No more ardhanari diplomacy

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No more ardhanari diplomacy!

India will have to choose between Washington and Beijing - the past 50 years 
have clearly shown that non-alignment only means getting the worst of both, 
says M D Nalapat

Thanks to the concept of ardhanari - half man-half woman, which usually 
means neither rather than both - Indian diplomacy has "excelled" in fudging 
solutions so that the country gets the worst of each of the rival camps 
engaged. During the time of the Clinton administration, despite the reality 
that the former US president was more vicious towards India than any US 
president save Eisenhower and Nixon, Jaswant Singh crouched low before even 
mid-level flunkeys of the White House, zipping across the globe for a few 
minutes with the likes of Richard Holbrooke (who has done such an excellent 
job of bringing ethnic harmony in the Balkans) and Madeleine Albright (who 
performed a similar feat in West Asia).

So passionate were the masochistic Indians with Bill Clinton that the 
country even hosted him after he left office, accompanied as he was by a 
gang of non-resident Indians (NRI) intent on sabotaging good relations with 
the incoming George W Bush team. In contrast to the effusiveness with which 
the Clinton hectoring and bullying (usually on behalf of China and Pakistan) 
was treated, thus far very few practical steps have been taken to take 
advantage of the Bush team's vastly more friendly attitude towards India. In 
particular, Jaswant was severely lectured by his officials for one of the 
few correct decisions he took - welcoming Bush's National Missile Defense 
(NMD) plan. With its billion people, growing (despite Atal and his UP-Bihar 
fixation) economy and troublesome neighbours, New Delhi needs the shield 
that entry into an NMD alliance can provide. Rather than remain fixated on 
ardhanari policies that are neither here nor there but fall into the cracks 
between, India needs to decide quickly as to the geopolitical camp it wishes 
to locate itself in. The growth of China under a Communist party and the 
inescapable tensions that such a system will have with the US means Beijing 
is going to be the second pole of a bipolar rivalry system, replacing 
Moscow. Should India link hands with China (and possibly Russia, a schema 
first put forward by the present writer in 1983) into an alliance designed 
to drive the US and its European Union (EU) allies out of the strategic 
heights that the latter have enjoyed in Asia for the past 400 years? Or 
should it acknowledge its English-speaking heritage of the past 200 years, 
its democratic system and its liberal ethos and team up with the West in the 
East, as Japan and Singapore, for example, have done?

Nehru clearly favoured ardhanari solutions, for he spoke of "non-alignment". 
The result was that Pakistan got the unearned benefit of massive amounts of 
US help, even while China got put off by the effusive welcome given to the 
Dalai Lama in 1959 and the summary rejection of  the Chou-en-lai proposals 
for a boundary settlement a year later. As for Moscow, as Tashkent showed, 
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union took advantage of India to earn 
brownie points with the West, forcing Shastri to cede Haji Pir. Had Lal 
Bahadur lived up to his name, India would not have had to face to this 
degree the 1989 invasion from Pakistan-trained fanatics. Sadly, Shastri 
succumbed (literally) to Kosygin's bullying, as Indira Gandhi did to 
Bhutto's charm. Today, the same officials who tripped over each other to be 
deferential to that vicious India-baiter, Bill Clinton, are now trying to 
sabotage the very real prospects of a US-India entente. Were this because of 
a perception that India needs to team up with Beijing against the US, it may 
have been understandable. However, these same officials flirt with the Dalai 
Lama and hence foreclose chances for a China-India alliance. The country 
cannot afford another 50 wasted years of geopolitical desert. It needs to 
make a clear choice, and soon, a choice that need not be openly declared, 
but which begins to be implemented on the ground. The choice is between 
China and the US. Despite all the soothing rhetoric, the fact remains that 
the Chinese Communist Party needs to position itself in opposition to US 
domination in Asia in order to become acceptable not only to its own cadres 
but to the proudly nationalistic Han people, who see themselves as second to 
none.

If an alliance with China, then the Dalai Lama issue has got to get settled, 
and His Holiness requested to shift to either another country or to the 
place where he can best serve the interests of his people, Lhasa. The other 
option is an alliance with Washington. This cannot be the casual fling that 
pro-Pakistan analysts such as Steve Cohen are seeking, but a complete 
marriage that includes joint military cooperation, including the setting up 
of military and NMD bases designed to protect each other and allies. India, 
for example, has extensive economic assets around the Saurashtra and Mumbai 
coast. An NMD base jointly set up with the US in this region would protect 
this huge infrastructure from danger of an attack by the loonies who are 
incubating in Pakistan. For the US, this would be a major asset, as the lead 
time for an interceptor rocket from Afghanistan is low from India, just as a 
North Korean missile can be easier intercepted from Japan, an alliance 
partner together with Australia in such a future scenario. Rather than try 
the impossible task of placating the jehadis, New Delhi may find that an NMD 
facility on its west coast may be a much more effective deterrent to any 
attempt at destroying the huge industrial infrastructure on the upper west 
coast.

Rather than pretend that tough choices can be indefinitely postponed, the 
Vajpayee regime needs to get over its fascination for Nehruvian ardhanari 
solutions and begin work on which of the two alternatives is best for India: 
alliance with Beijing or Washington. Non-alignment means getting the worst 
from both. It means 50 more years of geopolitical famine, following on the 
lost years under the Nehruvians.


http://www.tehelka.com/currentaffairs/sep2001/ca090201dip1.htm




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