Russia’s parliament passed a law this week offering fast-track citizenship to foreigners who join its army.
Tashkent: Uzbekistan’s state prosecutors warned citizens against joining foreign armies after Russia offered fast-track citizenship to those who sign up and Ukraine said it had captured Uzbeks fighting alongside Russians.
Those fighting in military conflicts abroad faced criminal prosecution under Uzbek law, the Central Asian nation’s Prosecutor General’s office said in a statement late on September 21.
A video circulated in Ukrainian social media this month showed two Uzbeks captured in fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces; the detainees said they had been recruited in Moscow.
Hundreds of thousands of Uzbeks live in or regularly travel to Russia to find work and provide for their families at home; some work illegally and risk being deported.
Russia’s parliament passed a law this week offering fast-track citizenship to foreigners who join its army, part of a broader drive to strengthen the military amid the stalled Ukrainian campaign which also included partial mobilisation.
With a predominantly young population of 35 million, Uzbekistan is the most populous ex-Soviet nation after Russia and Ukraine, and many Uzbeks are fluent in Russian.
The US and European Union have called for a credible investigation after 18 people were killed in protests in Uzbekistan’s autonomous province of Karakalpakstan last week.
New Delhi: In contrast to the US and European Union’s call for a credible investigation, India has effectively supported the Uzbek government’s efforts to “restore law and order” after 18 people were killed in protests in the country’s autonomous province of Karakalpakstan last week.
In the worst bout of violence in the Central Asian nation in 17 years, 18 people were killed and 243 wounded during protests against plans to curtail Karakalpakstan’s autonomy last Friday. Uzbek authorities officially released the information on Monday (July 4).
On Saturday, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev dropped plans to amend articles of the constitution concerning Karakalpakstan’s sovereignty and right to secede. He also declared a month-long state of emergency in the northwestern province.
Karakalpakstan – situated on the shores of the Aral Sea, for decades an environmental disaster site – is home to the Karakalpaks, an ethnic minority group whose language is distinct from Uzbek, although related.
There are an estimated 700,000 Karakalpaks among Uzbekistan’s 34 million people, most of them in the autonomous republic. Geographic and linguistic proximity has led many to seek work and sometimes relocate to neighbouring Kazakhstan.
Reuters reported that some observers believe Tashkent’s miscalculated attempt to curtail Karakalpakstan’s autonomy may have been a bid to pre-empt any upsurge in separatism against the background of the war in Ukraine.
After the Uzbek authorities admitted to the fatal protests, the US urged authorities to pursue a credible investigation into the deadly violence on Tuesday.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price in a statement, urged parties to seek a peaceful resolution and called on Uzbekistan’s authorities to “protect all fundamental rights, including peaceful assembly and expression.”
The European Union had also called for “an open and independent investigation into the violent events in Karakalpakstan”.
The Indian foreign ministry spokesperson said that New Delhi had been following the “proposed constitution reform process in Uzbekistan, including the recent developments in Karakalpakstan” and offered condolences to the kin of the deceased.
“We have seen the steps taken by the Government of Uzbekistan to restore law and order and prevent any further escalation. As a close and friendly partner of Uzbekistan, we hope for an early stabilisation of the situation,” added the MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi, essentially aligning itself with Tashkent.
The Indian response echoed that of the Russian government, which termed the unrest as an “internal matter” for Tashkent.
Speaking to reporters, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Russia considered Uzbekistan a “friendly country” and had no doubt that its leadership would work to resolve the issue.
In a world full of hollow men, he was the genuine article. Shastri’s death anniversary is a timely opportunity to look back at India’s second prime minister.
At a time when we are led by a prime minister who believes above all in self-publicity, our thoughts go out to a diminutive and self-effacing man who once occupied the same office – Lal Bahadur Shastri.
Shastri served as prime minister for just 18 months, and in that brief tenure, left a memorable imprint on the country as a politician, administrator and war leader. Many in the present generation don’t know he authored the slogan, “Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan,” which captured the idea that peasants (and their welfare) are as integral to the security of the country as soldiers.
He was a seasoned freedom fighter who spent a total of nine years in jail. After independence, he held various ministerial and party positions. Apart from being general secretary of the Congress, he held the railways, transport and commerce portfolios. In 1961, following the death of Govind Ballabh Pant, he became Union home minister.
In a world full of hollow men, Shastri was the genuine article. He displayed his moral calibre when he resigned from office in the wake of the 1956 Ariyalur train accident, in which 142 people were killed. That act still reverberates in the country. Hard-working but with a weak disposition, he suffered heart attacks in 1958 and again in June 1964, shortly after taking office as prime minister.
In 1963, Nehru and Congress president K. Kamaraj decided that six prominent ministers would resign and devote themselves to organisational work. The goal was to bring in fresh blood into the Cabinet, as well as send a signal to the electorate. This was at a time when the Congress’s political supremacy was unchallenged.
Among those who left government were Shastri. He actually insisted that he be in the list, though Nehru did not want him there. But fate took an far more dramatic turn.
After Nehru, who?
On January 7, 1964, Nehru suffered a stroke. Compelled to set out a succession plan, he brought Shastri back into the cabinet as a minister without portfolio.
Panditji’s death four months later, on May 27, was no surprise, though for a country over which he had ruled as a virtually undisputed ruler, it was a major blow.
Four days later, Morarji Desai was persuaded to withdraw his hat from the ring, and Shastri was chosen as prime minister by the Congress Working Committee. Congress power-brokers had hoped that the soft-spoken Shastri would be their puppet. He turned out to be a decisive man of firm views.
These qualities had actually been evident in the period he was minister without portfolio. On December 27, 1963, he was asked to handle the crisis that followed the theft of the holy relic from Hazratbal in Srinagar. It reappeared after a week, but the theft triggered a popular uprising by an action committee of people who were the forerunners of today’s separatists.
They demanded a special deedar, or viewing ceremony, by experts to certify the authenticity of the relic. The spooks and the babus in New Delhi resisted, but Shastri overruled the Union home secretary and ordered the deedar. The action committee duly certified that it was indeed the genuine article. Tempers cooled across Kashmir.
The slightly built leader had to fill the political shoes of the great banyan, Nehru. He did so with a quiet panache. He battled pressure from the powerful men who had pushed him into office, accommodated Nehru’s daughter, Indira, in his cabinet, and made key appointments such as that of C. Subramaniam as the food and agricultural minister. To assist him, he created the Prime Minister’s Secretariat, headed by a secretary-level officer.
Swords and ploughshares
Among the long-term legacies of the Shastri era was India’s attainment of self-sufficiency in food. When he took office, agriculture was in crisis. India was, infamously, ‘living from ship to mouth’. Between 1960 and 1963, India had imported a staggering 15 million tonnes of US grains – and the amount of the imports were rising each year.
Subramaniam, with the support of Shastri, took policy decisions that eventually led to the Green Revolution.
Today, Shastri is known for something he may not have been trained for – as a war leader. The Indian military was still licking its wounds from the 1962 fiasco when Pakistan, hoping to rattle a new prime minister, initiated a series of provocations, ostensibly aimed at “liberating” Kashmir.
Pakistan had received US military aid for a decade, and its forces had achieved a conventional edge over the Indian military, especially in the areas of armour, artillery and the air force. Pakistan also believed in its own myth – that the manly Pathan, Field Marshal Ayub Khan, would make short work of the small, dhoti-clad vegetarian Shastri.
