Evolution and practices of the

Indian notion of sovereignty

Happymon Jacob

Jawaharlal Nehru University

New Delhi

(Draft; not to be quoted)

Introduction

Making sense of the Indian understanding of sovereignty is as difficult as making sense of India itself: confusing and contradictory more often than not, its influences come from various sources and have transformed many times over the past six and a half decades of its independence. And yet, it’s a journey worth the travel. Indeed, for once, an interpretive analysis of the Indian notion of sovereignty does throw up certain clear threads running through its post-Independence history. As would be the case with most other countries, India’s images, understanding and practices of sovereignty are clearly determined both by external and internal influences, and material as well as ideational forces. Only the specifics differ. In the Indian case, some of the roots of its notion of sovereignty are anti-colonialism, anti-apartheid/racism, struggle for independence from the British colonial masters, Congress legacy, Gandhian philosophy, Nehruvian vision, among others. More importantly, as is the case everywhere else, again, the Indian notion of sovereignty is an ongoing project.

The Indian practices of sovereignty can be roughly periodized into three phases: In the immediate post-independence phase, India was much more relaxed and conciliatory about its claims of sovereignty which seems to undergo a clear change with the humiliation of the 1962 war with China. Post-1962, Indian practices of sovereignty seem to be rigid and non- conciliatory. This changes with the 1998 nuclear tests and the integration of India into the international system.

This paper makes five inter-related, often overlapping, arguments: One, Indian understanding of sovereignty tends to be non-territorial in its articulation. Sovereignty is seen more in terms of social-relations, symbolic representation and reputational claims; two, there is an apparent inside-outside tension in how the Indian practices of sovereignty have been in the past. This tension is primarily due to normative and existential reasons than a result of clear strategies of statecraft; three, there is an apparent relationship between the country’s understanding and practices of sovereignty and its sense of security and confidence in itself and others; four, Indian arguments and practices of sovereignty are also shaped by its perceived and expected role in the international system, and; five, end of the Cold War and the changes in its domestic political and economic processes have given rise to new practices of sovereignty.

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Sovereignty as symbolic

Indian understanding of sovereignty tends to be non-territorial in its articulation. Sovereignty is perceived and articulated more in terms of social-relations, symbolic representation and reputational claims. Indeed, the idea of India is articulated more in ideational than territorial terms. That is, a territorially compact India without its underlying ideational basis may not amount to much or sustain for very long: the idea of India, in a sense, precedes the territory came to be called India. More so, the Indian struggle for independence was not as much a territorial one as it was an ideational one. The emphasis during the freedom struggle was not on the territorial integrity of an ‘imagined’ India as a successor state from the Mughal or the earlier empires. Indeed, the relative ease with which the Indian National Congress leaders agreed to a separate Muslim state to be carved out of British India is indicative of the fact that territorial concerns were secondary. Indian leaders also had a relatively ‘minimalist and understated’ approach to territorial sovereignty in the early years after independence. The fact that they agreed to have external mediation over Kashmir rather than military fight to get back the lost territory from Pakistan, offering special status to Kashmir and the willingness to live with the idea of a not so territorially unified India from an absolute sovereignty point of view show that the emphasis was on the symbolic idea of sovereignty rather than the territory.

A closer look at the Mughal practices of sovereignty also shows that Symbolic sovereignty was a strategy of statecraft adopted by the Mughal Empire. Andre Wink writes about the Mughal empire “In India, as in all Islamic societies, sovereignty was primarily a matter of allegiances; the state organized itself around conflict and remained essentially open-ended instead of becoming territorially circumscribed”.1

