Public diplomacy

The nuclear deal with the United States was hard enough to bring to fruition without undiplomatic comments from ambassadors, and without American demarches about the countries with whom India can do oil deals. India prides itself on its independent foreign policy""even though it has not always been in evidence. Remember the UN vote on Hungary after the Soviet Union's tanks rolled into that country in 1956, and the tip-toeing around the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. But kowtowing to the Soviet Union was never considered unpatriotic, whereas there has long been an anti-American streak in India's political, diplomatic and other establishments. Recent years have seen a change in the wind (the disappearance of the Soviet Union has helped!), and especially after the posture that President Clinton adopted on Kargil, America has enjoyed an unprecedented level of goodwill in the Indian mind. But latent anti-Americanism in many circles is still not far below the surface, and all it takes to emerge is evidence of America leaning hard on India on any issue.

Which is why David Mulford, the US envoy in New Delhi, spoke out of turn last week, at a sensitive stage in the negotiations over both Iran and the bifurcation of India's nuclear establishments into civilian and strategic categories. But there is no getting away from the fact that he spoke the blunt truth. If India does not vote with the US on the Iran nuclear question, it can kiss the nuclear deal goodbye. If that was not properly understood before, then Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, has more or less made it clear in her public remarks""made, significantly, after the brouhaha over Mr Mulford. The US may or may not be "right" in making such connections, or in issuing diktats on unconnected matters, or indeed in making such matters public so that the government is embarrassed, but great powers have a habit of doing just that and it is up to intermediate powers like India to decide how best to deal with the situation. In pursuit of an independent foreign policy, India is free to vote differently on Iran, but the US Congress is equally free to say: Sorry, no nuclear deal.

What the government has to decide is what is in India's interest, and how much of a price is worth paying on any particular issue. The correct choice in this context depends on energy scenarios (oil and gas will be more important than nuclear power for at least the next three decades), diplomatic options (will the bridges built with Saudi Arabia provide insurance against Iran playing hardball on energy supplies?), strategic calculations (how much bomb-making capacity does India need?), the importance of general US support in the context of the China-Pakistan axis, the importance of keeping Iran non-hostile, and so on. There is no simple matrix or formula to use in such situations, and the scope for elbow room is defined by diplomatic skill, the constant expansion of the choices available, and the ability to maintain ambiguities (there is something to be learnt from Pakistan here). Nor can all the calculations be made public. What the government needs to do is to make sure that it has thought things through carefully and drawn its markers on the ground; if it is pushed over any of the red lines, it should have the confidence to cry off and not be pushed into an agreement that is not in the national interest.