Modi in Iran: India's West Asia policy is as fragmented as the region itself

Our Ambassadors too send their reports mainly to their respective desks and to more than one JS only when they report on their host country's relations with a neighbour. Now how does one Ambassador sitting in Cairo cover the activities of Muslim Brotherhood that is operating in 48 countries? That requires inputs from dozens of Ambassadors but which JS in MEA will compile it all and make sense of it. Same applies to our coverage of Al-Qaeda and the 'Daesh' (Islamic State) which are Pan-Islamic terrorist groups.

While foreign policy is essentially country-specific, it needs to have an underpinning in some 'world-view' that is either enunciated or implicitly conveyed through consistent support to certain principles or interests. It should also convey our approach to that region. We should be clear as to who we consider a 'power' in the region and who an inconsequential player.

Also read- Modi's upcoming visit to Saudi Arabia could be game-changing. Here's why

We may consider, quite rightly that Iran is a 'power' in the region (it is critical for our policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan) but the fact that Iran going nuclear was not in our interest was never stated by us but came about only after much prodding by the US and that too after we had signed the 'civil nuclear deal' with the Bush administration in 2005.

Could we not have enunciated our policy to Iran and the region, without being seen as succumbing to American pressure in discarding a long-standing ally? Our vote in the IAEA against Iran in late 2005 made us not only unreliable to Iran but also a suspect member in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and G-77+China.

The NAM members saw us as having climbed on to the American bandwagon. That may not have been so, but perceptions do matter in relations between countries. An attempt to correct the impression was made by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in attending the NAM summit at Tehran (August 2012), reportedly against the advice of the US administration, but by then the Indo-US Nuclear deal was already unraveling.

Lack of coherence

Our policy towards Saudi Arabia is as opaque as that country. Though it is our largest supplier of oil and the largest employer of Indians, we have nothing in common with them, either in the region or the world at large. We are neither happy with their proximity to Pakistan nor their hostility towards Iran. We do not endorse their sponsorship of Wahabism, nor their support to extremist/terrorist groups engaged in toppling stable and secular regimes in the region. Being a democracy we were averse to supporting monarchies in the Gulf against the dictatorships in Iraq, Libya and Syria, and we were certainly not in the business of toppling either form of political arrangement.

Read more: India seeks to invest $20 bn in Iran as country steps out of international sanctions

Hence our unease with the efforts of the US, France and Britain in toppling the non-Sunni secular dictatorships, in the name of democracy and human rights, while keeping the despotic Sunni monarchies intact. Despite being the 'Righteous Republic' with an acute conscience, we have lost our friends one by one in the region. Iran does not trust us, Saudis do not need our advice and the ones that sought our help have all but gone.

Our policy towards Israel, largely shaped by the Nehruvian paradigm of supporting the underdog (the Palestinians) against an aggressor, is struggling to be re-shaped now, torn as it is between national interest v/s appeasement of Indian Muslims. Our relationship with Israel is far more complicated than the response of the Gulf Kingdoms towards Israel. They regularly send their contributions to the widows of the Hamas fighters without ever raising a voice against the atrocities of Israel.

Nor do they ever send their mercenary forces for a 'Jihad' against the Jewish state that they so despise, for they are busy killing their non-Sunni Muslim minorities in the region. India, that is neither pro-Israel nor anti-Israel, gets the raw end of the stick and appears worse off than the Gulf monarchies, even for its limited military deals with Tel Aviv.

The key problem with all these relationships is that they miss a commonality of interests, shared values or principles. They are essentially transactional, important nevertheless, but not critical enough to build strategic partnerships and face the region or the world together. How can India be on the same page as either Iran or Saudi Arabia or Israel in any forum, but we want to be friends with all. Yes, we want oil from Saudi Arabia and Iran and defence equipment from Israel but somehow we do not appear as pragmatic as China in crafting such a relationship.

Does our foreign policy have to be as fragmented as the region? Perhaps not. One could start by enunciating a few norms and guidelines - that we are against religious extremism of either sect, we are against terrorist groups threatening established states, we do not support redrawing of maps either by external force or by sponsored insurgencies and that we strongly condemn disproportionate use of force by the Israelis against unarmed civilians in Palestine. Is that too much to ask?

Edited by Aditya Menon

More in Catch:

Buddha in a diplomatic jam: Nepal-China take on India over Buddhist heritage

Tension: the Great Indian Diagnosis (and what it's got to do with Kangana Ranaut)

Jammu & Kashmir: Mehbooba proposes amnesty for militants. Will it work?

Telecom operators to benefit from SC's verdict on call drops; Digital India hurt