Undoubtedly, a newly independent India would have materially benefitted by joining one of the two superpower alliances. A purely material understanding of sovereignty, one that is based on power balancing and military strength, would have prompted India do precisely that. Instead, persuaded by ideational underpinnings of security and sovereignty, India gave importance to an ethical, value-based and non-aligned foreign policy. It, of course, had implications for the Indian foreign policy. As Paul and Nayar point out, the Indian pursuit of an activist role “provoked Washington to undertake a policy of regional containment aimed at India, in order to squash its putative leadership role, through building up Pakistan militarily and siding with it in the South Asian regional conflict”.2

George Tanham writes: “Gaining recognition of India's status in the region and in the world also plays a pivotal role in Indian strategic thought. Indeed, external recognition and validation of India's place is almost as important as actually having that status.”3

For the newly independent India the most significant desire was to gain international recognition rather than raw power and hence when claims to power are made even today, they were more for 1 André Wink, Land and Sovereignty in India: Agrarian Society and Politics under the Eighteenth-Century Maratha Svarājya, Cambridge University Press, 1986. Cited in Jayashree Vivekanandan, Interrogating International Relations: India's Strategic Practice and the Return of History, Routledge India, New Delhi, 2011, p. 1472 T. V Paul and Baldev Raj Nayar, India in the World Order: Searching For Major Power Status, Cambridge, New York, Melbourne and New Delhi: Cambridge University Press 2003. P. 183 George Tanham, “Indian Strategic Thought: An Interpretive Essay”, Rand Corporation, 1992, p. 60. Available at http://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/2007/R4207.pdf

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symbolic purposes than material purposes. The history of the Indian nuclear programme is a good example in this regard. Ever since the 1960s, the international community, primarily the US, tried to make India fall in line with the global nuclear non-proliferation efforts. It used political isolation, diplomatic pressure and economic sanctions to make India give in to the demands of the nuclear non-proliferation regime, none of which worked. Only when the international community ‘recognised’ and appreciated the Indian arguments that choosing a particular nuclear path would be India’s ‘sovereign’ decision and that India would do that with utmost responsibility, did India start negotiating with the managers of the non-proliferation regime about ways of collaborating with the regime and avoiding a collision course with it.

The same is true of the India-US bilateral relations. The relations between the two sides were not the best during the Cold War and even in the early years of the post-Cold War world. The US was uneasy with India’s non-aligned stance which some of them described as an immoral policy.4 Throughout the Cold War, even though the American government did provide occasional assistance to India they didn’t do so generously because India was not aligned to the Western bloc. India realized that US wanted India to be its client state on the chessboard of Cold War games, which India was unwilling to be. The relations begun to improve only when the Americans started engaging India in a completely different way: as equals. When the language and mode of engagement changed from a client-patron relationship to one between two great democracies, of equals etc., India began to change its stance towards the US. It was after the visit of President Bill Clinton that the relations started seeing new heights the path for which the pathway was paved by the Strobe Talbott-Jaswant Singh parlays. Today, the two countries share a very robust strategic partnership.

In sum, what mattered to India in its relations with the US was not merely material benefits which it would have received in plenty if it were to be an ally of the US during the Cold War years (and may even have avoided the defeat at the hands of the Chinese in 1962), but the symbolic recognition of being an equal with the United States of America, of its sovereign status, nothing short of which would have satisfied India.

This need for recognition and sovereign equality, in a sense, comes from the fact that for India sovereignty clearly means equality of nations – that they enjoy the same rights and duties. The Indian resistance to any attempt by outside forces to dictate India to adopt a certain policy measure comes straight out of such a worldview. India’s non-proliferation policy is another example. India has always maintained that it would never accept any treaty under pressure from the powerful countries. Hence although India was one of the key proponents of nuclear disarmament treaties during the 1950s and 1960s, it refused to sign the NPT since it was considered to be discriminatory by India.

