The Hindu Business Line : Morality should trounce economic justification

What is needed is to lay out a set of moral principles that would guide India’s involvement. Sure, the economy is booming but there is more to leadership than watching the Sensex cross 18000.

C. Gopinath

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, met with the Dalai Lama last week. This took some courage since the Chinese Government always threatens heads of state that meeting with the Dalai Lama or with the President of Taiwan would hamper economic relations with China. Most heads of state buckle down and then some contrive to meet those leaders secretly. In the past, the US president would ‘casually’ visit the office of the Vice-President or of the Secretary of Sta te while the Dalai Lama is there and meet with him. But this month, even Mr George Bush will meet with the Dalai Lama openly at the presentation of the Congressional Medal to him.

The US and Germany are powerful nations in the firmament and can call the Chinese bluff. Let us hope more do. Economic forces have been driving much of our current era of globalisation and most leaders seem to think that trade and investments should override all other factors. The Chinese have been particularly good at using their economic card to influence the behaviour of their trading partners. Yet, Ms Merkel has made human rights one of her key objectives and sees the way China deals with Tibet as a human rights issue. Clearly, moral principles ranked higher for her than the economic ones at this time.

‘Internal matter’

The other justification that governments use to bury their heads in the sand is the old one of something being an ‘internal matter’ of the other country. India’s foreign ministers were always adept at using it when it suited them. When a neighbouring country is in trouble, you can send your spokesperson out to read from the old yellowing rule book that whatever is going on is an internal matter and we are only interested in peace and stability. However, when 12 million refugees from East Pakistan flooded into West Bengal and other North-Eastern States, it could not stay an internal matter of East Bengal anymore.

At what point an internal matter of one country becomes of concern to another should not have to wait for a flood of refugees. In the current era of integration and sharing of information between countries, we are increasingly running into situations when neighbours, even if they are not into gun-running and mischief-making, cannot sit quiet.

External intervention in an internal issue of a country is a thorny subject. The UN has pondered about it a lot and has put in some relevant clauses in its charter. In our post-colonial and post-cold war era, there is only one that has reserved for itself a right to intervene. The US intervention in Iraq on false pretexts has been roundly condemned by the rest of the world although nobody has been able to do anything significant about it. Yet, when Darfur suffers, everybody itches to intervene but even the UN drags its feet for too long.

The world community has not yet found the formula for when it is the right time to intervene. If a nation does not have the internal mechanisms to correct its flaws, that should provide ample justification for external prodding and perhaps more active intervention.

If a country has valuable resources or trade potential, that would seem to allow it to get away with some domestic repression; alternatively it must be a client state of a member of the UN Security Council that would allow it to hide under its master’s veto.

The Myanmar unrest

For a few days in September, we saw thousands of monks in Myanmar in peaceful protest, supported by the general public, unable to stand the military repression any more and calling for reforms in the country. The military junta let it go for a while and then a quick crackdown and some deaths managed to sweep everything under the carpet again.

The Myanmarese dissidents pleaded for external pressure since internal protests were not getting results. Apart from dispatching an envoy from the UN, the world community kept hinting that only countries such as China and India have leverage in this issue since they have economic and military dealings with this military dictatorship. The question was whether these two countries will rise above their economic and political interests, and look at the morality of suppression.

This, if nothing else is our most recent example of the interconnectedness of globalisation. China has already demonstrated that its economic leverage will override all else. Not only when it comes to Tibet and Taiwan, but also when it comes to Darfur, where its economic relations take precedence. After its own suppression at Tiananmen Square, the world cannot expect the Chinese government to do much in Myanmar.

India’s foreign policy

That leaves India. Smarting from the effects of colonisation, the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of another nation, a key item in Nehru’s Panchsheel, served India’s foreign policy for quite awhile. There is now a need for a new anchor. The short-lived Gujral Doctrine made an effort in that direction. What is needed is to lay out a set of moral principles (like Angela Merkel’s use of human rights) that would guide India’s involvement. Sure, the economy is booming but there is more to leadership that watching the Sensex cross 18000.

Leading newspapers around the world have been commenting aloud about the silence of India in this situation. The Financial Times of the UK titled its editorial ‘China and India can help the Burmese’, while wondering if India is letting its business as an arms supplier to the military regime in Myanmar come in the way of taking a stand on the repression there. It is ironic that finally when he did come out to make a statement, Foreign Minister Mr Pranab Mukherjee said that India was concerned about developments in Myanmar ‘because it required a stable, peaceful and democratic periphery for its own and the region’s future.

If India is to grow rapidly and transform herself, we need a supportive and peaceful regional environment.’ The foreign policy administration has locked the Deputy Secretary who drafted that statement in a pitiable frame of mind. To think India is interested in seeing a peaceful resolution in Myanmar out of India’s self-interest and not for the sake of the citizens of Myanmar is not a good expression of intent that would be expected from a one-time shining and now incredible India, eyeing for a seat in the Security Council.

Sure, India has been gradually shifting its stand on the current situation in Myanmar. It has been a long time coming, for Myanmar is not only a country with which India shares historical events but also cultural and religious traditions, and close personal connections between leaders.

It has finally summoned the courage to call for dialog, and for the release of the detained leader Aung San Suu Kyi. One wonders if this has come more from external demands for it to say and do something, rather than through well-considered foreign policy principles. It is time for some introspection to find a moral underpinning for India’s position in the world that would over-ride narrow economic self-interest.

(The author is professor of international business and strategic management at Suffolk University, Boston, US. He can be reached at cgopinat@suffolk.edu)

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