Does India Have a Foreign Policy?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hard-line approach to project India as a superpower and as an upcoming power on global platform has received mixed reactions. The primary goal of any Indian establishment has been to maintain friendly relations with all the nations, cooperation on all grounds and even remaining non aligned with extreme ideology backed states.

Prime Minister Modi has been visiting nations across the globe to strengthen ties on all fronts including military partnerships. His “Make in India” programs to boost defence manufacturing in India and job creation was more than just a slogan or so believe many analysts. Indias first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his policies were directed towards projecting India as strong state post independence and till date the Congress Party holds on to ancient policies paying little heed to the changing dynamics of Indian Foreign Policy.

The concept of power plays a major role in the theoretical understanding of International Relations. It essentially means self reliance and freedom in deciding local and international matters or sovereignty so to speak. But India as a country is obsessed with hero worship. The Prime minister is not just an elected representative but the face of India hence sometimes policies dividing the nation go unnoticed as it happened in the recent demonetisation case.

India does not seem to have a blueprint of its foreign policy it seems. It focuses too much on the currents and undercurrents of politics and all stands maintained by the elites are directed towards immediate gains. The vision is lacking. The new buzz word is nuclear. In 1998 when India conducted nuclear tests it wanted to tell the world it’s no longer a weak state. Despite all efforts of Prime Minister Modi's Indias ambition to become a superpower remains largely unrealised.

India’s focus on South Asia has shifted the fulcrum of superpower status inexorably towards its traditional adversary Pakistan. The fact that India has still not been able to get a permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council suggests the blueprint has to be made and made soon.

Pakistan our traditional adversary can be handled only through diplomatic pressures. Indian institutional mechanisms need to be restructured, remodelled, and reequipped in this era of asymmetric threats and changing battlefields. The digital platform is flooded with memes telling India what it should and should not so. British Prime Minister Thatcher had once said by giving publicity to troublemakers through the media we are making them more powerful. The war game in realpolitick is really dirty.

Indian diplomacy went haywire back in 1947, when Jawaharlal Nehru who had no idea about military strategy, war games and diplomatic policies was made the first prime minister of a newly independent and partitioned India. Diplomacy essentially is a process by which a state negotiates with another, putting national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity on top of the agenda. Let’s take a look at the cultural isolation and “Aman ki Asha” (Desire for peace) moves which India has crafted time and again to improve its ties with Pakistan. Budge not says the Pakistani devil, budge says the Indian Angel. The situation our current leaders are in is no less than that of Launcelot gobo, Shakespeare comic character who could not decide on what he wanted to do with life. Does India lack curiosity that questions or may question Pakistani motives? Can we declare war on a nation just on the basis of intuition and instinct?

The Indian establishment needs to articulate its diplomatic policies in such a manner that the impacts of these are felt globally. Pathankot and Uri have acted as catalysts yet again and yet again the matter will fade away given the short shelf life of news stories today. On 2nd October India celebrated the birth anniversary of the father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi, who all his life advocated non violence and here we are issuing alerts in several parts of India fearing more Pathankot’s and Uri’s. Is it intelligence failure? Was the timing of the Uri attack in favour of the attackers? Again conjectures. The larger question is can non violent principles be used as tools to settle territorial disputes with Pakistan? Will the K issue always remain the bone of contention or will there be an end of history a Fukuyama like complacency.

India and Pakistan’s strategic and military footprints are getting larger and larger every day. With the dragon raising its head now, and the United States using India in South Asia as a strategic partner, as a counterweight to the dragon, geopolitics is getting murkier than it already is. Will no first use policy by India stop Pakistan from going nuclear? All the above conjectural statements remain open to subjective interpretation, but in my view strong measures do not mean or refer to violent measures. International pressure through organisations such as the United Nations which was put in place to save the succeeding generations from the scourge of war are already in place. India’s plan of action must be crystal. We cannot have the “Aman ki Asha” (Desire for Peace) if the grenade and bomb “tamasha” (drama) carries on endlessly.