Indeed, various Indian political parties have argued that signing the Indo-US nuclear deal would have negative implications for India’s sovereignty. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) argued during the Indo-US negotiations on the civilian nuclear deal: “the Hyde Act would severely compromise India’s independent foreign policy and sovereignty.”5 The rightwing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also made a similar argument in the same context: “We are also in 4 John Foster Dulles called it 'immoral'. See “The elephant and the Pekinese”, The Economist, March 16, 2000, http://www.economist.com/node/2923275 “Hyde Act will hurt sovereignty”, March 04, 2008, http://www.hindu.com/2008/03/04/stories/2008030450050100.htm

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favour of nuclear and political cooperation with the US. Our opposition is limited only to those unbalanced positions in the deal that endanger the nuclear sovereignty of India.”6 The CIP-M had also opposed to the signing of the CTBT arguing that “[I]n effect, by throwing the entire burden of the CTBT coming into force on India's shoulders, by making India accountable for the treaty not entering into force and its consequences, and by fixing a deadline, Article XIV of the CTBT represents a direct demand on India's sovereignty and also an ultimatum.”7

This uneasiness is also seen in the manner India has responded to international institutions. Not only has India been stridently arguing that the UNSC does not reflect the changed realities of the international system, it has also been arguing that the global financial institutions also need to democratize and become more developing country friendly.8 The Prime Minister of India recently argued at the 16th Summit meeting of the NAM that, “India remains convinced that until comprehensive reform of the UN Security Council is undertaken, the overall reform of the UN can only be regarded as piecemeal and incomplete. We also need a more representative international financial architecture, with an increase in the voice and representation of the developing countries. The current slow pace of quota and governance reforms in the International Monetary Fund must be expedited”.9 In the Seattle and Doha meetings of the WTO (in 1999 and 2001 respectively), the Indian leadership of the developing nations was clearly visible in preventing the developed nations from imposing their agenda on the developing countries on issues such as labor, agriculture and market access for agricultural products.10 Indeed, India has a rich history of raising pro-developing country positions at the global economic forums.

Self-sufficiency was the mainstay of the Indian economic, foreign and defense policies for a long period since independence. Even when a particular technology originated abroad was imported and used in India with slight modifications, the Indian scientists would make claims of it being indigenously developed. The Indian state, especially under Nehru, wanted to develop the major sectors of its economic infrastructure so that it can produce the goods needed for itself rather than depending on the western powers for finished goods. Nehru famously said in the 1960s, “I believe, as a practical proposition, that it is better to have a second-rate thing made in our country, than a first-rate thing that one has to import.”11 As Jason Dedrick and Kenneth L. Kraemer point out: “Beginning in the 1950s, the Indian government implemented a strategy of import substituting industrialization (ISI), in which local industry was to produce manufactured goods to replace imports. This approach followed the pattern of many developing countries at the time and also fit in well with the notion of self-reliance, which was interpreted as self-6 “Nuclear -deal will endanger our nuclear sovereignty: BJP”, September 12, 2008, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2008-09-12/news/28417481_1_unilateral-moratorium-nuclear-test-supply-of-nuclear-fuel7 “CPI(M) Opposed to Signing CTBT now”, CPI(M) press release, 22 December 1999, http://cpim.org/content/cpim-opposed-signing-ctbt-now8 This argument needs to be caveated. India was not only an enthusiastic supporter of the UN but had also supported its Veto system saying that it should be used sparingly. However, this is in sharp contrast to the position that India had taken with regard to the League of Nations and the Mandates system of the League. India argued that the League was a tool in the hands of the great powers and the Mandate system was a new form of colonialism.9 “Global governance structure outdated, says India”, Augsut 28, 2012, http://www.deccanherald.com/content/274934/global-governance-structure-outdated-says.html10 Paul and Nayar, p.1211 Naushad Forbs, “Doing Business in India: What has Globalization changed?” in Anne O. Krueger, Economic Policy Reforms and the Indian Economy “,University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2002, 143

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sustained growth without dependence on foreign aid.”12 While there certainly was an economic logic to it, the argument from sovereignty cannot be ruled out. The underlying thinking clearly was that economic dependence on others could lead to erosion of India’s sovereignty. Nehru also argued: “In our external and internal domestic policy, in our political policy, or economic policy, we do not propose to accept anything that involves in the slightest degree dependence on any other authority.”13

