No Fire Zone

India's muddled policy
Wednesday, Nov 6, 2013, DNA

The controversy over Callum Macrae's visa undermines New Delhi's credibility and highlights its confused approach in dealing with Colombo.

The pressure on New Delhi, both internal and external, is mounting as the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) nears. Regrettably — but unsurprisingly given the reactive, ad hoc manner in which Indian foreign policy has been conducted in various past instances — the government seems to be letting that pressure harry it into making the wrong calls. It is now well on the way to letting domestic political concerns decide the vexed question of whether Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should attend the CHOGM meeting or not. And it has compounded the problem by veering to the other extreme and getting embroiled in a controversy over giving Callum Macrae, director of a documentary that exposed war crimes in Sri Lanka, a visa — the motivation for any dithering presumably being appeasement of Colombo.

This is a muddle-headed strategy on many levels.

dna had advocated in an editorial on October 31 that the Prime Minister attend the CHOGM — not as unqualified approval of the Mahinda Rajpaksa government and its handling of the Tamil question, but in order for New Delhi to stay engaged and nudge Colombo towards addressing that question as it had begun to do with the Northern Province elections. Adopting this approach means tempering engagement with straight talk behind the scenes about the human rights abuses perpetrated by the Sri Lankan army in the course of the LTTE’s 2009 defeat and the need for justice to be done — and seen to be done. Allowing individuals like Macrae the space to speak freely about the abuses is an integral part of this.

The matter goes beyond geopolitical concerns. India portrays itself on the global stage as the world’s largest democracy; it is a tag it wears with some pride. Being a democratic nation, however, does not mean merely holding elections. It entails adherence to certain ethical norms and observance of fundamental rights such as freedom of expression. Macrae’s team was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize last year and it has been less than a week since the UK’s Channel 4 broadcast his footage giving more evidence of human rights abuses by the Sri Lankan military.

The uncertainty over his being allowed to enter the country now chips away at the foundations of those norms and rights.

Unfortunately, New Delhi has made such compromises in the past and allowed foreign governments to dictate to it. Tibet is a case in point. For all that India has sheltered the Dalai Lama and a great many Tibetans, in recent years New Delhi has shown a disturbing trend of stifling Tibetan protests — to the extent of closing down Tibetan neighbourhoods and placing hundreds of Tibetans under arrest last year — for the sake of appeasing Beijing. 

The fact of the matter is that Indian internal security policies — whether in Kashmir, the Northeast or Naxal-affected areas — already place a severe strain on its credentials as a nation that upholds human rights and follows the rule of law. It cannot afford to compromise itself any further. In matters of foreign policy, this means adopting a nuanced approach; in this instance, talking to Colombo but keeping up the pressure at the same time. New Delhi must change course before it fails on both counts.