Hostilities began in 1965 with a feint in the Rann of Kutch, where Pakistan took advantage of the fact that the border had been delineated, though not demarcated in the swampy region. There was some skirmishing, but Shastri was not rattled. He emphasised his desire to resolve issues peacefully – acutely aware that the conflict would be used by Hindu chauvinists to stir up communal passions within India.
India’s real surgical strike
Then began phase 2 of the Pakistani plan: Operation Gibraltar, or the invasion of Jammu and Kashmir by covert forces, with the view of sparking a domestic uprising like the one that had followed the Hazratbal theft. That did not happen, and ordinary Kashmiris helped the Indian Army round up the infiltrators.
The devastating Indian response came in the capture of the Haji Pir Pass, a key point of ingress, on August 30, 1965. This, if anything, was India’s real ‘surgical strike’.
Pakistan upped the ante. Under Operation Grand Slam, it sent two armoured regiments in to cut the road from east Punjab to J&K. Indian forces fell back in the face of the assault and the situation looked grim.
In an emergency committee of the cabinet, Shastri took two key decisions. First, he ordered the air force to assist the Army. Then he gave the go-ahead for the Indian riposte – an attack across the international border towards Lahore, which caught Pakistan flat-footed.
The war carried on till September 23. Despite command failures and setbacks, India came out ahead because Pakistan failed to make any gains in Kashmir, and suffered a decisive defeat in Khem Karan in Punjab.
Shastri’s cool-headed leadership was vital in those days. The US was staying away from the region, the British were discredited, and the Chinese had jumped into the fray on behalf of Pakistan. Shastri’s style was of wide consultation with the military brass as well as party colleagues, parliament and the cabinet.
Resting in peace
In the post-war Tashkent talks, brokered by the Soviet Union, he walked the talk of peace and did not rub Pakistan’s nose in its defeat. He was willing to return captured territory in Haji Pir and on the Lahore front – real estate that was more valuable than what Pakistan had in Chamb and Rajasthan.
Shortly after the signing of the Tashkent Agreement, his heart gave out. Shastri passed away in Tashkent in the early hours of January 11, 1966.
India’s second prime minister deserves to be not just remembered, which India does from time to time, but emulated – which no one aspires to do. He was ethical, wise and far-sighted; and a large-hearted and pragmatic team player. The adjectives could go on, and still be all true.
The writer is a Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi
“Politicians had a cause or a set of causes beyond and larger than themselves. Self-interest, self-protection and self-advancement did not occur to them. They stood for selflessness.”
Gopalkrishna Gandhi was conferred the Lal Bahadur Shastri Award for excellence in public administration, academics and management. The following is the text of his acceptance speech, which has been edited for clarity.
The word ‘politics’ is in trouble. It suggests intrigue, manipulation and rivalry – every conceivable form of it, ranging from simple envy to the most complicated of psychopathic jealousies. In other words, politics has come to be seen as a calling that simple people are wary of and keep a safe distance from.
The word ‘politician’ is in even greater trouble. Today, it conjures a person who is one thing in appearance, quite another in reality. There is a song that goes ‘Naqli chehra saamne aaye, asli suurat chhupi rahey’. A politician may be trusted to forget a favour received by him, but always remember a favour done by him. In other words, a politician today is a person the mirror would rather it did not have to reflect. Not at the start of the day and certainly not after the sun has set.
Siyaasat aaj diqqat mein hai; uski sifat taqliif mein hai. Aawaam kaa aitbaar us par agar aataa hai, to ruktaa nahiin. Siyaasii insaan aaj mushkilii mein hai. Aam log usko apnaa rakhvaalaa samjhte hein lekin rahbar ya rahnumaa nahiin. Log us mein prerana dhundhtein hein, paate hein kuchh aur. Yah afsos kii baat hai, intahaa afsos kii.
(This is more than a pity; it is a tragedy. For, until not long ago, politics meant public service of the highest, most self-denying, self-effacing kind. Those who wanted to be useful to society and earn an honest wage, joined the civil or military services, the magistracy, took up professional careers. Those who wanted to be useful without bothering about earnings, took to political work. Politicians were volunteers in a spontaneous self-conscription for national service. Politics was, almost, a monastic order.)
Politicians once lived unostentatiously, often frugally and never flaunted their wealth, which they had either inherited with dignity or acquired outside politics – through other careers – with honesty.
Above all, politicians had a cause or a set of causes beyond and larger than themselves. Self-interest, self-protection and self-advancement did not occur to them. They stood for selflessness. ‘Stood’, I say that in the past tense.
Khadaa honaa rajnitigyon ko aaj bhii aataa hai, chunaavon mein khadaa honaa, leaderon ke saamne jhat utth khadaa honaa, manch par khadaa honaa, Sansad mein bulaye-na-bulaaye khadaa honaa. Aur haan, adaalat ke kathghare mein khadaa honaa. Lekin paidal chalnaa aaj viral ho gayaa hai. Zamaanaa thaa jub siyaasat apne pairon par chaltii thii. Aaj vah chalti kam hai, chalaatii ziadah hai.
Mostly, politicians do not walk now as much as they move. Literally, in moves and manoeuvres. Just like chessmen, they move adroitly, some with smartness, some moving sideways and then leaping forward, some two steps at a time, displacing the person ahead and moving in the swift sweep of a knight or the slow swagger of a castle. Those who walk one step at a time, are pawns, mere pawns.
The other requirement for politicians, namely, of them being able to talk, explain and persuade is now practised in a slightly different way. They talk to clarify what they have complicated and explain what they have knotted up. And so they also hector and harangue to overwhelm.
Besides that, politics has found a new ally in money. I have said new ally, but that is not quite right. Politics has always needed money – for elections, for publicising its programmes, running its campaigns and for offices. Politics once used money and now money uses politics. That is the difference. It is not as if all politicians are in the clutches of money, certainly not. But the surface density of politicians who are not has become alarmingly thin.
Were it not for Shastriji, the Santhanam committee on corruption would never have been constituted. Today, we must ask in Shastriji’s name and in that of K. Santhanam, why is the Lok Pal eluding us? Why are whistleblowers in danger? Why, to put it differently, is honesty looking for a home?
Politics has always known risks of failure, mainly of defeat and even violence. But today, politics is not just risky, it is full of danger. The politics-money nexus has made it so. Not just those in politics, but also those who question the nexus, are in danger, just look at the number of RTI activists who have been killed. ‘Ask and it shall be given’ has acquired a new meaning.
In this state of our political reality, our siyaasii haqiqaat, I ask myself: would the strong yet gentle, the soft-spoken but utterly clear-worded, the self-effacing patriot of patriots Lal Bahadur Shastri recognise Indian politics today? He would not. And conversely, do politicians in India today – especially the young ones – recognise that soul of probity, dedication and service? They do not. How can they, for he was the very antithesis of Indian politics as they – or we – know it now.
Lal Bahadur Shastri. Credit: Twitter
Shastriji knew his India and was thus in Indian politics. Today, you need to know your politics to be in Indian politics. Like the extraordinary Congress president K. Kamaraj, he was trusted, relied on and loved. Shastriji enjoyed the confidence of his times. He was the very personification of vishvaas, of bharosaa and of aiitbaar.
