29 January 2014
How would you define the prospects for bilateral cooperation between India and Russia?
First of all, let me say what a great privilege and honor it is for me to be here in Moscow as the Ambassador of India to Russian Federation. It’s an honor because of the extremely close relations that we have between the two countries. Without a doubt this is one of the most important diplomatic positions my country can give to an Ambassador. Moreover, it is a place where I started my diplomatic career many years ago, so it is a great privilege to come back to the place where I started my diplomatic career. I must also say that it is a very daunting position that the Ambassador has, because of the multifaceted bilateral relations that India has with Russia. You have to ensure that the progress in every one of these areas is at pace, that the governments of the two countries are acting as the people of the two countries expect. We have politically very close relations, we have a defense relationship that goes back at least four decades. We have economic cooperation in a number of areas, and I didn’t even begin talking about people exchanges, cultural exchanges. I think next year we are celebrating the 40th year of Russian-India collaboration in space. In October last year we entered into an agreement to further intensify the cooperation between research institutions, largely focused on a joint work on projects where the scientists and technologists can exchange research prospective. Also in some areas they would seek to commercialize technologies, to put them together and use them in specific circumstances. We would like to see this kind of area touched by modern technologies.
What are the prospects for cooperation in regional politics? What could be done to prevent all kinds of complications after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan for instance?
Indeed, Russia and India both have very crucial interests in seeing Afghanistan’s territorial integrity secured, to establish a system that the Afghan people want and obviously to rid itself of terrorism and extremism of all kinds and of course, I know that there is this concern about drug trafficking which may spill over beyond the borders of Afghanistan. And Russia and India are on either side of this country, so we are both equally concerned. We have been talking about this. Like Russia, India also has had a very long-standing relationship with Afghanistan and with the Afghan people, we have very close cultural links with the Afghan people spanning many centuries. So, both Russia and India have been in close touch with the government of Afghanistan, we have been in touch with each other in trying to see in what way we can facilitate, without interfering, the development of Afghanistan into a country with the political system that the people of Afghanistan want, economic development and progress that the people of Afghanistan deserve, after so many years of strife and conflict in that country. We would like to do everything that’s possible both bilateral with Afghanistan and with Russia to see that this happens. Most recently Russia hosted a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, of which India is an observer, so is Afghanistan, and we had a very good meeting, this was on 22 of January, where we discussed various aspects of developments in Afghanistan, where we have agreed that wherever regional cooperation is possible and is welcomed by Afghanistan, we will enter into such regional cooperation, in terms of assistance to Afghanistan post- 2014 after the international forces leave Afghanistan - assistance to the Afghan security forces, assistance to the Afghan government and economy, as well as protection against drug trafficking and other consequences of such unwelcome development, prevention of its spilling over to other countries, It is an important area of cooperation between India and Russia.
That brings us to another issue and that is Iran. What is India’s stance on how the international community should develop its cooperation with Iran.
Again, Iran is a country with which India has had traditionally very close relations. Indian people and Iranian people have close links, which go back many centuries. Our position on Iran has been very clear, in fact, as indeed, the Russian position on Iran has been: we, of course, agree with the international community that nuclear weapons are not an option for Iran. But then, the Iranian government very clearly says that they are not developing nuclear weapons. We accept that within the parameters that have been spelled out by the international community we should enter into a dialogue, and we should enter into a constructive dialogue with Iran; not a prescriptive dialogue. We would like to see the situation being resolved through dialogue in a mutually beneficial manner.
Now, turning to BRICS. Skeptics are saying that BRICS is rather unlikely to succeed, as it brings together countries that are so different. Many are pointing to the differences between India and China, saying these differences are insurmountable…
To come back to the end of the Cold War - I think what the end of Cold War succeeded in doing was to enable countries to cooperate with each other on certain platforms and not necessarily cooperating with each other on other platforms. However, if you look at India and China, China and India have much, much more which joins them than which divides them. To talk about insurmountable differences, this is the kind of construct that looks at black and white and tries to put things into black and white boxes. For example, we have a number of subjects in the international arena where India and China have nearly identical interests and they work together - the environment, climate change is one obvious example. We see absolutely no reason why we should put India and China in two separate boxes and as I said once again, BRICS, there is one area for example where BRICS is proceeding very purposefully, which is BRICS Development Bank. That is the subject that furthers the interests of each of the five BRICS countries. This is the example where with totally different economies you have a common interest which you can then move forward as part of the multilateral grouping.
