The vote at Vienna
Dasu Krishnamoorty
Another foreign policy crisis in less than three months -- a crisis that demanded hurried response from the media. What happened became history of sorts, newspapers writing editorials on the same subject for two consecutive days. The Indian Express, Hindustan Times and the Pioneer wrote two editorials on the Indian vote at Vienna favouring a referral of Iran’s alleged non-compliance of nuclear obligations to the Security Council. The Hindu wrote only one. Shameful vote, said the Hindu. Sign of maturity, asserted the Indian Express. The New York Times called it the biggest surprise. India’s support to the EU-3 resolution came two months after President Bush talked our Prime Minister into accepting tighter international security standards and scrutiny of India’s nuclear facilities.
The Hindu pointed out how the government had, both at Washington and Vienna, made drastic policy shifts without showing its allies in the coalition and the opposition the courtesy of consultation. What is surprising is that the government did not go by common sense. It could not differentiate between a promise and a commitment. It should have been clear that Bush cannot even make a promise without Congressional approval. In contrast, Iran made a firm commitment on the 21-billion-dollar LNG deal.
While the Hindu editorial was free from partisan bias, both the Indian Express and Hindustan Times in their first reaction revived the long-forgotten ghost of east-west acrimony. Siddharth Varadarajan supplemented the Hindu indictment by an extremely analytical commentary on the Vienna fiasco. Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran and Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Iyer tied themselves in knots defending what apparently was indefensible. That was because first reports quoted Iran as repudiating its LNG agreement as a backlash to India’s vote. Amit Baruah of the Hindu reported in what clear terms the Iranians told India’s permanent representative at Vienna Shreekant Sharma that the LNG deal was off.
"This is all the more surprising considering India has traditionally been the leader of the Non-Aligned Movement nations that have been defending Iran`s right to peaceful nuclear power in accordance with the regulations of the Non-proliferation Treaty... Surely, if India didn`t want to be seen as siding with Iran, it could have abstained from the IAEA vote, just as Pakistan did," said Khaleej Times. According to the New York Times, "Perhaps, the biggest surprise was India, which initially opposed the resolution but voted in favour of it." The Washington Post said India had expressed its opposition to the EU resolution all week at the IAEA, but after intense US lobbying voted in favour of and also supported the delayed referral.
The anger of the Hindu and the Pioneer has to be seen in the context of the possible damage that the vote would invite upon our energy security. Mani Shankar Iyer told reporters that the pipeline project was vital to India’s energy security and to sustaining high rates of economic growth. In fact, we need two pipelines, he said some days ago. "There is simply no other way in which any other interested party could meet our energy needs," he told reporters. The very next day, the Iranian embassy in New Delhi told reporters that Iran had no plans to scrap the LNG deal. This saved the face for the beleaguered Manmohan administration but has in no way legitimized India’s vote under pressure from the US.
The Hindu accused the Manmohan Singh government of abandoning the independence of Indian foreign policy for the sake of strengthening its "strategic partnership" with the United States. Rightly so. The question is not what happened to our nonalignment policy but what happened to our common sense. Up to now, the government has not said a word about why it voted with the US and its European allies when smaller countries, beholden to the west for favours and with little or no political weight, abstained from voting. As again the Hindu pointed out, Iran has resolved nine out of the ten non-compliance disputes the IAEA has with it. What is incomprehensible is that India should succumb to pressure at a time the world has realized how important it is to court New Delhi.
The Indian Express said that the vote signalled a new maturity in India’s foreign policy and India’s vote will now have to be earned. Will the Indian Express tell us what price Bush had paid to get this vote? While advising that India will have to brace itself for negative reaction from Teheran, the Express did not tell us how. The second editorial, however, explained that natural gas market was a buyer’s market and that there would be other suppliers eager to step in. Even if we agree with the Express that making choices is part of growing up on the world stage, we may wonder if it takes fifty-eight years to grow up. Accusing Iran of cheating on its nuclear obligations, as the Express did, is to strengthen American effort to intervene in a way it did in Iraq. The nonaligned platitudes that the Express referred to are today distant memories. Not knowing that Iran retraced its steps, the Express warned India that it should not permit Iran’s brinkmanship to allow second thoughts.
The first editorial of Hindustan Times was anything but coherent. It lauded our vote as an India-First policy. "They (critics) seem to argue that New Delhi must protect and preserve Iran’s national interest, not those of India," said the editorial. Do we not ensure LNG supplies for ourselves by voting against the resolution or simply abstaining? Does not it help our interest? Worse, the Hindustan Times editorial wonders, "But why they are supporting a regime that fronts for a theocracy is not clear." How does it matter for us that an oil-supplying country is a theocracy or a democracy? The entire democratic world does business with theocratic Arab monarchies and republics for oil. It says that Iran has decimated the Left. So what? We did it in the fifties.
The silliest part of the editorial comes at the end, "India has to decide the kind of company it would like to keep and the government has done the right thing in placing us with the responsible and reasonable states of the world, who also happen to be open and democratic societies." Going to war with Iraq and itching to do the same with Iran. Did you say reasonable? The second edit expressed happiness that the pipeline was not under way because that would have given Iran a constant veto on India’s foreign policy. India is now free from nuclear blackmail, the second edit said. Express second edit also used the same words.
The Pioneer edit pointed out the contradiction that marked the vote. It reminded the government of its stand that before taking the issue to the Security Council all possibilities of finding a solution through negotiations should be exhausted. "Not only that, New Delhi had taken this stand along with Moscow and Beijing and the three capitals seemed to be agreed on the course to be followed. The Foreign Ministers of the three countries, who met in New York, last Tuesday, decided, according to a statement by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), that there should be a "consensual approach" to the issue and that the delegations of the three countries at the IAEA in Vienna, "should remain in close touch and work together." The second edit asked the UPA government to undo the economic damage caused by its Vienna vote. Obviously, this was written before Iran’s clarification.
Both the Indian Express and Hindustan Times have failed to ask several questions that India’s vote raises. On the other hand, they imported irrelevant ingredients into the discourse. What was the sudden development that persuaded India to jettison its own emphasis on negotiations? In the event of an Iranian backlash, has our foreign office identified a standby? Why vote against or in favour when you know that either or both Russia and China can veto any action against Iran when the issue comes before the Security Council? How do we gain by what we did at Vienna? These are questions that beg asking.
Contact: dasukrishnamoorty@hotmail.com