When he told an agitated Tamil Nadu that Hindi would not be imposed on them against their will, Periyar Ramasamy and C. N. Annadurai trusted him. His word was enough. In Tamil, one would say, he enjoyed nambikkai. Being true to one’s word was a quality that marked other Congress leaders of the Gandhi-Nehru-Patel generation as well, and of those outside the Congress in the Left, like Acharya Narendra Deva, P. Sundarayya, E.M.S. Namboodiripad, Jayaprakash Narayan, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, Aruna Asaf Ali, Renu Chakravartty, and on the Right like Nanaji Deshmukh, Homi Mody, Nani Palkhivala.
Which is why his exceptional leadership of India through the 1965 war brought to him the spontaneous solidarity of all classes of its people. Shastriji was not spared opposition, but neither did he resent it, nor was he unnerved by it. When Rajaji referred to the concept of autonomy in the context of Kashmir, a Congress leader appealed to Shastriji, who was the then prime minister, to invoke the laws of sedition against the octogenarian leader.
Shastriji gently admonished his colleague, saying “Have you heard of Bertrand Russell? Rajaji is our Russell. Britain will never call Russell a traitor. We cannot call Rajaji seditious.”
Intolerance is not a sign of patriotic strength, but of political insecurity. Dissent, as long as it stays non-violent, is democracy’s proudest expression. Free speech and honest, frank expression of views, whether in politics or administration, or in the conduct of foreign relations, comprise a republic’s true signature.
In a democracy, as it is wrong to expect a single political line to be observed by all, it is also wrong to seek to make robots of bureaucrats and digits of diplomats. Respect is not a protocol to be observed by the calculating mind, but an emotion to be felt in one’s unconditional heart.
Shastriji showed that great as the victory in a just war was, a greater victory lay in a just peace. Even as the lamp of his mortal life went out in Tashkent, his stature found eternal light. President Radhakrishnan, in conferring the Bharat Ratna on Shastriji posthumously, recognised in the Tashkent Declaration a supremely Ashokan moment – Ashokan in its strength, Ashokan in its humanity.
The Shimla Agreement of 1972 took that further into an agreement reached in a new context. More meaningful than Shastriji’s brilliant leadership in the 1965 war and more relevant than his inspired ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’ thought, was his firm refusal – throughout his political life – to hurl stones, arrows or bullets at colleagues or opponents. He rose sky-high in dignity because he never trampled on the dignity of his fellows. Wanting no one to feel small, he towered great.
The US, Russia and China will look to benefit from the evolving situation, but no one will want to disturb stability in the region. Meanwhile, India will hope to facilitate political stability and boost ties with the new leadership in Tashkent.
The US, Russia and China will look to benefit from the evolving situation, but no one will want to disturb stability in the region. Meanwhile, India will hope to facilitate political stability and boost ties with the new leadership in Tashkent.
A file photo of the late Islam Karimov. Credit: Reuters
Islam Karimov, who ruled Uzbekistan for almost three decades, is now buried in Samarkand, his birthplace. The manner in which news of his illness and death was treated in Tashkent indicates the nature of the regime he has left behind. This was a typical replay of the old known Soviet story.
The unfolding situation in a strategically important country bordering Afghanistan is being watched carefully in all major capitals, including New Delhi. Uzbekistan also borders all other Central Asian countries. Any instability in Tashkent can easily spread to the core of the region – the volatile and most densely populated Fergana Valley, consisting eastern Uzbekistan, southern Kyrgyzstan and northern Tajikistan. At the moment, as per the Uzbek constitution, Nigmatilla Yuldashev, chairman of the Senate of the Oliy Majlis (the parliament) has taken over as acting president. However, there are strong indications that Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev could be the new leader. Mirziyoyev is best suited to continue Karimov’s legacy – he belongs to the same clan as Karimov, he has been prime minister since 2003, and is close to the Karimov family and the country’s national security establishment.
Karimov ruled Uzbekistan since 1989, first as a communist leader of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic and then as president of the independent republic since 1991. During the last quarter century, Karimov was criticised by the West for his authoritarian rule and human rights violations. Still, he provided relative stability and economic development to Uzbekistan’s citizens. He also fought the forces of Islamic fundamentalism decisively, no small achievement for Central Asia’s largest country with ethnic linkages to neighbouring Afghanistan.
Despite international pressure, Karimov went on establishing his own “Uzbek model” of development – a combination of strong political authority with limited economic opening. His policies were initially ridiculed by western advisers, but the Uzbek economy has grown more than 8% every year in the last nine years. For some time, the model has been under stress due to declining remittances from Russia, and reduction in gas and cotton exports. Despite a weak external outlook, the economy is still growing at about 7% a year.
Under a ‘multi-vector’ foreign policy, Karimov was also able to skilfully manoeuver first between Russia and the US, and later also with China. Whenever it seemed he was getting closer to one major country, he cleverly built ties with other powers. Many scholars have produced tremendous literature on how major powers are playing a new great game in Central Asia. Karimov was a Central Asian leader who mastered this game. Take for instance when he was thought to be closer to Russia. Uzbekistan joined the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in 1992. This sole post-Soviet collective security arrangement was signed in Tashkent. In 1998, however, Karimov left the grouping.
He was often criticised by Western organisations for the lack of democracy, economic reforms and human rights in Uzbekistan. Yet, when he saw the dangers in neighbouring Afghanistan, he allowed the Americans to use the Uzbek air bases. With political changes in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, he became suspicious of US designs of spreading colour revolutions in the region. He closed the air bases when ties with the US became strained over the suppression of an armed uprising in Andijan.
In 2006, Uzbekistan restored its membership in the CSTO but six years later suspended its participation. This was at the time when Karimov had also allowed Uzbek territory to be used for transit routes under the Northern Distribution Network for the US-led war in Afghanistan. With his constantly changing orientation, Karimov may not have been termed a very reliable partner by the Russians, Americans or its even Uzbekistan’s immediate neighbours. Still, he was able to preserve a somewhat independent foreign policy in difficult circumstances.
Whoever succeeds Karimov at this juncture will have a relatively easy time continuing his legacy. Although Russia, the US and China will continue to assert their influence on strategically-important Uzbekistan, none will like to disturb stability in an already highly unstable neighbourhood. With a deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan and the rise of ISIS in West Asia, a weak Uzbekistan will become another opportunity for radical Islamic forces to spread their influence. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which was pushed by Karimov to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, has developed links with the Taliban and ISIS. Although he was criticised for using Islamic threats to suppress political opposition, Karimov never allowed political Islam to prosper and all religious groups were systematically regulated.
Unlike the US, Europe and many multilateral organisations that were obsessed with spreading democracy and market economics in the region, India has been focused primarily on ensuring political stability. An unstable Central Asia was always viewed as a serious threat to India. New Delhi obviously would have welcomed a more democratic Central Asia, but it favoured allowing democratisation to happen at its own pace. New Delhi maintains a strategic partnership with Tashkent, and regards Uzbekistan as an important partner and a key country in its ‘Connect Central Asia’ policy. The two countries are bound by historical ties as well; Babur, the founder of India’s Mughal dynasty, came from modern-day Uzbekistan.
