India's
envoy to Nepal, Shiv Shankar Mukherjee (L), with FM Natwar Singh
after his talks with King Gyanendra last week
India Adopting
Double Standard on Democracy in Neighboring States
By
Brahma Chellaney
NEW
DELHI, March 6: The growing warmth in US-Indian relations is getting
strangely reflected in India's adoption of US-style dual standards
on democracy.
Over
the decades, the United States has had a penchant to cozy up to
dictators in strategically located or resource-rich nations while
advocating democracy to others. It built up the Shah of Iran,
Mobutu Sese Seko in Congo, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines,
Suharto in Indonesia and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Unmindful that
its blind support of the previous Pakistani military dictator
helped rear what later became al-Qaeda, Washington today toasts
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan as a model ruler and
friend, showering his regime with billions of dollars in aid.
Still, in a pretentious vision
to spread democracy, US President George W. Bush used the words
"liberty" and "freedom" more than four dozen
times in his recent inaugural address.
Now,
New Delhi and Washington have joined hands to promote democracy
in Nepal while keeping mum on the strengthening of Pakistan's
one-man junta. When Musharraf reneged on his pledge to quit as
Army Chief by Dec. 31, the US looked the other way. India has
also kept quiet despite having helped Pakistan return to the British
Commonwealth on the basis of that pledge.
Like Washington, India is also
treating Pakistan as deserving of special favors. One recent example
is its decision to open negotiations on an overland gas pipeline
from pariah Iran through renegade Pakistan, after de-linking the
project from Islamabad's continued refusal to establish even normal
trading ties with India. The pipeline, yielding hundreds of millions
of dollars in annual royalties through transit and other fees,
will be a major foreign-exchange earner for Pakistan.
In contrast, India has taken a
tough, menacing stance against Nepal, putting on hold all military
aid and senior-level visits after the monarch there seized direct
power. To be sure, a despotic king with a wayward son as heir
to the throne gives India little comfort. But India's security
had come under pressure during Nepal's faltering democratic experiment,
which not only helped nurture a spreading Maoist insurrection
in the countryside but also allowed Pakistani intelligence to
set up safe houses in the Nepalese capital and stage the hijacking
of Indian Airlines Flight IC-814 in December 1999. A Maoist triumph
in Nepal, which has open borders with India, would be like the
Talibanization of a member-state of the European Union.
By suspending cooperation with
Nepal, India risks playing into the hands of an overly ambitious
China, which has been adroit at seizing any opportunity that a
state's isolation may open up, as it has shown in Myanmar, Iran
and elsewhere. With a vastly upgraded infrastructure in Tibet
and links with several Nepalese players, Beijing has developed
leverage over Nepal, which former leader Mao Zedong had described
as one of the fingers of the Tibetan palm, the other fingers,
according to him, being Bhutan and three Indian states -- Sikkim,
Arunachal Pradesh and Kashmir. China occupies one-fifth of Kashmir
and, in its maps, shows Sikkim as independent and Arunachal Pradesh
as its territory.
On balance, genuine democracy
(not the palace-dictated type disbanded by an aggrandizing king)
remains India's best bet in Nepal. The same is true in Pakistan,
where military rule has usually fattened India-hating, Punjabi-dominated
governing elites ready to try out their fantasies on the battlefield.
India emulates the US dual standard
on democracy, but in an inverse way -- it badgers buddies and
flatters foes. One proffered reason for calling off the summit
meeting of the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation
in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in February was that Indian Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh was loath to shake hands with the Nepalese monarch
and provide him political respectability in the aftermath of the
palace coup. King Gyanendra could return the compliment by sending
New Delhi a framed picture of Singh, all smiles like a Cheshire
cat, fawningly clasping Musharraf's hand with both his hands in
New York last fall.
When another neighborhood autocrat,
Premier Wen Jiabao of China, makes his much-trumpeted visit to
India in the spring, he can be sure no Indian will dare raise
issues of human rights, political prisoners and press freedom
with him. Those issues India has set aside for friendly but vulnerable
states like Nepal and Bhutan.
Randall Schweller, in his book
"Deadly Imbalances," classifies nations with a built-in
craving for revision or hazardous gain as "wolves" and
"jackals," and status quo states as "lambs"
or "lions." India eminently qualifies as a "lamb,"
wedged between "wolf" China and "jackal" Pakistan.
Lamb-like, India is wary of backing friends but eager to please
enemies.
India didn't stand by its friends
in Bangladesh when it mattered, and now that nation is an anti-India,
Islamic fundamentalist hotbed. In Sri Lanka, India confused friend
with foe, and alienated all constituencies. A patronizing attitude
toward Nepal, fostered in part by a large amount of Indian aid,
has turned a growing number of influential Nepalese against India.
In staging the royal coup in defiance of India's express warning,
the monarch called India's bluff. States have understood: It doesn't
pay to be India's friend.
While seeking to penalize Nepal
in the name of democracy, India has been inexplicably silent on
the European Union's move to lift its 15-year ban on arms sales
to the world's largest autocracy, China. Having forged a strategic
partnership with the EU, India has every right to speak up on
an issue that concerns both its love for democracy and its security.
Yet, it is not even hinting that, as a condition for lifting the
EU arms embargo, China demonstrate respect for human rights as
India would have Nepal do.
While the US and Japan exert
pressure on the EU, India quietly watches from the sidelines the
outcome of an issue with significant implications for Indian security.
If China gets state-of-the-art weapon systems, the balance of
power across Asia would be undermined and India's security would
come under greater pressure.
Contrast
India's reticence with China's outspokenness. Although India has
so far not considered buying the US Patriot antimissile system,
China was quick to react last week to reports of preliminary Indian-US
discussions, warning that such a sale would not be "conducive
for the maintenance of peace and stability."
But
when the EU contemplates selling sophisticated arms and technology
to Beijing, India does not say a word on the move's potential
impact on peace and stability, or about the need for China to
come clean on its illicit nuclear transfers to Pakistan and missile
sales to Islamabad and Tehran.
As
the only thriving democracy in a vast region stretching from Jordan
to China, India can rightly be proud of its deeply-rooted democratic
traditions. It is spot on in seeking the emergence of "the
whole of South Asia," in the recent words of its foreign
secretary, as "a community of flourishing democracies."
Democracies,
by structure and disposition, have a partiality toward cooperation
and conciliation. But in preaching democracy to others, India
needs to appreciate the value of consistency, courage and credibility.
The
writer is professor of strategic studies at the Center for Policy
Research in New Delhi. This article was published in The Japan
Times
