Unless the Janata government is careful and its foreign policy begins to show concrete results, it will come under sharp attacks which it may not find easy to cope with. Mrs Gandhi has already launched an offensive and it can be only a matter of time before others on the left join it.
The former prime minister is clearly motivated by partisan considerations. Even if she, like many leftists, is convinced that the Janata government wishes to scuttle the policy of non-alignment as it was formulated and implemented first under her father and then under her, she cannot possibly justify the charge that it was selling the country to the West. In Mr Krishna Menon’s memorable words, India is too vast a country to be bought by some external power.
The purpose behind Mrs Gandhi’s campaign is best understood in the light of her meeting last week with Mr SA Dange, till recently chairman of the pro-Moscow Communist Party of India, in Bombay and the report published in this paper that Mr Dange and his faction have taken up cudgels against those in their party who have of late been denouncing the emergency and his support for it.
Friendship
In plain terms, by trying to make it out that Indo-Soviet friendship is not safe under the present dispensation, she is addressing herself at least partly to the leaders and the rank-and-file of the CPI, who continue to be attracted to the Soviet Union, in order to strengthen the position of Mr Dange and his group who are still inclined to side with her in her confrontation with the Janata Party, but that cannot be her sole objective. For if her offensive against the Janata government’s foreign policy catches on in the CPI, it will become difficult, if not impossible, for the pro-CPI elements in the official Congress to continue to attack her as forcefully as they have been doing and, indeed, for the CPM to continue to side with the ruling party.
It will perhaps be a little premature to suggest that the former prime minister’s tactics have already begun to pay off. But there are reports that the Dange faction in the CPI has been gaining strength. And some left magazines appear to have begun to waver in their criticism of Mrs Gandhi. The CPM is as yet not paying much attention to foreign policy, at least in its public pronouncements. But this silence may well be the result of tactical considerations and may not last for too long. Needless to add that once the CPM decides to express itself on the subject, it is most likely to find itself supporting the former prime minister’s stand though not her.
The CPM will doubtless do its best to expose the chinks in Mrs Gandhi’s armour. It will almost certainly point out that the country began moving towards the West under her stewardship and that she is not all that committed to friendship with the Soviet Union and other communist countries. After all, is she not reported to have told Herr Brandt that she stopped the march of communism in India and successfully split the communists? But that will be cold comfort to the Janata Party and government because, in the nature of things, the CPM’s attack, once it begins, is bound to be concentrated on them and their policies.
Mrs Gandhi’s calculations apart, the key question, however, is whether the Janata government has done something or is likely to do something that has offended or can offend the articulate middle-class intelligentsia’s nationalist sentiments. The question is a complex one to which there can be no final answer. It has to be posed and. answered again and again from time to time. But at the moment it will be idle to deny that the impression has spread that the Union government is deliberately tilting towards the West to the detriment of long-term and fruitful relations with the Soviet Union and that it is likely to hurt the Janata Party’s standing among the intelligentsia.
In view of the presence in the Janata government in New Delhi of a number of men who have for long years been critical not only of the Soviet system and foreign policy but also of the bias Mr Nehru had imparted to India’s own relations with the outside world, it was in a sense unavoidable that such an impression should spread. But that problem had to a large extent been taken care of by Mr Morarji Desai’s visit to Moscow last October. That gain has more or less been negated by now. President Carter’s, Mr Callaghan’s and the Shah of Iran’s visits in a row have in fact made it difficult to recall that the prime minister made a successful and well-publicised trip to the Soviet Union not long ago. And even more damaging have been the discussions which representatives of as many as 80 Western companies have recently held with Union ministers. Far more than anything else, these talks have helped arouse the suspicion and fear that the Janata leaders propose to implement the policy of “opening India’s womb” which Mr Asoka Mehta had enunciated during a visit to the United States over a decade ago as a member of Mrs Gandhi’s government.
Administration
The suspicion is, on the available evidence, not justified. The Union government has not modified the stand the previous administration had taken on issues relating to foreign investment. It has, for instance, not agreed to the demand by multinational corporations that they be permitted to come into consumer goods industries. But why have the discussions been held at all? What does the government need or want from the multinationals, especially when the country is accumulating foreign exchange surpluses which it is unable to use?
The government is perhaps guilty of nothing more than a lack of experience and inadequate awareness of the widespread sentiment, not wholly unjustified, that the multinational corporations mulct countries which let them in in a big way, distort their economies by promoting consumer goods industries which should have a relatively low priority in a rational model of development in poor countries, encourage lifestyles alien to those societies and acquire a grip on governments through means which the Lockheed and other similar scandals have fully exposed. But irrespective of whether the government knows or not, the fact remains that a lot of fairly intelligent persons not at all ill-disposed towards the Janata Party are beginning to be concerned over what they regard as its leaders’ indulgent attitude towards the multinationals. They doubt whether the government has said the last word to them during the recent talks.
It is open to question whether the Janata government’s plan to divert substantial resources to the countryside and encourage the growth of cottage, tiny and small- scale industries is consistent with its desire to import the latest technology in industries which still remain unnamed. But even if it is, it does not follow at all that it should bring in the multinationals. The country now possesses the resources to be able to buy outright whatever technology it thinks it needs. The Soviet example is useful for propaganda purposes to beat the communists with, but it cannot be used as a serious argument. The government cannot, for instance, plead that it wishes to produce 500,000 cars for which it needs to allow Fiat or some other Western corporation to operate in this country. And those in power in New Delhi should know that the Soviet Union does not allow equity participation.
Neighbours
As for the second and even more prominent plank of government policy, no sensible person can possibly take exception to its efforts to befriend its immediate neighbours. These must inevitably involve some give on India’s part as in the case of the Farakka agreement with Bangladesh and the proposed separate transit treaty with Nepal. But in course of time, the question is going to be asked, if it is not already being asked, whether New Delhi has got something in return.
It would have been unrealistic to expect Bangladesh to be grateful for the gesture New Delhi has made to it in respect of the allocation of Ganga waters during the lean season in disregard of Calcutta port’s requirements and West Bengal’s opposition. But it need not have insulted this country by suggesting that China be brought into the picture if there is to be a comprehensive plan for utilising the mighty eastern rivers. For the water is generated in the southern Himalayas, and not in Tibet which Peking controls.
Similarly, having won its point on two separate treaties, Nepal continues to behave as if it faces a threat from this country and wishes to do away with the 1950 treaty through the device of being accepted as a so-called “zone of peace.” Apparently, no amount of goodwill visits or concrete gestures and help is enough for the rulers in Kathmandu. And Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee will have to do a lot of explaining if it turns out that, as a result of his visit to Pakistan, its military rulers have acquired some kind of respectability and convinced themselves and their countrymen that they have managed to reopen the Kashmir issue. Mrs Gandhi was perhaps a little too tough. But we do not have to swing to the other extreme. A toothless lion does not impress anyone.
The Times of India, 15 February 1978