Radical forces in the region will feel emboldened with Karimov’s departure. However, if Turkmenistan’s political transition is any guide, where Saparmurat Niyazov was replaced by Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov without any change in the political system, Uzbekistan may continue with Karimov’s legacy of strong secular state with limited political and economic openings. Moscow, Washington and Beijing may be looking to use the evolving situation to their benefit. With a limited presence so far, New Delhi will only hope that a new leadership in Tashkent will continue to provide stability and become an active partner in regional economic projects like the International North South Trade Corridor, which could facilitate linkages between Uzbekistan and India.
Gulshan Sachdeva is a professor at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
Strongman who led his country through the post-Soviet transition and saw himself as an alternative to a future of perpetual jihad for Uzbeks and Central Asians.
Strongman who led his country through the post-Soviet transition and saw himself as an alternative to a future of perpetual jihad for Uzbeks and Central Asians.
File photo of Uzbek president Islam Karimov, who died on Friday. Credit: Reuters
Travel focuses the mind on what is often taken for granted. The proximity of Central Asia and its most populous country, Uzbekistan, to India, is one such example. It took several months for Zahir-ud-din Mohammed ‘Babur’”, an Uzbek from the Ferghana valley of Uzbekistan, to enter India from his kingdom in Afghanistan in 1526 and engage in battle against Ibrahim Lodhi at Panipat, laying the foundations for the Mughal empire in India. In June 2016, it took Prime Minister Narendra Modi just over three hours to travel from Delhi to Tashkent. As the political barriers erected more than a century ago to keep India separated from Central Asia are overcome by technology and investment, the implications of events in Central Asia become even more directly relevant today for India and the region.
In this context, news of the death of Islam A. Karimov, who has been president of Uzbekistan ever since it declared independence from the Soviet Union on September 1, 1991, is bound to arouse international concern. The first official intimation that his end was near came earlier this week when his younger daughter Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva posted on Instagram that Karimov had a “cerebral haemorrhage”, and the Uzbek government confirmed that the president had been hospitalised. Uzbekistan had not formally announced his death at the time of publication but the Turkish prime minister went public with the news of his passing.
Soviet origins
Like many other political leaders in the former Soviet republics who had their new role as leaders of “independent” countries thrust on them by the Russian-led breakup of the USSR, Karimov was an apparatchik of the Soviet system. He had his roots in Samarkand, which was incorporated in the newly formed Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic by Stalin in October 1924. Samarkand stayed as the capital of the newly created Soviet Republic until 1930, when it was supplanted by Tashkent. It lies at the heart of a vibrant Central Asian cultural mosaic, influenced by both Turkic and Persian societies of which the Uzbeks and Tajiks are an intrinsic part.
Stalin’s design was to create administrative units out of the earlier khanates and kingdoms in Central Asia, with the new borders often bifurcating clans and tribes which are the foundation of identity in the region. Consequently, while the new Soviet republics were outwardly remarkable for their diverse populations, beneath the surface, old antagonisms would often persist. Even the vice-like grip of Soviet control could not prevent these antagonisms from erupting from time to time, especially along the fault lines of the new administrative republics.
Karimov understood and reflected this cultural diversity, though in his political exertions he attempted to rise above the identities of language, ethnicity and tribes that characterise this region. The uncharted journey that Uzbekistan took as a modern state owes a great deal to Karimov’s style of functioning. Though he may not have been initially grounded in the imperial traditions of Samarkand, there is no doubt that early in his first decade in power he had made one of Samarkand’s globally famous rulers, Timur, his role model. This included the often repeated folklore of Timur’s desire to leave a legacy as a leader and statesman, focusing on the outward manifestations of magnificence. The massive and grand renovation of Samarkand’s main square, the Registan, is testimony to this aspect of Karimov.
At the same time, he emulated other popular aspects of Timur, notably the cultivation of an “iron” persona. Among Central Asian leaders, Karimov was probably the one who rarely showed any emotion in public, and who instilled in others around him a sense of discipline born out of fear.
One of his legacies has been keeping the modern Uzbek state together within its boundaries drawn almost a century ago by Stalin. In this, his resort to strong-arm measures, including the use of force to quell any demonstrations against his rule, has been widely commented upon by liberal voices, within and outside Uzbekistan. Whether, by ruling with an iron hand, Karimov sowed the future seeds of fragmentation in Central Asia or not is a question that only time will tell.
Islamist challenge
He was quite clear about some issues. One of these was the threat posed by the radical revival of Uzbekistan’s Islamic identity to its modern aspirations. He was far-sighted enough in attempting to deflect this phenomenon, which he saw very early in his rule as his primary challenge, by co-opting influential elements from the Uzbek diaspora. A large number of practicing Uzbek Muslims had migrated towards Saudi Arabia after the consolidation of Bolshevik rule in Central Asia. Another significant migration had taken place towards Turkey, driven more by linguistic and liberal, rather than purely religious urges. Karimov allowed the modern descendants of these two Uzbek diasporas outside the Soviet sphere to return and find their own space in their ancestral homeland. By doing so, he adroitly built bridges to two important centres of influence in the global Islamic world – Riyadh and Ankara – and Uzbekistan’s membership of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation ensured that Karimov’s internal hardline policies were not singled out by this grouping. However, he was unable or unwilling to allow the revival of his country’s rich and diverse Sunni and Sufi heritage to counter the proponents of radicalism supported from West Asia.
Probably he could implement such a policy because he knew that the population of his young country was not literate in either Arabic or Turkish, because during Stalin’s rule, both the Arabic and Turkic alphabets, which had recorded Uzbekistan’s rich cultural and religious heritage, had been erased from homes and schools, and replaced by Cyrillic. However, the ability of information and communication technologies to cross such barriers, propelled by globalisation and the growth of the internet, were challenges that Karimov could not have foreseen in 1991. These challenges from West Asia would converge during the past decade in spreading radicalising influences into Uzbekistan and its 31 million people.
Eventually, it was the specific regional impact of international terrorism, with Uzbekistan as a fertile recruiting ground for groups like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (an affiliate of Al Qaeda) and the Islamic State, which became his biggest worry. He was apprehensive about the increasing trans-national linkages between terrorist groupings in the Af-Pak region.
He was an active participant in all the regional ebbs and flows that marked the evolution of Afghanistan’s political identity since the Soviet army’s withdrawal across the Amu Darya to the Uzbek border town of Termez in 1989. He projected himself as an alternative to a future of perpetual jihad for Uzbeks and Central Asians.
Allied to all
Karimov was careful to keep his channels of communication open with Russia, even during the period when his government was perceived to have moved into the pro-American camp by leasing the airbase at Khanabad and allowing Uzbek territory to be used for supplying US-led troops in Afghanistan through the northern distribution network. His government allowed Russian companies like Gazprom and MTS to dominate the Uzbek energy and telecom sectors.
China’s entry into Central Asia was strongly supported by Karimov. Apart from their common membership of the China-based Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Uzbekistan reciprocated Chinese overtures because it was one of the two Central Asian countries which did not have a contiguous land border with China. The fact that China was ruled by the Communist Party also provided an ideological bridge for Karimov. When the Chinese established diplomatic relations with Uzbekistan in 1992, Karimov ordered the entire building housing the Central Committee of the Uzbek Communist Party to be cleared out, and offered the property to China as their embassy premises. China’s influence in Uzbekistan has been consolidated by the use of Uzbek territory for routing the major energy and transportation links that connect China’s Xinjiang province with Central Asia and beyond.
