Engaging India

Title: Engaging India – Diplomacy, Democracy and the Bomb

Author: Strobe Talbott

Publisher: Penguin, 2007 (First published 2004)

ISBN: 978-0-14310-214-4

Pages: 234

Strobe Talbott, the gentle US Deputy Secretary of State from 1994 to 2001 chronicles the events which led to and resulted from India and Pakistan’s tit-for-tat nuclear tests in May 1998. The book ingenuously narrates the diplomatic fallout of the explosions and how India withstood the onslaught from the US singlehandedly and with esteem. As we know, India tested first and Pakistan was virtually forced to follow suit. Though the explosion was beneath the ground in Pokhran in Western India, its impact was felt half a world away in the White House. We read about how helpless the Clinton administration felt when the news was broken to them by CNN. The author then tells the long but lucidly described story of the ups and downs in the complex dialogue America maintained with India. The author represented the Americans and Jaswant Singh, India’s foreign minister, acted as his counterpart. Readers get a clearly articulated picture of what bothered the administration, their plan to get India sign along the dotted line and India bided their time well enough to beat Clinton on his homeground, when he lost face after the Republican majority senate threw out his test ban treaty summarily. When Clinton and the Democratic Party lose the presidency, CTBT was also buried quietly. The book is well structured, with a limpid account of the history which led to the bomb and the after-events that finally led to lifting of post-test sanctions and integrating India back into the world stage.

Talbott begins the book with a neat and precise introduction to the events which led to India’s nuclear tests in May 1998. Even though democracies in the modern sense, both India and the US had more to disagree about than to agree with, in the past. Talbott describes how India sided with the USSR in the political game, assisted in no small measure by Nehru’s socialist agenda, which was continued by Indira Gandhi, his daughter and prime minister, who was disdainful of capitalism in general. After China tested the atom bomb in 1964, a test ban treaty came into being, and a non-proliferation treaty (NPT) sought to bring in a regime in which the five nations already possessing nuclear weapons were allowed to continue holding them while non-nuclear states were forced to forego the weapons option. India objected to this discriminatory treaty and wanted itself to be given the honoured place due to it on account of being the world’s largest democracy. The ‘peaceful’ nuclear tests conducted in May 1974 was a milestone in India’s path to become a nuclear weapon state. Things moved with a feverish pitch during the administration of Bill Clinton, beginning in 1993. We get a ringside view of the activities through the candid prose of the author who was a prominent official in the American government. Clinton was proposing a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and forcing India to sign and ratify the NPT, which would have sealed the country’s hopes of becoming a nuclear power forever. Indians acted fast, but the effort was open and the political establishment weak-kneed. In December 1995, American spy satellites detected extensive movements in Pokhran and Clinton warned Narasimha Rao, then prime minister, against any misadventure. Rao promptly buckled and called off the tests. But politics in India was fast moving towards a transformation. The Hindu nationalist party – BJP – came to power in March 1998, with Vajpayee at its helm. Inducting nuclear weapons in the country’s arsenal was an electoral manifesto of the party, which it did on May 11, 1998 – less than 60 days after it assumed office – exploding five weapons in a span of three days. The US administration was taken completely off-guard and even the State department and the CIA learned the news through CNN – a greater shame they couldn’t even imagine.

Talbott was a born negotiator and shares his experiences dealing the regimes in India and Pakistan. At the very outset, he was aware of the structural and constitutional differences between the two countries – one an out and out democracy and the other where instability of elected governments was the harm. At the time when negotiations were going forth, Pakistan had a civilian – Nawaz Sharif – as the PM, but General Karamat controlled the administration as usual. The author clearly differentiates the caliber and tone of negotiations. Indians tried to wear the Americans down, and hoping for congressional restraints which was expectable as the Republicans controlled it. Pakistan was ‘bullying on its weaknesses’ and Talbott likens their reaction to that of a person who holds a pistol to his own head, threatening to pull the trigger unless we handed him our wallets. Talbott also identifies that the discussions with Pakistanis were not as intellectually engaging as that with India (p.105) and the rootlessness of Pakistani interlocutors was painfully evident as most of them were worried about who controls what in Pakistan and hence unwilling or unable to deviate much from their brief. In fact, military leaders exhibited a calm and cooler demeanour than the civilian leadership. Pakistani bureaucrats sometimes lost their bearings and assumed intimidating expressions towards their guests. Talbott describes one such incident when a high-ranking official leaned across the table in a moment of rage as if trying to strangle his American counterpart. He had to be physically restrained (p.105). On the other hand, the Indian side displayed a diligent maturity becoming of a responsible democracy. Jaswant Singh and Talbott became close friends during the dialogue process.

                 

Watching from close quarters, Talbott enjoyed a prime spot in bringing out the complex nature of interactions President Clinton had with India before and after its nuclear tests. It is said that Clinton admired India right from his education days at Oxford. He read E.M.Forster’s ‘A passage to India’ more than once in those days. Himself a voracious reader of history, Clinton had as his partner Hillary, who also had a warm regard for India, where she had planned an educational programme in her career. The Democrat-President was eager to visit India during the second term in office, but the nuclear tests upset the apple cart. As the author says, Clinton preferred managing differences with foreign leaders whom he regarded as essentially decent, conscientious, and deserving of a better relationship with the US. Even though he became very furious in the immediate aftermath of the tests, he cooled down considerably and appointed the author as the interlocutor in his engagement with India in a bid to secure the country’s signature on CTBT and to ensure a speedy visit, which had been postponed as part of the sanctions regime. Then he fell into the grips of temptation in the form of an obliging young intern at the White House and lost credibility with the populace, coming close to impeachment. Clinton finally made the India visit in 2000, without obtaining any leverage on his points of contention with the hosts.

                  

The book exemplifies the importance of the personal equation in international relations. The excellent rapport existed between Talbott and Jaswant Singh was instrumental in ironing out many of the stark differences of opinion where they existed and of ignoring the stubborn opposition to some points where no amount of compromise could be effected. We get the impression that a small part of the coldness that suddenly crept up between the US and Pakistan may be accounted for the superior level of mutual communication between the two. The book as a whole is written in an appreciative mood for India and its variegated processes and institutions of democracy, even though those same factors hindered the development of high-level talks in no small measure. It also shows the total change of stress on key issues whenever there is a transfer of power in the White House. Clinton was a staunch non-proliferationist, but as soon as George W Bush took over, he reversed many of his predecessor’s steps. Talbott fumes over Bush’s near-casual acceptance of India as a nuclear power without any of the strings attached.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star