Though people are bewildered that foreign policy has suddenly upped the ante in domestic politics, they should not be so surprised. Foreign policy has often served as shorthand for how regimes have chosen to project themselves, even domestically. In 1919, Mahatma Gandhi chose to tie his Non-cooperation Movement with the Khilafat Movement. The latter was a protest against the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, together with its institutional Islamic leadership, at the end of World War I. The Congress?s immediate temptation was to use an emotive issue to draw more Muslims into its resistance against British ?aggressors?, but this also set a precedent for the use of foreign policy in domestic politics.
India?s first PM Jawaharlal Nehru was an enlightened progressive who made a tryst with non-alignment at the very onset of Independence. The project attracted several countries just emerging from colonial rule. Many years after the Baghdad Pact and the US cosying up to Pakistan, Indira Gandhi as PM controversially took the non-aligned bandwagon Left, hitching it to the Soviet Bloc. This meant warm ties with West Asia and an anti-US position. The nuclear test in 1974 drew global attention. This is when the ?Foreign Hand? grew (in)famous. Indira Gandhi?s references to it reflected her Left-leaning economic policies and take on domestic politics. Some of this was a leftover of her dramatic break with the ?Syndicate? in the Congress, these conservative oldies having been so pro-US. As the Janata Party PM after the Emergency, Morarji Desai tried to swerve India?s foreign policy affiliation towards the US.
Rajiv Gandhi?s tenure was marked by such flaws as the Sri Lanka policy, which claimed his life, though this was the period that kickstarted the realisation that India must engage the rest of the world, be it the US, China or even Pakistan. The VP Singh period saw too many lurches, caused by the need for both Left and Right support, for the articulation of a distinctive foreign policy. After the Congress returned to power, Narasimha Rao?s regime was characterised by India?s recognition of Israel and the start of a relationship that served as an ?economic diplomacy? initiative hailed as high pragmatism in a post-Soviet world. As for IK Gujral, he made South Asia his forte, with the Gujral Doctrine enunciated to put smaller neighbours at ease with ndia?s growing clout.
The BJP, in its first full stint at the Centre as part of the NDA coalition, also tried to make peace with Pakistan, with AB Vajpayee as PM riding off on a bus to Lahore. There was the bold Agra summit, too. And one later in Islamabad. But with the 1998 nuclear test having meant isolation from the West, the NDA?s make-up efforts were based on forging a firm alliance with the US. This, in a sense, set the stage for the 123 Agreement secured by the present UPA government under PM
Manmohan Singh. In a coalition supported by the Left, Singh did try to steer a middle path. He visited the US in 2005 and then Cuba in 2006. Though wary of the clinch of a US President-at-war, his cramped domestic political space seems to have tempted him into staking claim to the civilian nuclear agreement with the US as his very own?as part of an economic legacy. The PM is passionate about engaging all, including the US, which could be as difficult a friend as an enemy in today?s world.
This particular engagement has been challenged by Leftists anxious to protect their perceived commitment to an anti-US position. Suddenly, foreign policy has become a hot political issue in India, with details on uranium and other things considered obscure in peacetime now subjects of heated debate. It?s a far cry from roti kapda aur makaan issues, but such intense internal frisson in the search of a policy consensus could yield an India that is more mature and confident in its emergence. A country that thinks more, and, therefore, counts for more.