Karimov was one of the few former Soviet leaders who had personal experience with work done by the Indian private sector. He appreciated the construction projects handled by two Indian companies in Uzbekistan (Larsen & Toubro and Tata Projects, which successfully completed the construction of three tourist hotels during the break-up of the Soviet Union in Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara).
Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov (R) talks with Armenia’s President Levon Ter-Petrosyan during a news conference in Almaty, Kazakhstan, December 21, 1991. Picture taken December 21, 1991. Credit: REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov
Many may not remember that he was the first of the new leaders from the former Soviet republics to have visited India. This was his first foreign trip, in August 1991. Out of deference to Indo-Soviet relations, he was hosted by the Vice-President of India, Shankar Dayal Sharma. During his visit, the attempted “coup” against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev took place in Moscow. Karimov had to cut short his visit while he was in Agra, and rush back to Tashkent.
On the way to the airport, when his mind must have been grappling with the momentous choice he would have to make about his and his country’s future, faced with the imminent collapse of the system that had created him, Karimov looked out of the car window onto the monsoon-soaked Agra streets and asked rhetorically, “How does one deal with bicycle thieves here?”
A fortnight later, on September 1, 1991, he presided over the hastily cobbled celebrations of Uzbekistan’s first Independence Day at the renamed Mustakillik Maydoni (Independence Square), which had till then been the location of the largest Lenin statue in the Soviet Union.
Asoke Mukerji served as India’s last consul general in Soviet Central Asia, based in Tashkent, during the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, and opened India’s first embassy in Uzbekistan in March 1992
As Russia and China go about aligning their interests for mutual strategic advantage, India has to take a closer look at its own options and opportunities.
As Russia and China go about aligning their interests for mutual strategic advantage, India has to take a closer look at its own options and opportunities.
Prime Minister Modi addressing the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) on June 24 in Tashkent. Credit: www.narendramodi.in
Beijing: Tashkent and Seoul were both in the news in the last week of June, for events which may have set in motion changes with far-reaching consequences for power equations in Asia and the Asia-Pacific. Hence, the two cities may well be remembered as the trigger-point of developments on which Sino-Russian strategic partnership may have an impact.
Seoul was the venue for the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) plenary which frustrated India’s attempts to gain entry. Around the same time, although Tashkent was witness to more momentous events, the bilateral meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping stole their thunder. Only because the Modi-Xi meeting was about India’s bid for NSG membership, widely publicised as enjoying unstinted US support.
Yet the big picture showing in Tashkent was the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), for which Xi was primarily in the city. This was a landmark summit, for it was here that the SCO opened its doors to embrace India, Pakistan and Iran as full members.
The second big thing in Tashkent, which Washington and US-led nations may have followed with greater interest, is the meeting between Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin. As important as the meeting was Xi’s affirmation that the two countries are pledged to support and defend the core interests of each other.
In other words, Russia and China may speak and act as one in the unfolding US-led rebalance strategy in Asia, in Eurasia and eastern Europe, and in other hot spots such as the South China Sea, the Middle East and Ukraine. While this may not be music to Washington’s ears, the US has no reason to be unduly worried, for it shares common interests with both China and Russia.
Unlike the US, India – which is entering the China-dominated SCO and hosting the BRICS summit in Goa in October – may have to contend with the joint force of Sino-Russian power, should it choose to escalate its confrontation with China (over the NSG membership).
The Xi-Putin meeting in Uzbekistan took place on the eve of Putin’s state visit to Beijing on June 25. This was Putin’s fourth mission to China since Xi became president in 2013. The two heads of state vowed to “unswervingly deepen their comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination”. They also agreed to step up mutual support and boost “political and strategic mutual trust”.
This is the 15th year of the China-Russia Good-Neighbourly Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation; and it also marks the 20th anniversary of the two countries forging the strategic partnership of coordination. “China and Russia should support each other on issues concerning core interests and constantly strengthen political and strategic mutual trust,” Xi said.
The significance of their pointed reaffirmations cannot be lost on neighbouring countries, particularly India with which the US is seeking to strengthen military cooperation. It goes without saying that the two pivotal players may work together in forums such as SCO, BRICS and the Russia-India-China Meeting where India has high stakes.
As Russia and China go about aligning their interests for mutual strategic advantage, India has to take a closer look at its own options and opportunities. For instance, the Eurasian Economic Union – with which China is ready to align as proposed by Russia – shows that the two are looking at big targets. At a time when the EU is coming apart, the emergence of the European Economic Area combined with China’s forays into central and eastern Europe, with Russian backing, may challenge some of the settled arrangements in central Asia as well as Europe.
This kind of strategic cooperation and coordination for “striking together” by two big powers is, perhaps, unprecedented. Yet at this juncture, history has turned the tables. Russia, once the greater power, is somewhat overshadowed by China, which is today the world’s second largest economy. China is also clubbed with the US as “G2” – a position once held by the erstwhile Soviet Union though by default. And China’s power is growing.
In any partnership, one partner is more equal than the other. While there is no doubt that China and Russia would do whatever it takes to adjust to and accommodate each other’s interests, there are areas which might test their resolve and cohesiveness. For example, the One-Belt-One-Road project runs through areas that fell within Russia’s sphere of influence, as does central and eastern Europe.
It is possible, but not necessary, to list out such areas that underscore that China and Russia might have to work harder at reconciling their respective aims and ambitions in the interests of the larger objectives of their partnership.
Shastri Ramachandran is an Indian journalist and commentator. He can be contacted at shastriji@hotmail.com.
When India’s most aggressive anchor meets India’s most aggressive politician, one expects sparks to fly. Instead, Arnab Goswami looked like a favourite nephew lobbing the ball gently to a benign elderly uncle. More “noora-kushti” and less a sharp interview, there were many questions that ought to have been asked. And many answers that sounded more fixed than spontaneous.
After flattering the prime minister by saying, “thank you very much”, then again, “thank you very much”, the interviewer thanks Modi a third time, and adds that he is “very grateful”, repeats he is “very grateful”, and goes on that his viewers are also “very grateful” before he even begins asking his questions. All this within his first one hundred words! Such abject grovelling and obsequiousness become the hallmark of the next hour and a half. Hard questions are assiduously avoided. Follow-up questions are put mildly and deferentially. In a word, professionalism is thrown to the winds. The underlying adulation smacks of a job application by an undeserving supplicant.
Soft lobs
The first substantive question seeks to know, “How much have you achieved of your own targets?” Modi goes on at great, uninterrupted length about his having pledged that his government “would be committed to the poor”, but totally avoids answering how much he has achieved of his own targets. Instead of saying anything at all about the gap between his electoral promises and his actual achievements, Modi shifts the ground to seeking a “comparison with the immediate past” in order to discover “a bright future”. Back to his old game of flaying the UPA (without adducing any reasons for his assertion) he completely evades the question that sought his assessment of his own performance vis-à-vis his own pledges. Extraordinarily, the interviewer, who rarely lets anyone he disagrees with complete a minute of his argument, lets the prime minister go.
He then turns to foreign policy. Again, he introduces his question with an abject compliment that tips off the interviewee on how he should answer: “You have balanced different powers and different interests”. Why not, “Have you balanced different powers and different interests?” Modi resorts to his old game with a manifest untruth: “For 30 years, in our country, the government was unstable.” He is not immediately asked to substantiate this claim. Incidentally, his “30 years” include the Rajiv government that ruled with the largest majority ever, much larger than the BJP’s wafer-thin majority; the Rao government that completed its term; the Vajpayee government that also completed its term; and the UPA governments that completed not one full term but all of two.
