on an identity of interests and policies. On the contrary, it can rest securely only by a frank recognition of differences and their adjustment to the extent possible. This is especially so when one of the countries is a super-power with global involvements and objectives and the other is at best a regional power with limited ambitions and potentialities. An attempt to pretend otherwise is to risk poisoning relations at the very source.
This proposition is so obvious that it should hardly be necessary to state it. But it needs to be affirmed on two counts. First, a super-power must by definition seek to sell its world view and policy prescriptions to others. After all, a nation is a super-power by virtue of not only its global reach in terms of its military strength but also its global ambitions. The Kremlin’s ambition to establish a pax Sovietica may not be as patent as Washington’s efforts to set up a pax Americana but it is as much a reality. It is, therefore, only natural that Mr. Brezhnev would try to persuade Mrs. Gandhi to view the world through his eyes.
Lobbies
Secondly, a super-power not only uses its own diplomatic and propaganda machinery in its bid to convert other governments to its viewpoint but also builds and sustains powerful lobbies in other countries and utilises them to push its line. This has been as true of the Soviet Union in India as of the United States. There exist in our country both pro-American and pro-Soviet lobbies which spare no effort to subordinate New Delhi’s policy of non-alignment to American or Soviet purposes. While the pro-U.S. elements are currently rather quiet, the pro-Soviet ones have been extraordinarily active. It is interesting to note the convergence between the propaganda line put out by Radio Moscow, Tass, APN and a host of other Soviet agencies and the views expressed by a number of Indians.
It would have been relevant to make these points even if there was reason to believe that acceptance by Mrs. Gandhi of the line which is being put across by Moscow and its friends in India would serve at least the Soviet Union’s long-term interests. For even in that event, Mr. Brezhnev would have had to heed the Indian viewpoint. As it happens there are good reasons to conclude that not to speak of India, such a development would endanger the long-term interests of the Soviet Union as well.
While an Indian endorsement of the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan would not, for instance, contribute in any way to its success, it would greatly detract from New Delhi’s claim to be genuinely non-aligned and weaken its capacity to play a useful role in the non-aligned movement on this and other issues. It would also discredit India’s campaign against the proposed U.S. military buildup in the Indian Ocean. Indeed, the result might be worse. It could increase the possibility of substantial U.S. and Chinese military assistance to Pakistan and thereby Islamabad’s involvement with rebel activities in Afghanistan. The consequences, it is hardly necessary to add, could be disastrous for peace and stability in the region.
Pro-U.S., pro-Chinese and pro-Pakistani commentators apart, no Indian can be wholly reassured regarding Washington’s, Beijing’s and Islamabad’s intentions in south and south-west Asia. As such New Delhi has to be vigilant which it is under Mrs. Gandhi’s leadership. But it is ridiculous to argue, as the Soviet propaganda machinery has been doing, that there has already emerged an identity of interests among them. At least at present there is no such convergence of interests and viewpoints.
Sweeping
On the basis of an article by Mr. Z.A. Suleri in The Pakistan Times, the correspondent of The Guardian, London, in south Asia, has opined that the ruling junta in Islamabad is beginning to be disillusioned with both the non-aligned movement and the Islamic Conference and to revert to the old policy of seeking military assistance from the United States. While the evidence that he has cited for the sweeping conclusion is obviously thin, it is possible that the generals are thinking in these terms. But it does not necessarily follow that the incoming Reagan administration will oblige them.
It will be some time before Mr Reagan’s policies crystallise. Moreover, even if New Delhi thinks that he is likely to revert to the Dullesian approach towards south Asia is it not in its interests to try and prevent such a development? And will it not be better both for India and the Soviet Union that they reason with Mr. Reagan and his team rather than provoke them and bring out the worst in them? Only inept leaders will indulge in self-fulfilling prophecies.
Similarly, while it will be absurd to expect that China will ever abandon its policy of friendship towards Pakistan, it will be equally wrong to ignore either its protestations that it is anxious to normalise relations with this country, or its non-interference in our internal affairs, or its pre-occupations with domestic problems or the uncertainty that has begun to hang over its long-term ties with the United States as a result of Mr. Reagan’s own and his key advisers’ stand on Taiwan and perhaps of their appreciations of its strengths and weaknesses.
Except for a brief period in 1965 when Washington ignored use by Pakistan of weapons gifted by it in the Rann of Kutch and when it might have welcomed a Pakistani occupation of the Kashmir valley with the help of armed infiltrators, American policy towards Islamabad has never been free from ambivalence arising out of its desire to maintain reasonably cordial relations with this country. Also there is not the slightest evidence to suggest either that the Chinese sought Pakistan’s help at the time of their attack on us in 1962 or that they encouraged it to go to war with us in 1965 or 1971. And their reservations regarding Pakistan must, if anything, be stronger in the present context – the unpopularity of the regime, the Soviet military presence across the Khyber and India’s military and industrial preponderance which just cannot be negated. Indeed, it will be extraordinary if in the final analysis the Pakistani ruling junta itself decides to ignore these considerations and to set out on a collision course with New Delhi, not to speak of Moscow.
All in all, it seems reasonable to argue that while India cannot afford to be complacent, it has no reason to take a panicky view of its security problems. Why then have the Soviet media and their friends here been trying to make it out that this country is besieged and is about to find itself in a highly parlous position?
Superficially the answer is obvious. Moscow wants to frighten Mrs. Gandhi so that she draws closer to it. But to what purpose? What good to the Soviet Union is an India whose non-alignment is discredited? Can Moscow provide the assistance this country needs and expects from the West? It might be worthwhile for the Kremlin to run the risk and accept the cost if it is in fact launched on an expansionist course and has decided to dismantle Pakistan in preparation for or as part of its drive to the oil-rich gulf. But is the Soviet Union launched on such a course?
Propaganda
The U.S. propaganda would have us believe that this is so. At home, the former prime minister, Mr. Morarji Desai, has claimed that the Soviet leadership proposed to him that the two countries join hands to “teach Pakistan a lesson.” The U.S. propaganda must be suspect because it is interested. In fact serious-minded Americans themselves do not subscribe to it. America’s West European allies are openly sceptical. Mr. Desai’s statement has been contradicted by both New Delhi and Moscow. But what even if we take it at its face value? It cannot possibly clinch the issue, especially in view of the recent developments in Poland which have fully exposed the fragility of the Soviet alliance system and the sharp drop in Soviet food output which has shown the Soviet Union to be a giant with feet of clay.
The Soviet leaders have not closed and are not likely to close their options either with the United States or China or Pakistan. Indeed, they can be depended on to seize any opportunity to improve their relations with each one of them and if possible all of them, While their propaganda machine may make it out that these nations have ganged up against the Soviet Union and other “progressive and peace-loving forces,” they will certainly not act on this assumption. If Mr. Brezhnev is candid, he would admit that much to Mrs. Gandhi just as she would have no hesitation in reaffirming that she sees no contradiction between India’s friendship with the Soviet Union and its search for normal relations with the United States, China and Pakistan.
The Times of India, 9 December 1980