India was also concerned about the dependence that acceptance of foreign aid would bring about. Given this apprehension, there was always a conscious attempt to diversify the sources of foreign aid. Today, there is an ongoing effort to reduce foreign aid and the Indian government has declared that it will accept aid only in certain specified areas from specific countries.14 But even when India does accept aid, it no longer accepts ‘tied-aid’ which has strings attached to it. An official position paper on the external aid accepted by India clearly argues: “The disadvantages to the recipient country of credit tying by donor countries are well recognized by India. Tied aid implies that loans from a particular country have to be utilized for imports from that country alone. Though in the initial years of planning, aid to India was mostly tied, India’s dependence on aid has reduced with time, and it has affirmed its stand on not accepting tied aid. As of February 4, 2003, India is not availing of any tied external assistance.”15

According to the Economist, “Between 1951 and 1992 India received about $55 billion in foreign aid, making it the largest recipient in history.”16 And yet India is now thinking of setting up an aid agency - Indian Agency for Partnership in Development (IAPD) with the aim to coordinate all aid-related projects, lines of credit (LOCs), technical cooperation and training of foreign nationals, to bring greater coherence and strategic intent to India’s economic and technical assistance activities. It is also likely to have an aid budget of $11 billion over next five to six years.17

India is also extremely conscious of the perceptions that others have of it and often react undiplomatically to criticism. India has always been sensitive about other countries discussing its internal problems like the Kashmir issue. Such criticism is often seen as a violation of its sovereign space. Recently India reacted negatively to the anti-nuclear agitations in Koodamkulam in the state of Tamil Nadu saying that the troubles are created by foreign-funded NGOs based in India.18

12 Jason Dedrick and Kenneth L. Kraemer, “India's Quest for Self Reliance in Information Technology: Costs andBenefits of Government Intervention”, 1993. Available at: http://uoit.ca/sas/Information%20Technology/india'squest.pdf13 Jawaharlal Nehru, “India's Foreign Policy”, Government of India, Ministry ofInformation and Broadcasting, New Delhi, 1983, p. 38. Cited In Tanham, p. 57.14 “India to accept bilateral aid only from G-8, EU”, January 12, 2005, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2005-01-12/news/27482073_1_bilateral-aid-developmental-aid-bilateral-assistance15 Government of India, “POSITION PAPER ON EXTERNAL ASSISTANCE RECEIVED BY INDIA”, March 2008, http://finmin.nic.in/the_ministry/dept_eco_affairs/pmu/PositionPaper_ExtAssist.pdf16 “Charity begins abroad”, August 13, 2011, http://www.economist.com/node/2152583617 Gurpreet Singh Bhatia, Mukul G Asher, “Establishing IAPD is consistent with geo-economic initiatives”, August 31, 2011. http://www.dnaindia.com/money/comment_establishing-iapd-is-consistent-with-geo-economic-initiatives_158178718 “Foreign hand nuking Tamil Nadu nuclear power project, says Prime Minister Manmohan Singh”, February 24, 2012, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/kudankulam-row-prime-minister-blames-foreign-countries/1/175007.html

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The government’s decision to strengthen and formalize its engagement with the Indian diaspora also show that social relations rather than territoriality is an important aspect of the Indian idea of sovereignty. With over 25 million people of Indian origin living outside India, the country has a powerful new global community to capitalize on which it has not been doing purposefully and consistently. One of the major reasons for this ‘underutilization’ of the Indian diaspora has been that India has traditionally looked at its expatriate population as a source of remittances for a long time. It has, however, now realized that there is a need to look at the Indian Diaspora in a more strategic sense, so as to better project India’s Public Diplomacy and soft power. With this understanding, the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA) has been undertaking a number of initiatives to engage the Indian Diaspora such as organizing the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, creation of an Insurance Programme for Indians working in the Gulf countries, publication of a periodical on Diaspora Affairs, setting up of India Development Fund, creation of a data base for Overseas Indians, a Facilitation Centre in New Delhi, issuing of the PIO card, among others.