NSG flubbed
To the specific question, “How close are we to getting the NSG seat?” Modi simply does not answer. He flies off in the direction of saying that the world needs to know him – as if anyone asked – and takes at a swipe at the Gandhis (his favourite obsession) by claiming that “as I am not from a political family” he had “never had the opportunity to meet world leaders earlier”. But did anyone ask him that? The question was about how close we were to getting NSG membership and Modi answers by not mentioning NSG at all despite being told: “on the NSG you staked a lot of personal interest, personal push, you lobbied actively” – why then was the Seoul meeting of just a day earlier such a spectacular flop? Intriguingly, the interviewer just lets him off the hook.
Instead, the interviewer helpfully adds, “You were an unknown entity in foreign policy.” This is not even a question but Modi takes off about how his government “works as a team”. The obvious interjection should have been, “Oh, yeah, ask Sushma Swaraj”, who, despite her obvious ability, is clearly the most neglected foreign minister in the history of independent India. He goes on to blow his own trumpet and a meek Goswami just lets him get on with it. No repeating the unanswered question about the failed NSG bid, or why his “personality” left the leaders of Switzerland and Ireland so unmoved that despite the Modi team having claimed both countries had switched sides to us, at Seoul they helped blunt the Indian request for NSG membership.
True, the interviewer gently asks much later whether Modi is “disappointed that we did not make it to the end because of Chinese opposition”. Modi gives the answer that should have come before he went to Tashkent only to be brushed off by President Xi. Explains Modi, “Everything has rules” – which is exactly what the Chinese and a dozen others have been consistently telling us for years. Instead of such belated wisdom, the Modi team spread the hype that the courteous hearing the Chinese foreign office had earlier given our foreign secretary was about to be transformed by Modi’s persuasive powers into a firm Chinese vote in our favour. The Chinese were not taken in. Instead of gracefully accepting this, Modi typically attributed his failure in Tashkent to his Washington speech (Goswami, at his courtierly best, exclaiming, “By the way, Prime Minister, it was a fantastic speech”) claiming that his “Government is being criticized not for any mishandling of the NSG issue but because we were so successful over there (in the USA).” Haha, as they say on WhatsApp these days!
Moreover, there was no attempt made by the interviewer to underline the obvious contradiction between Modi’s assertion with respect to China that “even when the views are contradictory, talks are the only way forward and problems should be resolved through dialogue” and his repeated blocking of the dialogue with Pakistan. Another glaring lacuna in the interview was the failure to raise our relations with Nepal, that have hit rock bottom ever since the Modi government began bullying that country over its near-unanimous constitution.
Nor was any attempt made by the interviewer to pin down the prime minister on the military dimensions of our growing relations with the US, especially in the context of the dangerous beginnings of a Cold War between the US and China.
What he didn’t ask
It was on the economy that the questioning was at is weakest and most vapid. Nothing on the dodgy statistics of growth rates we have been regaled with. Not a single question asked on the non-performing assets crisis enveloping our banking industry, with over one lakh crore owed with no signs of forthcoming payment by a handful of our wealthiest. Nothing on Vijay Mallya’s Great Escape. Nothing on Lalit Modi. No retort to Modi deflecting a relevant question on the promise of Rs. 15 lakhs of black money for every Indian pocket by saying “that is something the opposition raises during elections”. Should not Goswami have promptly interrupted, “Sorry, Sir, that is something you raised during elections”.
And would not that have been the right juncture to have grilled Modi on the deceptions with which he has wrapped up the humongous Rs.20,000 crore scam at Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation when he was CM? Instead, Goswami let him get away with unsubstantiated insinuations about Augusta and “the amount of dirt that exists”.
On the worst agrarian crisis in decades, Goswami swallows every cliché that Modi feeds him. Not one question on why his government tried pull the wool over the nation’s eyes by transferring thousands of crore from the finance to the agriculture ministry’s budget and then claiming they had massively increased public investment in agriculture! No searching questions on whether the promise of “doubling” farmer incomes was of real income or nominal income. Nothing on the failure to implement the electoral promise of jacking up procurement prices, especially in this period of precipitately falling farm incomes. Allowing Modi to get away with crocodile tears on food inflation when he should have been shown the contrast between the doubling of oilseeds output in the eighties and the surge in pulses then as critical government policy to combat the last comparable drought. When Modi weakly pointed to dal imports, he not asked why the previous year’s import figure of a little over 5 million tonnes was not being substantially surpassed this year when prices have topped Rs.200 a kilo?
Nothing on industrial stagnation or investment famine or stultifying infrastructure. Nothing on exports collapsing every month in succession for the last 18 months (that is, two-thirds of Modi’s term thus far). Meaningless questions and meaningless answers on jobless growth. Platitudes for the suffering of our people. And praise for the RBI governor he is just kicking out! Subramaniam Swamy is not mentioned but some general remarks are made about “no one being above the party”. Yet, Swamy himself has boasted that he talks only to the PM. Then what has Modi been saying to him? Why nominate a renegade to the Rajya Sabha? On none of these key matters does the interviewer challenge the interviewee.
And the same Modi who does nothing to reprimand and rein in his colleagues in parliament and the council of ministers, not to mention sundry other Sangh parivar types who spread communal poison, actually asks the media not to report on them as if it is media publicity that is encouraging them on, not the fundamentals of the Hindutva philosophy that the prime minister shares with his ilk.
Gujarat 2002 is off bounds. The outrages of intolerance are off bounds. Gulberg Society is not mentioned. Encounter killings are bypassed.
Then why this interview?
Mani Shankar Aiyar is a member of the Congress party. He served as a member of the cabinet in the Manmohan Singh government.
In the first of a two-part interview, former foreign secretary Shyam Saran discusses India’s bid to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group with Siddharth Varadarajan, founding editor of The Wire.
In the first of a two-part interview, former foreign secretary Shyam Saran discusses India’s bid to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group with Siddharth Varadarajan, founding editor of The Wire.
Siddharth Varadarajan: We will be discussing today India’s effort to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), an effort that ended inconclusively, some would say in failure, when the 48-member nuclear suppliers cartel ended its 2-day plenary on June 24th without a decision on Indian membership.
The Seoul meeting began with a question mark. India had made its desire to join the NSG publicly known. The foreign office said that the prime minister was personally taking this up in Switzerland with Mexico. We know that he met [Chinese President] Xi Jinping in Tashkent just before the meeting started at Seoul. Do you think that India has reason to be disappointed with the fact that the Seoul meeting was unable to resolve this issue? Or, do you think that what we are seeing is the beginning of a process which will eventually work out in India’s favour?
Shyam Saran: No two situations are quite the same. What happened in 2008, if you take that analogy, then if you recall, we had a disappointing experience in August 2008 – the first plenary meeting [to decide on the NSG’s waiver for India]. But that did not deter us from engaging even more.
