There was a recent report in BBC on Indian foreign policy and the difficult path it was treading. The main context was of course, Indian MEA’s (Ministry of External Affairs) refusal to comment on Burmese Pro-Democracy protests. As per Pranab Mukherjee, we want democracy in other nations, but we dont want to export our ideology of democracy. Is it that bad? Anyway, there were some points given in this report which made me recap the causations leading to changes in policy and relations.

We want Peace….. And Arms:
Our relation with Israel is ruled by Draconian Law - Friendship is dictated by the presence of a common enemy. The common enemy in this case is the threat from Pakistan and Islamic Fundamentalism. Relation between the two countries was non-existent till 1992. This was largely due to the Congress govt.’s paranoia of losing Muslim Vote Bank, fuelled by India’s closeness to Soviet Union, which made it a potential rival to Israel. Collapse of USSR and rise of insurgency in Kashmir prompted the two nations to begin and increase cooperation. Although relations did not formally start till 1992, Israel was providing intelligence support to India during 1971 war. This took a shape of regular intelligence sharing between the two countries along with anti-insurgency trainings. Now India has replaced Turkey (a Muslim Country) as the largest market for Israeli Defense products. All this brings us to one question - Are we following double standards here? I would say “No”. India is still a supporter of a separate Palestinian state and the Middle-East Peace process. That doesn’t necessarily make us anti-Israel. Moreover, Israelis and Palestinians both view India as a trustworthy intermediary. I call it double mandate, not double standards.

I Thought “Sudan” Meant Energy:
There is not much of a surprise here too. India is growing and growing rapidly. Its energy consumption is sky rocketing which is in turn fuelling demand for the same. India has always been exploring reliable sources of fuel. Our largest source, Middle East, is definitely not stable. Too much quantity is concentrated in too less hands, in the middle of a battleground. You never know when supply gets disrupted and for what. Having not been blessed by large oil reserves, it became necessary to look for energy supplies in unexplored zones - South East Asia, Africa - to an extent that we stopped caring the type of government and its human rights record. We just needed energy.

We want Iran, We Don’t Want Iran:
I doubt even the highest government officials are clear on what they want to do here. We want to set up a pipeline from Iran, we condemn the Iran govt.under Nuclear Deal pressure, we say both are independent issues and then we don’t attend the pipeline conference. No idea where this is going. But I guess in the end, Customer Is King.

Shhhh… It’s the Junta:
Energy and security rule the policy here. You can see my previous post on this topic here. Burma is an energy rich ground for India, which along with this, wants to curb Chinese influence in the region. From internal security point of view, Burma has long been the staging ground of insurgency in North East India. Burma’s military junta arrested a number of these rebels and set up watch along its border. When India awarded Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Deshprem award to Suu Kyi, the Junta took no time in releasing these rebels it had arrested on India’s request. That was enough to send a stern warning to the government here, that misadventures are not welcome in Junta circles.

Makes me think that Ministry of External Affairs in India is caught between old friends and new foe-turned-friends. And it makes me wonder if they have the most difficult job in the government. They need to maintain nation’s credibility AND relations. And these two don’t always go hand in hand.