The problem with these kind of books in a fast-changing world and a country where Prime Ministers come and go is that while the perceptions of the past remain unchanged, the conclusions part become hopelessly outdated and irrelevant. VP Dutt, with his new volume on India's foreign policy, will remain on safe ground for the moment - the just-concluded polls ensuring that there is no change of guard at New Delhi.
Dutt does delve into the past, but he devotes more space and words to the developments of recent times - to be precise the Pokhran II blasts and its aftermath. The preponderance of Pakistan literally dictating India's stand on various international issues (all, albeit inextricably linked to the nuclear test explosions) is indeed a case in point. There is little argument in blaming the author for his consectaneous "obsession" with the Pakistan factor while discussing India's foreign policy.
It is one thing to have a changing world. It is quite another to have a country which adopts stands on certain issues that are bound to have an immediate and far-reaching effect on international politics. This is what has happened with India. For a country, which took the lead in the now-defunct Non-Aligned Movement, but maintained such relations with the erstwhile Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) that were anything but just friendly, the collapse of the Soviet Union was a big loss for India.
Pakistan, which apparently made the better choice of a friend in willy-nilly opting for the United States, clearly emerged as the better-placed. The US was THE country to have around as a big brother. India had few countries (read, friends) who would stand by it in international fora. The Nineties heralded the beginning of a new era for India's foreign policy - to come into its own.
The dominance of the Big Five at the United Nations was essentially a dominance of the US. The world was beginning to look one big lonely place. More so, when one's bargaining position on various international matters was taking a beating. By and by, the issues of security and foreign policy started becoming two sides of the same coin.
"There were nuclear weapons, or the capability to produce them, all around the vicinity of India. In fact, India is surrounded with nuclear weapons. There are nuclear weapons in China (and nuclear bases in Tibet). There are nuclear weapons in Kazakhstan and Ukraine and, of course, in Russia. US ships carrying nuclear weapons cruise the seas around India regularly and Diego Garcia remains a major nuclear base of the US. And then there is at the very least the nuclear weapons capability of Pakistan. Although Nawaz Sharif had once claimed publicly that Pakistan had actually nuclear weapons on the shelf." (p 358)
Given this backdrop, it was becoming difficult for India to establish a position for itself in the international community. Going nuclear was a fait accompli. And the Atal Behari Vajpayee (despite its tall claims) had little to do with it. The Pokhran II blasts were a fallout of Nehruvian legacy, argues Dutt. It was Jawaharlal Nehru's stress on science and his policy of keeping abreast with nuclear research that enabled India to maintain its nuclear option. It was the previous four regimes that had kept the ground ready for the tests that took place in May 1998.
The preparations had started as early as 1980-81 under Indira Gandhi, continued under Rajiv Gandhi and were in full readiness under PV Narasimha Rao, HD Deve Gowda and Inder Kumar Gujral. Rao was on the verge of giving the go-ahead signal for conducting the tests in 1995, but the US got wind of it and coerced Rao to abort the plans. the lessons were learnt, and the Vajpayee government managed to hoodwink American spy satellites into conducting the Pokhran II blasts. Pakistan's was only a counter-reaction.
The bulk of Dutt's work was done before the nuclear blasts and, hence, understandably, devotes relatively little space to the fallout. Thankfully for the author, the continuance of the Vajpayee government in New Delhi, on the face of it, might appear to be a relief for him. But therein lies a contradiction. As is evident from the pursuance of India's nuclear doctrine, it just would not have made any difference. Had there been any other person at the helm of affairs in New Delhi, the Pokhran II blasts would have still happened.
Review: India's Foreign Policy in a Changing World