SS: There were about 50 amendments! So, if an outside observer saw this, he would have thought there is really no way in which India could possibly mobilise a consensus in favour of getting the waiver at the subsequent meeting. In fact, I think the Chinese calculation at that time was this would not happen – if you see People’s Daily, you know, the article which appeared after that. So the fact that we were able to overcome, within that period of one month, the many voices opposing the waiver, would appear to show that there is some value, some merit in doing active diplomacy and turning things around. But I think at this particular juncture, if we see what happened in Seoul, one very big difference is that China – which had taken a somewhat discreet stand in opposing the waiver for India in 2008 – was actually very public and upfront in opposing the membership this time around. So that actually, to me, seemed to be the one big difference.
SV: Even so, they hid behind procedure.
SS: Well, whatever be the reason. After all, in 2008, they also hid behind procedure. They used the same arguments, that you know we should have a criteria-based approach, we should not have a country-specific exception, that we should be mindful of the fact that the international non-proliferation regime may be undermined as a result or that you know, the balance in South Asia may be adversely impacted by this and may even trigger a nuclear arms race in South Asia. The arguments are almost exactly the same as in 2008. But this time they have been made in a very public fashion and in a somewhat assertive fashion.
SV: And repeated …
SS:Yes, whenever this matter has been raised, not only at the governmental level, but also in the Chinese official media. It appears to me that we are facing a different China. We are facing a different geopolitical situation. Don’t forget that in 2008, we had virtually, with the exception of China, all countries very enthusiastically in favour of the waiver for India. This time around, people may not have been so energetic. This is partly because after all, if the idea was the way should be cleared for some of the important countries to engage India in nuclear commerce and derive some benefit from it by the sale of nuclear fuel and nuclear reactors – that is already there as a result of the waiver. In substantive terms, whether you are a member of the NSG or not, it does not really change the situation [in terms of access to material].
SV: Let’s go through this sequentially. For the benefit of our readers and viewers, if you were to take them one-by-one. The questions would obviously be: why does India want to be a member? Why now? In other words, have we acted at the right time? Third, the nature of objections that we saw in Seoul; and fourth, where do we go from here. If we proceed in that fashion, let’s discuss why India wants to be a member of the NSG given that the major restrictions imposed on the sale of nuclear material and fuel were lifted in 2008. Is it purely a defensive desire for India to be in a group that may later specify new rules that we can’t prevent? What is it?
SS: Well, that’s certainly an important consideration… that not being a member, you do not have any full control over future amendments. It means that the waiver that you enjoyed, in a sense, can be reversed by subsequent amendments.
SV: As we saw in 2011…
SS: Well, yes some part of it was. Therefore, being a member shows that even if there are amendments which may be tabled in the future, we have a voice in how they are possibly formulated. So that’s an important consideration. And what it would do is, that the waiver that you enjoy, currently, would be formalised. In a sense, it does not have the same level of formality, as you would have if you were a member of the NSG. So, there’s a value in the membership. One should not belittle the importance of being a member of the NSG. Now the issue is, you know, if we have not been able to get membership at the Seoul meeting, does it mean that our nuclear energy plans are somehow or the other suspect, or that our access to nuclear technology or fuel are in any case impacted. No.
SV: But the government said that it would…
SS: Well, the government has said that. But let us not forget that since the waiver, we have signed long term fuel supply agreements with a large number of countries.
SV: The electricity outputs of most of our nuclear plants has gone up …
SS: Exactly. They have gone up to 80-85%. So this is not a small gain from the waiver. Secondly, the nuclear power plant contract which was still on hold with regards to say, France and even with respect to the additional reactors from say, Russia. And of course, you know, the continuing saga of whether or not we are going to buy nuclear reactors from the US. All that has actually changed in the favour of India. So, the importance of this membership is to the extent, as I said, that it would formalise the waiver. But in terms of substantive advantage from membership, currently, since we have these long term arrangements, I do not think we should worry too much that this is somehow going to impact our nuclear energy.
SV: Now, in 2008, the waiver that was given by the NSG, had a clause where India committed to adhere to the NSG guidelines. It also had a paragraph that Indian adherence to any future guidelines would be facilitated by the NSG consulting India. We have seen that, since then, there has been one major change in guidelines which is that the NSG in 2011, in Noordwijk, adopted a new rule which introduced a non-proliferation treaty criterion for the export of reprocessing and enrichment (ENR) equipment … To the best of my knowledge, India was either not consulted or if we were consulted, our protestations were discounted or ignored when the new rule was introduced. So what you are saying in a sense is that membership would actually…..
SS: Would give you a voice in, as I said, the amendment process. But let me remind you that even at the time of the waiver itself, there were several countries which were asking for India to accept that there would be a prohibition on the transfer of ENR. And we said, no we cannot… So I don’t think this is a problem in substantive terms. But the principle that you mentioned that it would be better if we were part of the membership, because it would allow us to have a role to play in terms of the rule-making process – this is important precisely because, in a sense, you have been an exceptional case. Because you have been given a country-specific exemption, which is what China objected to. What the membership would do is, that country-specific exemption would actually be formalised if you actually become a member of the NSG. Now, yes, we have not succeeded in Seoul. My sense is given the kind of opposition we have seen from China and the fact that some of the countries are now hiding behind, in a sense, China’s opposition, it may be much more challenging in the coming weeks and months. We should continue to try and mobilise the consensus as we had done in the case of the waiver. But I don’t think that we should elevate this into a kind of elemental issue for India. I do not believe that it is an elemental issue.
SV: Do you think the government erred by casting this in such a high profile manner. Deploying the prime minister…there is an argument that what we have accomplished as a result is the re-hyphenation of [India with Pakistan]…
SS: Well, if we had succeeded, then the same people would have said, you know, thanks to the very energetic diplomacy which was engaged by the prime minister.
SV: But the point is we didn’t succeed.
SS: No, it didn’t succeed. I think we should be a little fair in this respect. Because I am conscious of the fact that the last time around, we had to engage in very energetic diplomacy. And my sense is that we would not have been able to get the waiver, if we had not engaged in that energetic diplomacy.
SV: And as you said, there was a major setback in August 2008, followed by…
SS: Exactly. So people could have said, after August,why are you doing this? Because there’s no good hope of your getting this.
SV: Let’s talk about timing now. You were involved in the first phase of negotiations. You saw the India-US 2005 statement all the way through to Vienna. I covered the story as a reporter. What were the discussions then about possible membership of the NSG? Did we raise it at that time as something that we want or did we flag it as an issue that would come up later?
SS: Well, you know, what happened then was that we went down to the wire when we were trying to get an agreement on the separation plan. And it was early in the morning of March 6 [2006] that we managed to actually get the agreement. And at that time, actually, there had been some talk of India becoming a member of those global organisations. But because of the very difficult and somewhat acrimonious exchanges which took place between the two sides, this particular issue actually was put aside. This is something which we’ll see later. The kind of political capital that the US would have to deploy in order to get this would be difficult, it may be easier to try and get the waiver. Therefore, we did not actually pursue this. But the idea that we should eventually become members of these global regimes was something which was already present in 2005-2006.
Former foreign secretary Shyam Saran. Credit: The Wire
SV: So 2010 is when it gets raised again by President Obama…
SS: Well, it had been raised subsequently, not immediately after the waiver in 2008. But after the waiver, I think there were exchanges between the two sides on, what’s the next step. We also need to build a degree of credibility and a certain sense that you know, this is not a half-way house. And the US then agreed.
