Can Congress President Sonia Gandhi urgently please set aside a few hours, even on a weekly basis, and ask for the files dealing with the most important foreign policy issues?
There’s National Security Adviser Shivshanker Menon and Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai to be sure, whose constant fire-fighting lets India at least look like a part-time benign power that aims to be the growth engine for the region, at the same time absorbing the stings and arrows of localised nationalisms.
On top of the Advantage India chart this month must be the visit of Nepal Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai, whose Maoist party New Delhi had spurned and disdained untill a few months ago, as well as the visits of Myanmarese President Thein Sein and Vietnamese head of state Truong Tan Sang.
Mr Sein’s haunting journey to Bodh Gaya, especially, has all the characteristics of a poignant short story: the head of a military regime, who is also an ardent devotee of Lord Buddha, perambulates around the holy shrine in naked feet. Remember that, at home, the military junta is beginning to open up the land of rubies, and that Aung San Suu Kyi – the pro-democracy leader who studied in a Delhi college and has lots of friends in India – has recently visited the Indian embassy to look at an exhibition of Rabindranath Tagore. India did well to cement the relationship by offering Myanmar a credit line of $500 million.
For a moment, though, let’s take the complete hash of India’s policy towards Bangladesh, a relationship of supreme national importance. Much has already been written about the Prime Minister’s bitter-sweet trip to Dhaka in early September, in which the Teesta waters agreement could not be signed, even though both sides managed to rescue the pact on the demarcation of their 4,000-odd km long boundary.
As if the insult to Sheikh Hasina as well as the damage to India-Bangladesh relations wasn’t enough last month, Delhi’s repeated insensitivity towards the Bangladeshi PM – by the way, the only person who is really rooting for India, in Dhaka – has shaken the core of the relationship.
What happened was that on Wednesday Hasina was to visit the Bangladeshi Dahagram-Angarpota enclaves which lie inside West Bengal, via the Teen Bigha corridor, a narrow strip of land the size of a football field (literally, three bighas), to show her people that her Awami League government had persuaded India to allow people living in those enclaves 24-hour access to Bangladesh through that Teen Bigha corridor.
Since the 1971 war, and perhaps since Mujib’s death in 1975, this has been an extremely sensitive issue for both sides, as a result of which ordinary people on the ground have suffered for decades. Now India and Bangladesh had, finally, after extensive surveys across the entire boundary, succeeded in resolving the matter. Twenty four-hour access across the corridor was being granted to Bangladeshis, even as Indian paramilitary forces maintain security and control.
Sheikh Hasina’s visit to Dahagram-Angarpota had been on the cards for several weeks. Until three days before her visit, the Bangladeshis were told that India’s Home Minister P Chidambaram would be there to receive her. Sore and humiliated by the PM’s refusal to call Mamata Banerjee’s bluff over the Teesta, they agreed that Chidambaram’s presence would be a big gesture from Delhi.
Then it was said that Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh – said to be close to the Gandhi family, and even Rahul – would be going, along with the junior minister for home affairs, Jitendra Singh. In the end, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, along with Singh, ended up doing the honours.
No offence meant to Mr Azad, but how relevant is his presence to a meeting with a Bangladeshi leader? Where was Foreign Minister S M Krishna? What was Mr Chidambaram doing that he couldn’t drop everything and go?
The problem with the Congress party is that it’s getting so tired with governing India that on the foreign affairs front it is unable to sift the important from the mundane.
In Dhaka last month, when the Teesta agreement was falling apart, everyone talked about the amazing trip Sonia Gandhi had had to Dhaka just days before. If only Sonia Gandhi were here, they said, this wouldn’t have happened; she would have phoned Mamata Banerjee and persuaded her to see reason.
The point of this column is that there is such a terrible absence of political leadership in South Block that “chalta hai” (anything goes) has begun to take the place of creative imagination.
Imagine if Hasina had been greeted by a galaxy of leaders from Delhi and Bengal, all lined up on the Teen Bigha. Imagine if the Indian government – the president, the prime minister, whoever – gave the young and newly married King of Bhutan, Jigme Khesar Wangchuk, who comes to India in a few days to spend his honeymoon in Rajasthan, a public reception at the Red Fort or the Mughal Gardens at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
India’s neighbours are its strength, hope and comfort zone, and vice-versa. They are far more important than any other country in the world. If South Block doesn’t get it, can Ms Gandhi please take the lead in airing the Foreign Office inside out?