In many countries powerful Indian communities have played a significant role in the host countries’ policies towards India. This was evident during the negotiations of the Indo-US nuclear deal when the Indian expatriate community in the United States was lobbying with the US government on behalf of the Indian government. India’s new diaspora policy, in short, shows the social basis of the idea of India and the evolution of the country’s socially constructed sovereign space. Remember that it was the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government that spearheaded the new diaspora policy of the country. Indeed, the Hindu rightwing in the country has always had a ‘socially constructed’ understanding of who an Indian is. One of the major ideologues of the Hindu right in the country V. D. Savarkar put forward the idea of pitrbhumi–punyabhumi (fatherland - holy-land). The concept treats the nation as holy land and all those who reside in the land must inherit the nation as fatherland. According this argument, non-Hindus in the country are not Indians because their holy-land is not India and any Indian living anywhere is Indian because his holy-land is India. Savarkar Writes:

“That is why in the case of some of our Mohammedan or Christian countrymen who had originally been forcibly converted to a non-Hindu religion and who consequently have inherited along with Hindus, a common Fatherland and a greater part of the wealth of a common culture—language, law, customs, folklore and history—are not and cannot be recognized as Hindus. For though Hindusthan to them is Fatherland as to any other Hindu yet it is not to them a Holyland too. Their holyland is far off in Arabia or Palestine. Their mythology and Godmen, ideas and heroes are not the children of this soil. Consequently their names and their outlook smack of a foreign origin. Their love is divided.”19

Sovereignty, for India, has a symbolic value is also testified by the fact that India jealously retained the ability to speak its mind freely on foreign policy issues even when the country was under the colonial occupation of the British. In the very first year of its existence, the Congress Party passed a resolution that protesting the annexation of Upper Burma by the British and incorporation of it with India. A study of the Congress Party’s pre-independence era foreign policy resolutions would reveal that ‘India’ always had an opinion about whatever was

19 V.D. Savarkar, “Essentials of Hindutva”, 1921. Available at http://www.savarkar.org/content/pdfs/en/essentials_of_hindutva.v001.pdf

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happening around the world and did indeed fiercely guard that symbolic right. Some of the Resolutions also supported the British policies, especially during the First World War.

In 1928, for instance, the Calcutta session of the Congress party sent its “greetings to the peoples of Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Iraq “in their struggle for emancipation from the grip of Western imperialism” and authorized the appointment of a representative to the Second World Congress of the League Against Imperialism to be held in 1929”.20

Even as India is India is seemingly striving to be a military power of significant proportions, its leaders still find it hard to accept the notion of India being a hard military power. The current president of the Congress party, Sonia Gandhi had this to say on the question of India becoming the next global superpower: “I am somewhat uneasy with the very word “Superpower”. For too many of us, it evokes images of hegemony, of aggression, of power politics, of military might, of division and conflict. But that is not what India has been all about through the centuries and it certainly is not what I would like to see India become. During long periods of our past, India exercised a profound influence on the course of world history, and it did so without exercising any kind of overt power. Consider, for instance, how Gandhiji, mocked as 'a half-naked fakir' by the British, took on the Superpower of the day through the mere force of his values and ideas. We Indians have always known our place in the world even when the world was treating us lightly”.21

The inside-outside tension

There is an apparent inside-outside tension that one can identify in India’s arguments and practices of sovereignty. This tension is primarily due to normative and existential reasons than the result of clever strategies of statecraft. To see this in terms of a clever strategy based on double standards would be a simplistic assumption since, more often than not, this contradiction has a normative basis to it.

