Hopefully, Mr Gorbachov’s current visit should mark another milestone in the development of Indo-Soviet friendship – on a bilateral basis. This hope can be best realised if both sides stick to the realistic bilateral perspective and do not exaggerate their capacity to initiate moves of global or even regional (Asia-Pacific) significance.
Ordinarily, it should not have been necessary to make this obvious point. But it has become so in view of what Soviet spokesmen have said in New Delhi itself. It does not require much political insight to recognise that India is preoccupied with its own problems and is going to remain so preoccupied in the foreseeable future. This must limit its foreign policy initiatives to issues of immediate concern to itself. The only exceptions can be the campaigns in favour of nuclear disarmament and sanctions against South Africa since the consensus on these questions cuts across most divides in the world.
India has good reasons to be unhappy, or even angry, with the United States. For the Reagan administration continues to arm Pakistan with highly sophisticated weapons and it has virtually acquiesced in Islamabad’s determined bid to acquire a nuclear weapons capability. Indeed, there can now be little doubt that Pakistan can assemble a nuclear weapon whenever it chooses to do so and that the U.S. perceives its stake in the Zia regime to be so high that it has turned the proverbial Nelson’s eye towards this development.
Also, New Delhi cannot welcome either the growth of the U.S. military presence in the Indian Ocean area, or U.S. military assistance to China. But beyond moves to ensure its own security, there is precious little India can do to counter U.S. policies in the region.
Nehru’s Policy
Apart from India’s own preoccupations, the situation in the adjoining area is also qualitatively different from what it was in the fifties when Nehru embarked on a policy intended to contain U.S. influence in Asia. China was then ruled by an anti-American Mao-Chou team; it is now dominated by Deng Xiaoping who, despite the recent improvement in Sino-Soviet ties, remains much closer to Washington than to Moscow. Similarly, while President Sukarno (Indonesia) was anti-American, President Suharto remains a prisoner of anti-communism. Above all, the difference in the situation for India then and now is best brought out by the contrast between the tallest Muslim figure in the fifties, President Nasser, and the most awesome Muslim figure now, Ayatollah Khomeini.
The Ayatollah, it is self-evident, has presided over the most fundamentally anti-Western revolution in our times and he has delivered a body blow at U.S. influence in Iran and all that went with it. But in view of its fundamentalist Islamic character, his is not a revolution with which India can cooperate.
Nasser’s Egypt was different. It symbolised West Asia’s search for independence on the one hand and modernity (via the secular ideology of Arab nationalism) on the other. India was inspired by similar goals and could easily empathise with such an Egypt.
Unlike Mr. Nehru, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi is not a product of an anti-colonial struggle; unlike the former, the latter also does not see the United States as the inheritor of the West European imperialist legacy; he is fascinated by America, especially its technology, and seeks to develop reasonably close ties with it But he could not have followed in the footsteps of his grandfather even if he had not been so oriented and motivated.
Mrs. Indira Gandhi shared Mr. Nehru’s distrust of the United States but unlike him in the fifties, she could not forge regional ties which could help contain U.S. influence. Nasser had died in 1970 and Sukarno had been overthrown five years earlier in 1965. The Chinese aggression in 1962 had been a blow which, as it were, disoriented India. But that was not the only, or the main, reason why it could not return to Mr. Nehru’s full-blooded anti-colonial approach under Mrs. Indira Gandhi.
Secret Deal
It does not follow that the United States is set to dominate Asia, obliging us to fall in line. On the contrary, its withdrawal of its marines from Lebanon in 1984 in the wake of a series of attacks on them and its recent, secret arms-for-hostages deal with Iran speak of the enormous gap between the military power it has deployed in the region and the genuine influence it commands. It cannot bring about order and stability in West Asia whatever it might do. While it is obsessed with the Soviet ghost, there is little it can do to dispose of the real threats to order in the area — the Arab-Israeli dispute, the Iran-Iraq war and the growth of Islamic fundamentalism as a result of intense frustration among the people.
In plain terms, we can wait for events to frustrate American power in the region close to our border provided, in the meantime, we can continue to ensure our own security. The threat is without doubt serious. But it should not be unduly exaggerated. For one thing, Pakistan has a sufficiently healthy respect for India’s military capability not to wish to engage in an adventure. For another, it should not be impossible for New Delhi to match the hardware the U.S. provides to Pakistan, though the cost will be heavy.
Our friendship with the Soviet Union remains pertinent in this regard despite our diversification of sources for our military purchases. This friendship is, however, not a one-way street. We have to show sensitivity to Soviet interests in return for Soviet sensitivity to our interests. To be candid, Moscow cannot but appreciate and reciprocate India’s support, even if quiet, in respect of Afghanistan and Kampuchea.
Soviet decisions in Afghanistan and Kampuchea will in the final analysis be determined by its appreciation of the balance of advantage. Moscow is not going to be influenced much by us. The Americans and their allies exaggerate our influence in Moscow in order to put us on a collision course with our well-tested friend. Even otherwise, it cannot be in our interest to urge the Soviets to withdraw from Afghanistan and to put pressure on Hanoi to force it to withdraw from Kampuchea. It is their business and therefore it is their right to deal with their problems as best they can. The same incidentally applies to the Soviet Union’s China policy.
The China business, though is rather complicated. In 1971 Mrs. Indira Gandhi signed the treaty of peace and friendship with the Soviet Union in order to ensure that China did not intervene on Pakistan’s side in the event of an armed conflict in the sub-continent over Bangladesh. Since then, we have tended to regard the Soviet Union as an ally for the purpose of containing China and the United States as opponents. In reality, America too continues to erect barriers against Chinese expansionism through its alliances with South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Thailand. U.S. policy formulations are now couched in anti-Soviet language, but the policy itself has not changed since the fifties when it was framed and put across in anti-China terms as well.
But let us put all these considerations relevant to Indian policy decisions aside and examine whether the Soviet Union itself can take significant initiatives which can help promote anything like collective security in the Asia-Pacific region.
Obviously, Mr. Gorbachov is cast in a mould very different from those of his predecessors. Never since Lenin ordered Trotsky to sign the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty and launched the “new economic policy” has any Soviet leader displayed the kind of daring Mr Gorbachov has in proposing dramatic cuts in superpower nuclear arsenals and opening the economy to individual initiative, even if on a limited scale. So we have to wait and see how he reshapes the Soviet Union and its foreign policy. It would be wrong to try and judge him at this early stage. Even so some points can be made.
Brezhnev Concept
First, whatever Soviet spokesmen and supporters abroad may say, it does not appear, at least right now, that the Gorbachov concept is significantly different from Brezhnev’s. Indeed, it cannot be different As the Soviets saw it in the Brezhnev era, the United States constituted the main threat to peace and stability in Asia. Their perception is not and cannot be different now. If anything, the U.S. has become more aggressive and militaristic in its approach in recent years.
Secondly, the Brezhnev concept provided for a series of bilateral agreements which could then be linked, formally if possible and informally if necessary, to constitute an Asian security arrangement. The Soviet Union signed treaties of peace, friendship and cooperation with India, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. The result is there for anyone to see. Syria sides with Iran in its war with Iraq; Iraq itself has not been particularly dose to the Soviet Union; Moscow resumed military supplies to Iraq only after the Khomeini regime in Iran decided to decimate the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party and to support the Afghan mujahideen.
Finally, its recent moves in respect of China and Japan can at best help it cut its 1osses. These cannot mark the beginning of a new era of cooperation between them and the Soviet Union.
The Times of India, 25 November 1986