What kind of challenges, what kind of security risks do you see for India in the coming years?
India lives in a region which has seen a lot of turbulence in the recent past and unfortunately will be seeing a lot of turbulence in the near future. We cannot fully insulate ourselves but have to protect ourselves from the impact of that turbulence around us, and at the same time try to contribute to resolving issues in such a manner that our region, our sub-region and then our larger region is able to become an area of peaceful economic progress because it is in that that India’s own stability and future success lies. You talked about Afghanistan, Afghanistan is very much in our close neighborhood which is the reason why I said that it will be very much in our own interest that Afghanistan doesn’t become a hotbed of either religious extremism or terrorism or the drug trade because all of that can have a very negative impact on India’s own security and eventually on India’s speed of economic progress.
How about Asia Pacific?
The Asia Pacific is not in a similar situation. The Asia Pacific is a region where India has a mutually beneficial economic and social connection. The countries of South-East Asia are in many ways culturally very close to India and we’ve had cultural and economic interaction with them over centuries. It is the area that we feel is important for a mutually beneficial economic relationship that can benefit Indian economy as much as the economies of these countries.
Do you feel tensions mounting in that region?
Certainly not with India. We see that there are tensions obviously. We can all see that there are tensions in parts of the Asia Pacific region. We would like differences to be resolved obviously through dialogue and through mutual accommodation. We have been urging all parties to pursue the path of dialogue and mutual accommodation.
Do you think there is a high chance of diplomacy succeeding?
Diplomacy has to succeed because in today’s world, with the technology of warfare and the high technology you talked about, which is as much applied to weaponry as to civilian pursuits, conflict, wars are not the answer. Diplomacy has to succeed, it is a matter of trying to make diplomacy succeed in the short term rather than having a festering wound over a period of time before we try to heal it.
Hopefully, everyone recognizes the truth of that. But getting back to security issues, what is India’s vision of what’s been going on in Bangladesh and Pakistan?
Both Bangladesh and Pakistan are pursuing the path of democracy right now. And it is very much in our interest, in the interest of India as well as in the interest of the world, to see
democracies in both of these countries succeeding, and we would certainly not do anything that would be seen as jeopardizing the success of democracy in neither of these two countries.
But what kind of solutions do you see for the situation in Pakistan for instance?
It is for the people of Pakistan to decide how they want to be governed and how they want the polity of that country to develop. From our perspective what is of greatest concern to us is obviously the acts of terrorism that are perpetrated within our country and which have inspiration from across the border in Pakistan, about the financing and about the training of terrorists, who eventually perpetrate acts of terrorism in India. Of course, we have been in dialogue with Pakistan. We have heard that there are groups which are not sponsored by the government of Pakistan but which are sponsored from the territory of Pakistan. This is an ongoing dialogue. We would like to have a dialogue with Pakistan about all issues between us provided only we do not continuously have the threat of terrorism from across the borders. But we certainly do not want to interfere or interrupt the process of democratic development of Pakistan and we certainly wish Pakistan. It is self-evident that if India has to grow, we need peace and we need progress and peaceful economic development of the region around us, and that includes Pakistan as much as anyone else. So, it is in our core interest that Pakistan develops peacefully in a manner that the people of Pakistan want and such that both our countries can focus on economic growth and development rather than issues between the two of us.
