MORAL ROOTS OF INDIA’S FOREIGN POLICY

Although, it was Jawaharlal Nehru who shaped India’s foreign policy, Mahatma Gandhi’s thinking and philosophy influenced it greatly. India’s foreign policy is based on the Gandhian values of its freedomstruggle. It was Gandhianideasthat set the tone of India’s foreignpolicy in theearlydecades of its independence. These were:

¤ Non-alignment or the right to follow an independent foreign policy and to decide foreign policy issues on merits;

¤ Moral,diplomatic and economic support forthe struggle against colonialism, racialism and apartheid;

¤ Non-violence and the quest for nuclear disarmament; and

¤ India’s role as an international peacemaker.

India’s stand on international problems was based on moral clarity and courage. Many nations admired this approach. It won for India the leadership of the developing countries. It gave India an influence in world affairs out of proportion to its real economic and political strength. Gandhi’s message greatly influenced the perceptions of outsiders about India. From the beginning, while formulating its foreign policy, India focused not only on its own narrow national interests, but also on the impact its policy would have on other similarly placed Asian and African countries. India’s foreign policy had a strong idealist streak in this sense, and expressed solidarity with the other nations which shared its colonial past.

Both supporters and critics of Indian foreign policy invariably focus attention on Panchsheel. It goes back to a stage long past in Indian foreign policy. Nehru perhaps thought it a centerpiece of policy which also held up a moral torch in the cynical environment of diplomacy. While some praise Panchsheel for its idealism, others condemn it for its unrealism.

ThePanchsheelTreaty(fromSanskrit,panch:five,sheel:virtues)is consideredthe highwatermark of the diplomacy of this period. Panchsheel consists of five principles for peaceful coexistence between nations or for governing relations between states. Their first formal codification in treaty form was in an agreement between China and India in 1954. The five principles to which states have to subscribe are:

1. Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty

2. Mutual non-aggression

3. Mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs

4. Equality and mutual benefit and

5. Peace and coexistence.

Panchsheel is premised on the belief that the states which became independent after colonial era would be able to develop a new and more principled approach to international relations. About Panchsheel, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru said: “If these principles were recognised in the mutual relations of all countries, then indeed there would hardly be any conflict and certainly no war.” The five principles were later included in a revised form in the ten principles of Asian-African Conference (1955) in Bandung. The Five Principles formed the basis of the Non-Aligned Movement, which began in Belgrade in 1961.

Panchsheel ended as a sad story for India. The boundary dispute between India and China resulted in outbreak of open war in 1962. Panchsheel (April 1954) agreement was set to last for eight years. When it lapsed, the provision for renewal of the agreement was not taken up.

Some writers have been critical of the Five Principles. According to, Peter Lyon, a British writer on international relations: “Though neutralists in general, and at that time Mr Nehru in particular, seemed to regard these principles as being a special contribution to world politics, they were not at all original, were repetitious, and really boiled down to the edict that a state’s independence should not be infringed.” Any criticism of Panchsheel may seem like flogging a dead horse. But its strong strain of naiveté and misconceived idealism divorced from harsh realities continue to plague India’s foreign policy.

The lack of hard realism in India’s foreign policy has cost us dear. “Among the mistakes that India made in itsGandhi-inspired and Nehru-directed foreignpolicy were the referral of the Kashmir issue to the United Nations in 1948, the ‘bhai-bhai’ (brother-brother) policy towards China and the missed opportunity in Nepal to fully integrate it into the Indian security system.” Indian Policy makers, in referring the Kashmir issue to UN, appear to have shown simple mindedness and credulity. UN is a political organ, and not an impartial judicial body. Indian policy makers also made a grievous error in failing to support the autonomous status of Tibet vis-a-vis China. With these two errors, India threw away forever the strategic bargaining chips it could have used against China. Perhaps Nehru was more concerned with his image as a messiah of peace and as an anti-imperialist crusader than with India’s geostrategic interests in its neighbourhood.

These errors arose at least partly from misguided application of Gandhian principles to India’s external relations. There is another instance in which Mahatma Gandhi forced the Indian government to sacrifice national financial interest to grand moral principles. After Pakistan’s invasion of Kashmir, many people argued that India should hold on to the Rs 55 crores that India owed Pakistan. Gandhi went on a fast unto death to force government to pay the amount to Pakistan. Ultimately the government relented. The point is not that India should have reneged on its commitment. This could have been used as a means to wring some concessions from Pakistan.

This mindset continues to afflict India’s policy towards Pakistan. This has become an in-built feature of Indian foreign policy establishment. Many observers argue that India showed the same softness at the Simla Conference in 1972 after the war over Bangladesh. India had at that time more

than 90,000 Pakistani prisoners of war. While they cannot be housed permanently in India, some concessions could have been secured for their return. Critics complain that India’s responses to terrorist attacks are confined to hand wringing and breast beating. India is seen as amiable and ineffectual - a soft target to foreign and indigenous terrorist groups. In these areas, the legacy of Gandhian morality seems to have ill served the interests of the people and the nation.

The second area where Gandhi’s thinking had an enduring impact on India’s foreign policy is Palestine. Gandhi’s editorial in the Harijan of 11 November 1938 was a major policy statement that guides India’s policy on Palestine to this day. Despite his sympathy for the Jews who had been subjected to discrimination and persecution for centuries, Gandhi was clear about the rights of the Palestinians. “My sympathy,” he said, “does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national homefortheJewsdoesnot make muchappeal tome…Why shouldtheynot,likeotherpeoplesof theearth, makethat country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood? Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs… Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.”

We need not enter into the merits of Indian foreign policy stance on the complex Palestine issue. There is, however, a surprising moral inconsistency in Mahatma Gandhi’s formulation. It appears that the English, French and the Arabs are entitled to homelands. But the Jews are advised to live wherever historical circumstances have placed them. Possibly, Mahatma Gandhi’s views on Jews and Palestine are also based on the strategic imperatives of Indian Independence movement. He was perhaps trying to appeal to the sentiments of Muslim masses, and enlist their support for the national movement. Indian foreign policy on Palestine is guided not only by the views of Mahatma Gandhi but also by India’s geopolitical interests in Middle East. India has also recognised Israel as a nation. It is also a large buyer of military supplies from Israel. In this way, the Indian foreign policy makers certainly kept national interests in view.

Our intention is not to assess or criticize India’s foreign policy. It is rather to touch upon certain moral ideas which went into its making. In studying international morality, one examines whether and in what manner morals influence international relations. In contrast, the process of foreign policy formulation, its implementation and its impacts are studied in the theory and history of diplomatic practice. This area falls outside the scope of our discussion. Our remarks on the results of Indian foreign policy are incidental and are for purposes of rounding off the discussion.