India, China and NSG: A Response to Pratap Bhanu Mehta

Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s essay in the Indian Express yesterday outlined a critique of India’s bid for membership of the Nuclear Supplier’s Group at its meeting last week in Seoul meeting.  I was not surprised to find that I disagreed with almost every point he made there.  Mehta’s is an important voice in the Indian public policy discourse on a variety of subjects, a Liberal, erudite, complex and moderate one.  I find myself agreeing with almost all of his writings, save for that on Indian foreign policy and international politics, where his Liberal instincts and my Realist thinking part ways, as I have written on this blog before (here and here).  But his is an important critique, not just from a policy perspective but also a theoretical perspective and so it is even more important to engage with it.  [This essay was slightly edited on July 1, 2016, to modify a couple of harsh characterizations, which, on reflection, I felt were unhelpful to carrying forward a debate]

Before I get to my disagreements, a couple of points of agreement, even if they are relatively minor ones: I also thought the reference to climate change and Paris was unnecessary, and I agree with Mehta on the need to have the capacity to hurt the great powers if you want to take them on, a point also made by Praveen Swami.  And now to the disagreements. 

Mehta argues that there were three delusions in the discourse on India’s NSG membership bid.  The first was about whether an NSG membership was really worth “the political capital invested in this venture”.  He argues that the NSG waiver India got in 2008 takes care of most of our needs and any negative changes within NSG could have been prevented by having just one friend within the group (since the group works by consensus). 

Lessons from the Dolkun Isa Visa Fiasco

I wrote a brief essay that was published by Observer Research Foundation on the Indian government first granting and then withdrawing visa for Mr. Dolkun Isa, an Uyghur activist.  Posted below in full:

Lessons from the Dolkun Isa Visa Fiasco

The Indian government has rightly come in for a significant amount of criticism for backtracking and withdrawing the visa it had granted to Mr. Dolkun Isa, a Uyghur activist, after the Chinese government complained.  While there is almost universal condemnation of the incompetence of the Indian state in efficiently managing something as simple as granting a visa, opinions about the strategic consequences of the Indian government’s actions are more divided.  Much of the commentary has been highly partisan.  Still, this episode also raises important questions about how Indian foreign policy and security policies are managed.
 

We do not yet know, of course, the real story behind why an Indian visa was granted to Mr. Isa or why it was later withdrawn, or why many other Chinese dissidents were also refused visas to attend a conference that presumably relevant government agencies had already approved.  Early press stories suggested that New Delhi granted the visa to Mr. Isa apparently in retaliation for China blocking India’s efforts to place Masood Azhar, head of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorist group, on a UN terrorist list established by the UN Security Council’s (UNSC) Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee.  (China had claimed that India’s application did not “meet the requirements”).  The consistency in these stories suggest that the story was based on briefing by senior government officials.  Indeed, some reports quoted “top sources” as saying that this decision was taken at the “highest level” in the government.  This is useful to keep in mind because once the government decided to withdraw the visa, the story became one of an inter-departmental snafu between the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).  It is also possible that the visa was granted by mistake because Indian officials did not realise Mr. Isa’s name was on an Interpol red corner notice.  Still, the government took no steps to deny these stories in the first two days, before the visa was retracted, suggesting that something more than an interdepartmental issue was at play.  Some reports have even suggested that India and China had worked out a quid-pro-quo on the Masood Azhar issue, but this appears highly doubtful.

The JNU Free Speech Controversy-1

The controversy over JNU and free speech leaves me somewhat bemused.  The hypocrisy on all sides of the debate is truly astounding.  What is common to all sides is that their idea of "free" speech is not so about any principles but about "convenient" speech.  For all sides in this debate, the only "free" speech they recognize is their own right to speak, the only speech they will defend is speech they agree with and all sides will oppose any "free" speech that disagrees with their orthodoxies.  A good example is a recent essay by two of my colleagues that I have responded to in a companion post, immediately following this post.  [I wanted to include it here but as it was getting a bit long, I split it into two posts]. Read these posts together. 

As for the political parties, the less said the better.  BJP leaders haven't exactly covered themselves in glory with their ill-advised statements and actions.  The BJP is today the only politically relevant centre-right political voice in the country and this episode once again demonstrates the crying need for a center-right alternative to the BJP that will be based on libertarian principles of limited government and freedom rather than the religion-based conservatism that the BJP represents.

And then we have the Congress, which has spent the better part of its several decades of rule banning anything that any section of the population had any objection to, now suddenly masquerading as a defender of free speech!  As for the Left parties, that they can even mouth "free speech" without bursting into flames is a wonder.  It would all be comical if it weren't so tragic. 

Mehta's essay on Pakistan: A brief critique

I generally enjoy reading Pratap Bhanu Mehta's essays, specially his always trenchant analysis of Indian politics.  His essay last week is a fine exemplar, outlining the deeper institutional difficulties that face Prime Minister Modi, which Modi unfortunately does not seem to be paying much attention to.  Mehta's position is always that of a true Liberal, and he appears not to take a position first and let the analysis follow, but decide on his position based on his analysis.  Such analytical commitment and honesty is rare anywhere but especially in India.

But Liberalism has serious flaws when it comes to understanding international politics. I had earlier posted a brief comment on another essay of his where I disagreed with his view of Indian policy on Pakistan, which he characterized as Realism.  His latest essay gives me another chance to provide a brief Realist critique of the Liberal view of India-Pakistan relations.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s Essay on Institutions

I find Pratap Bhanu Mehta one of India’s most readable scholar and commentator.  His latest essay in the Indian Express is a particularly good one.  He points to the manner in which institutions have been eroded by India’s political class.  A more important point he makes is that the the "vast majority of our politicians simply do not understand the meaning of one word: institutions."