What is the Indian policy in energy security, ecologic issues? I know that India is investing heavily into R&D in that field…
Energy security is of course a crucial strategic priority for us and our national energy policy is very much geared to achieving energy security at the earliest and this energy security obviously has to be compatible with the ecological objectives that not only the world has, but we have. It actually explains the mix of energy that India has been doing in recent years. We place a lot of emphasis on wind energy, we place a lot of emphasis on solar energy and we place a lot of emphasis on nuclear energy as one of the best ecological forms of creating energy. So, these are areas that we are focusing on, and that actually brings us to an area of very close cooperation between India and Russia, which is nuclear energy. So, on climate change that I mentioned to you, this is one of the areas where India and China have very similar views. We are a responsible country as far as ecology is concerned but we cannot be penalized for the ecological profligacy of the developed world today, by being asked to accept unreasonable caps on our emission at precisely the time when we need to grow fast. What India has committed to do is to work very carefully to ensure that our incremental emission for each percent of growth is minimal. We have also said that we will always keep our per capita emission well below that of any developed country. Beyond that, to tell India to have a cap on emissions is punishing India for the size of its population or punishing India for its underdevelopment. And that is something where we feel equity should prevail. So, we have most responsible policies towards emission but at the same time we need consideration to be able to achieve the level of development for our people that the developed world enjoys.
As far as I understand, India is not the only country to reject the idea of capped emissions because the US has been rejecting it for a long time. And - how is the relationship between India and the US developing?
India and the US have developed again multifaceted relationship particularly over the last couple of decades. Our relations had been somewhat stunted during the period of the cold war for a variety of reasons but again as I said the freedom, which countries got to create their own network of international relations after the cold war, also resulted in India and the US developing relations in a number of complementary areas, and our economic relationship has grown considerably, our relations in the area of energy including nuclear energy have also grown. The problems that we used to have about access to technology have decreased in recent years, though these problems have not gone away altogether… There are a number of other areas where India and US have entered in a mutually beneficial and very harmonious cooperation. So, today it is definitely one of our more important bilateral relationships.
With the US pivot to Asia, what kind of role is India playing in this project?
India will not play a role as part of any such project …
But how is India readjusting its policies to the new change?
I think I mentioned before, India belongs to the Asia Pacific region in many ways and has a close relationship of most countries in the Asia Pacific region, and certainly we will continue to develop these relations not as part of a US pivot to Asia or anything of that sort, but on the merits of our network of relationships.
But India is a key player of that region and as far as I understand India can’t just be isolated from this change, which is going on there.
Most certainly we will not be isolated. We cannot be isolated because as I said in many ways we are part of the region. We are part of the region, we have relations in the region, we have relations that go back many years with many countries of that region. So, it is not as if we are going to be isolated from what is going on there because we have a network of relations which is independent. This is the point I am trying to make. We are not part of anybody’s pivot to Asia. We have a network of relations, as independent as anybody else’s relations in that, and not directed against. This is something we keep saying – that our relations with countries in the region are not directed towards or against the policies of other countries.
I know that India is famous for its independent thinking and for its peaceful cooperation principles, and that is what makes India rather special in the international arena. But the objective reality is that perhaps the architecture of the region is changing.
The architecture is changing. What we need to do is not join up with the purposes of other countries but to evolve this architecture in a certain way that it is a network of harmonious and non-conflicting and non-contradictory relationships. Peaceful interests are the ones that have been worked for, and not hostile interests. And that is why the issues should not be resolved by the use of force because that would be self-defeating. They can only be resolved by the dialogue. We have to work towards that.
It is a great challenge - the tensions around the whole world are mounting. Look what is going on in Africa for instance. Who could have expected that in a matter of a couple of years the instability would move from North Africa all the way to Central Africa and down…
You can say that, but I worked a lot in Africa in recent years because India has a very major development assistance program in various parts of Africa. What you are just describing tends to look as a glass half empty rather than half full. If you look at Africa over the last couple of decades, look at the enormous advances that Africa has made. Look at the enormous economic, social and political advances that the African continent has made. Look at the spread of democracy in Africa, which is quite surprising if you look what happened over the last two decades. When you are talking about the conflicts, these are specific conflicts, and I know which ones you are talking about. But these are now looking as an exception in Africa rather than the rule. I would really look at Africa as the continent of very good progress over the last couple of decades.
Do I get you right that you are saying that perhaps it is an illness of transitory period in Africa
If you look at some of the conflicts that have risen in Africa particularly in the North and in Central Africa, you can trace the origins of the conflicts elsewhere. I don’t want to get into further details. But, therefore, there is specific local context of those conflicts. The larger picture in Africa, I would argue is a far more optimistic one.