I would like to look at this broad inside-outside tension at multiple levels.

On the one hand, Jawaharlal Nerhu advocated peaceful resolution of international conflicts and did indeed mediate many of them. The most prominent example of Indian mediation was in 1954 when India, despite not being invited, had successfully mediated among the various parties to the Korean conflict. Quoting reports, Harish Kapur writes that while during the first Phase of the conference Nehru’s emissary Krishna Menon met leaders of various national delegations many times over and during the final phase of the conference he “interpreted each side to the other, cleared up misunderstandings, and persuaded each of the participants to take into account the problems of the others. The formula he finally produced was the basis of he joint declaration signed by all powers, except the US, thus brining to an end to an eight year war”.22

Indeed the country’s self-perceived role for the promotion of international peace is enshrined in its constitution. Article 51 of the Indian Constitution subtitled “Promotion of international peace and security” reads as follows: The State (India) shall endeavour to: (a) promote international 20 Norman Palmer, “Foreign Policy of the Indian National Congress before Independence”, in K P Misra, Foreign policy of India: A book of readings”, Thomson Press, New Delhi (India), 197721 Sonia Gandhi, “speech delivered at the The Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, 17th November 2006, http://www.aicc.org.in/new/aicc-meeting-detail.php?id=2622 Harish Harish, India’s Foreign Policy, 1947-92: Shadows and Substance, Corwin Pr,1994. p. 128

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peace and security; (b) maintain just and honourable relations between nations; (c) foster respect for international law and treaty obligations in the dealings of organised people with one another; and (d) encourage settlement of international disputes by arbitration.

At the same time, India also campaigned the cause of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. This was a major cornerstone of India’s foreign policy. Panchsheel, or five principles, that India had used as a basis of its relations with China after enshrining them in a treaty in 1954, was premised on this logic. These principles are: Mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty; Mutual non-aggression; Mutual non-interference in each other's internal affairs; Equality and mutual benefit, and Peaceful co-existence.23

India has also clearly opposed the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine saying that it infringes on the sovereignty of states and that it has been used selectively for regime change.24 The Indian stand on R2P has been that there is a “need to be cognizant that creation of new norms should safeguard against their misuse. In this context, responsibility to protect should in no way provide a pretext for humanitarian intervention or unilateral action.”25 India has also, for far too long, been shy of democracy promotion. Though there are subtle changes visible today.

India’s traditional reluctance against the promotion of democracy to other nations is succinctly expressed in Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s words: “India’s foreign policy is a projection of the values which we have cherished through the centuries as well as our current concerns. We are not tied to the traditional concepts of a foreign policy designed to safeguard over-seas possessions, investments, the carving out of spheres of influence and erection of cordons sanitaires. We are not interested in exporting ideologies.”26

At another level, India has actively interfered in the internal affairs of its neighbouring countries. India has allowing refugees from conflict regions of the neghbouring states to set up ‘governments in exile’. Tibetan refugees based in India have been openly engaging in political activities and have indeed set up a Tibetan government in exile. India’s own policy own Tibet has gone through many changes, ranging from idealistic to pragmatic.

India resists every potential attempt by a foreign power to control India’s sovereign functions. However it has been guiding the defense policies of Maldives and Bhutan and trying to dictate the foreign and defense policies of Sri Lanka and Nepal. In 2007, the then National Security Advisor of India Mr. M K Narayanan said that “New Delhi does not approve of Colombo looking to Beijing or Islamabad or any other world capital for its defence requirements and that that India was ready to respond to Sri Lanka's "defensive requirements".27 23 Available at http://ignca.nic.in/ks_41062.htm24 India does admit that there could be exceptional circumstances: “Willingness to take chapter VII measures can only be on a case-by-case basis and in cooperation with relevant regional organizations with a specific proviso that such action should only be taken when peaceful means are inadequate and national authorities manifestly fail in discharging their duty.” Statement by Mr. Hardeep Singh Puri, Permanent Representative on Implementing The Responsibility To Protect at The General Assembly Plenary Meeting on July 24, 2009. http://www.un.int/india/2009/ind1584.pdf25 Statement by Mr. Hardeep Singh Puri, Permanent Representative, on Agenda Item 107 – Report of The Secretary General on The Work of The Organization at the 64th Session Of The United Nations General Assembly on October 06, 2009. http://www.un.int/india/2009/ind1601.pdf26 Indira Gandhi, “India and the world”, Foreign Affairs, V-51(1), October 1972. 27 Angry response, http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=20070629002803200.htm&date=fl2412/&prd=fline&