SV: So, in 2010, President Obama comes to Delhi, makes the announcement. This is followed up the next year by Richard Stratford of the US state department presenting his ‘food-for-thought’ paper to the NSG plenary in Noordwijk, Holland, where he raises the possibility of how India could be a member. In particular, he addresses this question of NPT as a criterion by saying that perhaps the 2008 waiver for India could be treated as an equivalent agreement. Then, things go quiet. From 2011 till pretty much last year, there doesn’t seem to be much forward movement. Is this because the previous government did not pursue matters or…
SS: Well, frankly, I am not in a position to really answer this question. Because I was not in government during this particular period. But my sense is that at various consultations which India had with the NSG, I think an assessment would have been made whether the time is right for us to be able to take this particular proposal forward. There is no doubt that when the Modi government took office, there has been a certain change in style. A sense that active diplomacy, energetic diplomacy, personal diplomacy between the prime minister and the counterpart leaders…this is something that can actually change the nature of the game, you know. So what we have seen is not just with respect to the NSG membership, but we have seen with respect to other aspects of India’s foreign policy as well. Now, you may argue for or against that kind of energetic diplomacy but I think what has resulted in this great effort to try and get this membership is the belief that given the kind of leadership you have, given the kind of energetic diplomacy that you have, this is worth trying. Having tried, if you have not got what you wanted, I don’t think you should take this as a great setback or this is the end of the road for us. I think we should cut our losses and you know, wait for a more propitious time when we can raise this again.
SV: We’ll have evaluated the reasons …
SS: Exactly. Evaluating the geopolitical backdrop against which this has happened is very important. We should be able to see why the situation today is different. Why is China today different than it was in 2008. I think these are more important questions than the mere question about membership of the NSG.
SV: So, we have questions pouring in our Facebook page…more than we can ask really. I’ll throw two at you. This is a question by Pranav Gupta: How important is diplomacy by stealth versus diplomacy by caution? How much does the centralisation of foreign policy by PMO matter? I think here, this question is getting to the heart of the style of diplomacy, if you will. He is suggesting perhaps that pursuing this matter behind closed doors might have been more effective than deploying, making public announcements about the prime minister being involved, so on. Does he have a point?
SS: As I said that, if this had succeeded, then people would have said, thanks to the personal diplomacy by Prime Minister Modi and the manner in which he sort of took it up at his level with his counterparts, is what actually has made the difference. Because it has not succeeded this time, so you have a lot of criticism. Frankly speaking, I think different leaders at different occasions have different styles. I think we should allow that element of you know, difference in style. As a professional diplomat, I would say, I would certainly give greater credence to you know, quiet diplomacy. You know, certainly not diplomacy by stealth, but certainly discretion. Not raise everything to the public level, not put countries in the dock. I don’t think that serves our interests well by doing this.
SV: Have we erred then – this is a question by Arvindan – by projecting only Chinese opposition when actually other countries have also opposed us. Are we making a mistake in singling out China?
SS: I would certainly hope that we do not make this into a major issue of contention between India and China. That I do not believe in…
SV: Have we already done that? By saying that ‘one country’…
SS: If you ask my own personal opinion, I would not have done that. You know, I wouldn’t have identified one or two countries. Remember, even in 2008, despite the fact that it was known which countries were actually opposed to India, we never went public with ‘Oh, this is the country which opposed or this is the country which voted for.’
SV: But I suppose this is because you got the waiver.
SS: Well, we got it. But we could have made a public statement saying you know, we thank the countries which supported us and you know, these are the bad guys.
SV: But, let me be Devil’s advocate. Why shouldn’t we? After all, if China has blocked something which is important for India. And has done so in tandem with Pakistan, which is opposed to Indian interests. What is the harm in going public?
SS: Well, that we should be mindful of the fact that there is opposition is something which is…I mean it doesn’t need a statement on the part of India to make that. There are ways in which you can make it very clear what really was the reason that we were not able to get this through. I am saying that in terms of an official posture by the government, it is best not to raise this to a level of, you know, a very major contention between India and China. Because there is much more to India-China relations than just the issue of the NSG membership. That’s why I said, earlier in my remarks, that I would not make this into an elemental issue for India.
SV: Vikrant Suryavanshi asks: despite the 2008 waiver, the Indian civil nuclear programme is not up to mark. Do you think that civil nuclear liability is the elephant in the room?
SS: (Laughs) Well, number one, I think perhaps people do not realise that had we not got the nuclear deal through, several of our nuclear reactors, which are based on uranium, would have actually faced major fuel shortages. Several of them were running much below capacity. So, one of the very important gains for India has been that the issue of nuclear fuel has been now resolved. And that’s a very major gain, as I mentioned. Also, in terms of nuclear technology, you know, our domestic technology, which is very good… we have been able to master the CANDU technology and havebrought in our own design features, but we have not been able to go beyond… the largest reactor that we have… yeah, 700 MW. Now the world has moved to 1000 MW. Now even 1000 MW has become somewhat out-of-date, we are talking about 1500 MW reactors, 1700 MW reactors. So, if you really want to upgrade your technology and reach that level which we see internationally, then again, the nuclear deal has been extremely important. As you have seen, we have been able to conclude agreements with Russia and France. And now you have the prospect of being able to do the same with the US. Is the nuclear liability bill a hindrance? For some the US corporations, it is. Even now.
SV: Even now, despite the so-called FAQs…
SS: But I think what the government has done in terms of the insurance pool that it has introduced with the sort of re-interpretation of some of the legislative language, it has, in fact, substantially overcome that concern. Not the ideal, I grant that, but I think it has at least given sufficient amount of confidence to allow major international firms to actually think in terms of engaging in nuclear commerce.
Tomorrow: Part II of the interview, on the role of China and the way forward
While SCO claims ‘technical nuances’ are in the way of agreement, Chinese foreign minister said the ongoing accession of India and Pakistan was the focus.
Credit: Reuters/Aly Song
Tashkent: The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a China-led security bloc, refused to initiate Iran‘s accession on June 23, despite a request from Russia which backs Tehran’s bid, indicating possible divisions between Beijing and Moscow.
The bloc has served a platform for Moscow and Beijing to project influence in the region. But unlike Russia, China may be reluctant to give it a strong anti-Western flavour.
Iran has long knocked at SCO’s door and Russia has argued that with Western sanctions against Tehran lifted, it could finally become a member of the bloc which also includes four ex-Soviet Central Asian republics.
“The Russian position is clear in its support of initiating the SCO admission process [for Iran] without delays, if possible,” Bakhtiyor Khakimov, a special SCO envoy of Russian President Vladimir Putin, told reporters as leaders of the bloc‘s member countries met in Uzbekistan.
“We failed to reach an agreement with our colleagues this time, but the work continues.”
Khakimov said there were no objections to the idea “in principle”, but there were “technical nuances” related to the timing. He did not name the objecting parties.
A Chinese diplomat who also spoke to reporters in Tashkent on June 23, declined to comment on Iran‘s bid. But Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, who visited Uzbekistan last month for a lower-level SCO meeting, said Beijing wanted to focus on the ongoing accession of India and Pakistan before moving on.
When India’s most aggressive anchor meets India’s most aggressive politician, one expects sparks to fly. Instead, Arnab Goswami looked like a favourite nephew lobbing the ball gently to a benign elderly uncle. More “noora-kushti” and less a sharp interview, there were many questions that ought to have been asked. And many answers that sounded more fixed than spontaneous.