I know you spent quite some time in South Sudan.
I was the envoy of the government of India to Sudan and Saud Sudan for a period of about 8 months before I came here. But I don’t mean only that. We actually have economic development projects that India is implementing all over Africa, not just in North Africa or Central Africa, or West Africa, or East Africa. But this is the point I am making. Over a period of time Africa has really developed very fast. And its social indicators have also improved greatly. Look at what happened with HIV and AIDs, how remarkably Africa has done to solve this problem and to get out of this problem, to minimize the extent of this problem.
In that case, how do you see the role of the international community? Is it a blessing or does it create more difficulties for the African people?
I would like to argue that there is no such thing as an international community. I would say that there have been a number of forces and countries and groupings that have been of great help to Africa. I would say that the African groupings themselves have done a lot for Africa. If you look at the promotion of democracy in Africa, who were the prime movers? The African Union.
And that is an African organization.
Yes, that is what I am saying. What I am saying is that the African Union itself has worked for the uplifting of Africa, whether it is in the political, social or economic sphere. And, therefore, let’s not look at the international community outside Africa. Africa itself has done a lot within Africa. That is what I mean. So, if you look at the international community, there is no such thing as a monolithic international community. People try to justify their position on certain areas saying this is for international community, but there are groups of countries and groups of countries have different ideas, different interests, different currents in international relations.
Are you saying that Africa has enough of its own resources to get on the track of a successful development?
No, what I am saying is that Africa has done a lot for itself. Of course, Africa like other developing countries of the world does require assistance from outside.
What kind of assistance?
This is the point – the assistance should be development assistance, the assistance should accord with the development priorities of those countries, the assistance should be assistance, not prescription. It should be non-prescriptive in nature. It should be without strings attached. What I am spelling out actually are the principles of what we call South-South cooperation, when countries of the south help other countries of the south, these are the principles that they follow, they follow the principle of answering the development priorities of the recipient country rather than the development prescriptions of the donor country. We do not want to provide an India prescribed development assistance to other countries, we do not ask them to change the way they govern themselves, the way they organize themselves. So, it is non-prescriptive. These are the principles that need to govern the development assistance in any country and that is what I mean when I say that any country requires development assistance, I mean it requires development assistance in a manner that accords with its development priorities and which its leadership feels would best meet the interests of that country.
How would you describe the basic principles of Indian foreign policy?
The objective of the foreign policy of any country is to further the domestic, economic, social and political objectives of that country. So, India’s foreign policy is geared to our task of developing India, of ensuring the economic growth of India, the economic development of India, growth with equity and to create for India the space to enable this to happen. And that is where what we talked about, - the independence of Indian foreign policy, comes in. You need to create the space so that you have the independence to enable your country to grow in a manner, in which the people of the country want it to grow, to enable it to develop politically, socially, economically in a manner in which the people of our country want it to develop. If you need to do that, you need to have an independence of action in the external sphere.
How do you ensure it?
If you go back into history, that is what’s just happened. There were a number of elements of our domestic and foreign policy for which we have faced criticism for many decades. Non-alignment was one of them, the principle of non-alignment, which we followed during the entire duration of the cold war. It was a philosophy, which was geared to ensuring that we along with other similar developing countries develop the strength to withstand pressures for moving our policy in one direction or another. That was one of the principles of our foreign policy. Now we had a couple of others, for example. India invested a lot in education in our country, in training our people in various technical and educational skills, in what we call self-reliance, which people used to laugh at, of trying to build our industrial and manufacturing base. A lot of people said that this meant that we didn’t grow as fast as we could have grown. But if you look at it today, if India has this large pool of technically skilled man power, it comes from what we did than, what we were criticized for then. We now have an industrial base, which is being used by other countries to manufacture in India. We have a scientific and technological base, we have scientists and engineers who are now working all over the world. All of this flowed from a certain concept that we had of how we wanted to develop, of trying to maintain independence vis-a-vis the external world to enable us to develop the way we did. So, independence is not an aim in itself. It is what you need in order to be able to develop the way you want to develop.