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Even as India decried the nuclear non-proliferation regime as ‘nuclear apartheid’, it has indeed tired to criticize, recently though, countries that have openly gone against this regime. Take the example of Iran. India has argued that it does not support the Iranian nuclear programme because it goes against the NPT guidelines. One would wonder why India is so bothered about a treaty that it considers as an example of apartheid.

George Tanham does a good job of highlighting this ‘paradox’: “Independent India sees itself as continuing the tradition of nonaggression and nonexpansion outside the subcontinent. Nehru's foreign policy rested on these principles, and subsequent leaders have followed suit. The tradition of nonaggression, however, has never applied internally. Warfare within the subcontinent has been the norm for centuries. States fought to gain power and wealth, to establish empires, or to destroy them. This seeming paradox with regard to nonaggression arises from the Indian view of the subcontinent as a single strategic area that coincides with Indian national interests. This belief justified India's taking much more active measures—some say aggressive measures—to protect its interests in the subcontinent”.28

What does this ‘inside-outside’ tension show? Does this show that Indian foreign policy and its practices of sovereignty are full of double standards and clever strategies that are adopted to cater to its national interests?

I would argue that this tension has a certain normative underpinning to it. Take the Iranian case. The Indian decision to criticize the alleged Iranian attempts at going nuclear comes from the fact that Iran is indeed violating a treaty that it had voluntarily signed by pursuing nuclear ambitions. India has consistently maintained that dialogue with Iran is the way to resolve the crisis and yet the Iranian government is in the wrong if it is indeed developing nuclear weapons as it is against the treaty it has signed (NPT).29 When India argues that mediation should be undertaken to resolve international conflicts, it does not mean to advocate intervention to resolve conflicts and hence the nuanced stance towards R2P and democracy promotion all of which it believes will infringe on the sovereignty of other countries.

On the question of intervention in other countries the Indian argument has always been that it has genuine concerns and clean intentions in ‘interfering’ in Sri Lanka and East Pakistan. In the case of Sri Lank, India argued that India was supporting the Tamils who were being discriminated against and persecuted against in Sri Lanka primarily because of its negative domestic political and ethnic implications for India. Later on, when India actually intervened in Sri Lanka it was armed with the clear invitation from the Sri Lankan government. More importantly, the conflict in Sri Lanka has had disastrous implications for the country’s domestic politics. On the question of East Pakistan, India argued that the influx of tens of thousands of refugees were causing a security, communal and political problems and on the other hand the direct intervention of India in East Pakistan was preceded by preemptive strikes by Pakistan on the Indian soil. Indian involvement in Bhutan and Maldives is again not without the explicit request and support of the regimes in those countries. Despite the fact that the international community called on India to act in favour of democracy in Myanmar, India refused to do so for the situation in Myanmar hardly had any domestic political implications or genuine security threats for India.

