India has lost its moral voice
Meenakshi Ganguly
The US has backed India’s candidacy for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The enormity of such a responsibility will be apparent sooner though, since India is scheduled to serve a two-year term on the Security Council starting next year. There will be some hard decisions: whether a leader implicated in crimes against humanity must face an international criminal court; whether a government should be investigated for violations of laws of war; whether the UN should intervene if tens of thousands are at risk of being killed in ethnic clashes.
All these choices will be measured against India’s own strategic and trading interests.
As a far less powerful nation in the past, India was able to take some strong moral positions. It provided sanctuary to the Dalai Lama and his followers fleeing Tibet, supported people’s movements for democracy in Nepal and Bangladesh, and spoke out stridently against apartheid in South Africa. But that has now changed in favour of a policy of non-interference.
Even as US President Barack Obama celebrated India’s emergence as a global power, he noted, in his November 8 speech to parliamentarians, India’s responsibility to promote human rights abroad. “Speaking up for those who cannot do so for themselves is not interfering in the affairs of other countries”, Mr Obama said. “It is staying true to our democratic principles.” A government spokesperson reportedly responded that “India has and will always decide its position on issues keeping in mind national interest, the situation in the region or specific strategic and economic compulsions”.
As of course it should. But India has to be careful. Short-term economic or strategic gains need to be weighed against appalling human suffering or the creation of fault lines for which history will hold India to account.
For instance, India has moved from dismay when Burmese democracy leader Aung San Su Kyi was imprisoned two decades ago after winning an election, to needing now to be reminded by Mr Obama that it is “unacceptable to hold the aspirations of an entire people hostage to the greed and paranoia of a bankrupt regime”. That is because India is now ignominiously in the company of countries such as Zimbabwe, Libya and North Korea in opposing UN resolutions to protect human rights in Burma. Does India really want to belong to this club?
A number of Indian analysts contend that the Western style “megaphone” diplomacy has failed in Burma. However, India’s recent hands-off policy has not produced results either.
Perhaps, innovative thinking is needed to bring genuine change. As India takes its seat on the Security Council, it should work toward more effective interventions. But, it cannot lose sight of the broader goal, which is protecting and promoting the human rights, peace and security of all.

— Meenakshi Ganguly is South Asia director at Human Rights Watch

National interest comes first
Sidharth Nath Singh

The visit of US President Barack Obama to India has been largely well received. The three-day romance of the President and First Lady Michelle Obama with India dispelled many misgivings on the strategic Indo-US roadmap set by then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee with his counterpart, President Bill Clinton. In fact, an eloquent Mr Obama encapsulated the vision and foundation laid by the Vajpayee government for a defining Indo-US relationship in the 21st century.
However, Mr Obama’s remark on India’s silence on Burma’s undemocratic process has not gone down well in India. No sovereign state can be comfortable being preached about their internal and external strategic policies. The discomfort is more when the preacher has a track record of engaging with autocrats and dictators — the US has supported and engaged with many Pakistani generals, from Yahya Khan to Pervez Musharraf; it supported Argentine military rulers (1976-83) when thousands disappeared during the junta’s brutal rule; it supported Augusto Pinochet in Chile, whose regime killed, detained and tortured thousands in the 1970s-80s; it engaged with Cuba’s military dictator Fulgencio Batista and, not to be forgotten, US was one of the three countries who gave recognition to the Taliban when they came to power in 1996. The US government’s justification for all its actions has always been — we do what is in our national interest.
President Obama’s idea of democracy in Burma is intertwined with America’s self-image, and is a foreign policy tool. The obsession of successive US administrations with “promoting democracy” has damaged the US’ reputation because of a history of American military intervention and pursuit of US interests.
The US has strategic interest in Burma, perhaps due to China accessing Burma’s gas fields and growth in that region. Given all this, it is important that New Delhi doesn’t fall for the bait which many have described as a quid pro quo for endorsement of a permanent seat at the UNSC.
India’s dynamics with Burma are not only strategic but historical, ethnic, cultural and religious. India shares with Burma 1,600 kms of land border and maritime boundary in the Bay of Bengal. Burma plays a vital security stabiliser in the insurgency-ridden Northeast and the military junta has in the past taken action against insurgents on the advice of India. With aggressive China and their large financial involvement in building infrastructure in Burma, India cannot look the other way and give space to China. It is important that India’s engagement with Burma increases manifold.
On a positive note, for the first time in five decades a parliamentary system in Burma, though it may be flawed, has made a beginning. It may or may not bring immediate change but some political space for civilians will be created.

— Sidharth Nath Singh, national
executive member, BJP