Time is ripe but India’s on and off bumbling diplomatic, political and strategic policy towards Pakistan needs to be checked by men in uniform. They need to be included in the strategic decision making process. We cannot simply move our forces and pull them back at the whims and fancies of our ministers. This has a direct bearing on our national exchequer too. India cannot trust any other nation too because the rule of the game in geopolitics is that the “Might is always Right”

The Rise and Rise of Fidel Castro

The revenues of Cuban state-run companies are used exclusively for the benefit of the people, to whom they belong. No thieves, no traitors, no interventionists! This time the revolution is for real

Fidel Castro (1926-2016)

There are mixed reactions to the death of Cuban leader Fidel Castro who died on 25th November in Havana, Cuba. While Cuba is mourning the death of its revolutionary leader who was once quoted saying “I think that a man should not live beyond the age when he begins to deteriorate, when the flame that lighted the brightest moment of his life has weakened.” on the other hand the Cuban expatriates in Miami are celebrating.

Born on August 13, 1926, in Biran, Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz ruled the Republic of Cuba as Prime Minister from 1959-76 after ousting Batista, and then as President from 1976-2008. Castro was politically inclined towards the Marxist Leninist ideology and was a staunch nationalist; under his dispensation Cuba became a one party socialist state, with socialist reforms carried out on large scare and nationalisation of the economy made mandatory, which included nationalisation of business and trade. The leftist anti imperialist tendencies in Castro inspired revolutionaries like Argentine Ernesto Che Guevara to carry out movements against capitalist domination.

In the 1950’s when Castro was the President of the University Committee for Democracy in the Dominican Republic, he joined the strategic expedition that was planned to overthrow the right-wing military junta of Rafael Trujillo, a U.S. ally, in the Dominican Republic. Castro was the brain behind the group called “The Movement” which published the underground newspaper El Acusador. The group also armed and trained anti Batista recruits. Castro kept away from joining hands with the communist PSP as this step would serve to digress the political moderates from the main movement. Interestingly he was in close touch with his brother Raul Castro who was a PSP member.

In many ways Castro’s life story is an inspiring journey in itself. Between 1953-59 Castro was actively involved in the Cuban Revolution fighting for the overthrowing of Fulgencio Batista's military junta. In July 1953 after the failed attack on the Monacada barracks Castro was arrested and put on trial and it is during this time that his famous “History will absolve me” speech inspired millions. Castro was sentenced to fifteen years in Model Prison on the Isla De Pinos.

In a surprising move in 1953  Castro was pardoned by Batista and Castro along with Raul fled to Mexico where he met Argentine Marxist Leninist revolutionary Guevara and convinced him yet again into carrying out attacks to overthrow Batista. The tussle continued and attacked by Batista’s forces, Castro, Raul and Guevara fled to Sierra Maestra where he trained his supporters who were now close to 200 in guerrilla warfare and carried out well coordinated attacks against Batista.

Batista with his conventional style of war couldn’t match up to Castro’s relentless guerrilla tactics and his secret MR-26-7 took control of most of the areas in Sierra Maesta, Oriente and Las Villas. Briefly, Dominican Republic leader Eulogio Cantillo officially took charge of Cuba but was arrested by Castro. Guevara who fought alongside Castro, became the Minister for Industry following the victory of the Cuban revolution. In 1966 Guevara established a guerrilla base in Bolivia. Guevara was later captured and killed in 1967.(The Motorcycle Diaries)

Castro stated that the revolution was a dictatorship of the exploited against the exploiters. He said, “A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past; they talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America? I find capitalism repugnant. It is filthy, it is gross, it is alienating... because it causes war, hypocrisy and competition.”

Castro’s death has left a void in Cuba but his legacy will live on. History will absolve him as he rightly said. What Castro’s supporters saw as a great revolution his critics labelled as dictatorship. Castro stood against the US in the cold war era. The United States had cut ties with Cuba in 1961 amid rising Cold War tensions and imposed a strict economic embargo which largely remains in place more than half a century on. In 2015 the US relationship with Cuba improved, largely as a result of Raul’s overtures and diplomacy was restored under President Obama’s rule in 2015 strengthening cooperative convergence with Cuba on key issues. By now, Castro was seriously ill and no longer handling affairs of state; he did not meet Obama during the landmark visit by the President, the first ever since 1928. Obama has said history would "record and judge the enormous impact" of Castro.

While detractors of Castro have largely ignored his presence in the last few years with his diminishing hold over Cuban politics, he remains a giant both as a revolutionary for his country, as well as for the Marxist Leninist ideology. In his lifetime he continued to be a thorn in the side of the US, and staunchly repudiated the capitalist ideology of the US and its western allies. And even though his ideology has seemingly died its own death, it will remain a challenge to the ills of capitalism and a reminder that all is not well with it either.