28 Tanham, p. 5529 “Price and security, not U.S. pincers, have stalemated pipeline talks: India”, August 29, 2012, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article3832954.ece

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India also feared that various ethnic and other issues in its neighbourhood have a tendency to “spill over into India that, in turn, give a significant boost to the sessions movements in India”. 30 The “coordination among different movements, supported from the outside, may well lead to the development of cooperation between them and the neighbouring states to destabilize India, the ramifications of which can only be horrendous on India’s national security… With the extension of external support to the already existing destabilized internal situations, or with the development of cooperation among them, or with the influx of refugees from neighbouring counties, it is no longer easy to separate the internal from the external”.31

Sovereignty and security

There is a clear relationship between India’s understanding and practices of sovereignty and its sense of security and confidence in itself and others. Since the medieval empires operated, more or less, in an ‘international system’ of their own the sense of security was higher and this corresponded to practices and claims symbolizing more relaxed and conciliatory forms of sovereignty. While independent India started out with a great deal of confidence and sense of security, the initial years witnessed practices amounting to more relaxed and conciliatory claims and practices of sovereignty, the defeat at the hands of the Chinese was however made India overly conscious about itself and the reminder of the Cold War years witnessed India becoming greatly conscious of and rigid about its sovereignty. After the end of the Cold War, especially, in the new millennium, we see India beginning to relax its claims of absolute sovereignty. Pratap Bhanu Mehta makes a similar argument: “So long as India feels worried about threats posed by internal revolts and secessionist movements (as in Assam and Kashmir), it is more likely to cling to the sovereignty principle. There is some evidence that as India feels less pressure from the international community on issues such as Kashmir, New Delhi feels more willing to relax its dogmatic support for sovereignty.”32 I would be extending this argument further to take it beyond territorial security considerations.

Let us trace this argument from the Mughal times. Vivekanandan argues that the Mughals did not try and dominate each and every part of the empire by force but rather tried to build the empire and hold it together by various strategies:

The Mughal grand strategy of accommodation was distinct for its coherence and integrated approach towards eliciting the support of diverse social groups. Socialization was a crucial component of Mughal hegemony, and in the Rajput case, performed the systemic function of order maintenance by mitigating its reliance on the use of force. Increased participation and identification with the goals of the Mughal empire drew the Rajputs into a complex web of shared values and interests that made Mughals rule over the area effective and efficient.33

However it is important to remember that the Mughals were the predominant power at the time and that they were not facing any real external security challenges when they were employing these empire-building strategies. This means two things: one, India has historically had a tendency to look at the question of sovereignty through social relations and ideational prisms,

30 Kapur, p. 31.31 Ibid., p. 3332 Pratap Bhanu Mehta, “Reluctant India”, Journal of Democracy, Volume 22, Number 4, October 2011, p. 10133 Vivekanandan, p. 147.

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and; two, this non-territorial approach to sovereignty especially manifests itself in times of relative stability and security. Let’s build on the latter hypothesis as the former was dealt with in the earlier section.

Independent India’s behavior towards nation building efforts show that India was willing to live with less than perfect notions of sovereignty. Not only was Kashmir given a special status within the Indian constitution, the 6th Schedule of the Indian Constitution [Articles 244(2) and 275(1)] provide special provisions in the governance of country, and the state of Sikkim was given a special status of protectorate. A treaty was signed between India and Sikkim which even ratified and hence legitimized the existing monarchy there. This continued till 1975 when due to internal disturbances in the state it was fully integrated into India.

India had voluntarily taken the Kashmir issue to the United Nations to resolve it when Pakistan invaded the J&K state and took control of part of its territory. India was also actively involving itself into the international system in the first decade after its independence even as it shied away from getting into any military alliances. India was very vocal about independence and movements around the world and actively participated in the promotion of a peaceful world. There was a clear de-emphasis on securing its material interests from a ‘realist’ point of view. India was also actively participating in global nuclear disarmament campaigns.

India felt secure and that is why it was less dogmatic about its claims and practices of sovereignty. As Harish Kapur writes about Nehru’s defense policy: “Designing a defense policy was an anathema to him. Immediately following the partition of the subcontinent, he apparently made it clear that India did not ‘need a defense policy’ since ‘we foresee no military threats’ and since ‘the police are good enough to meet our security threats’”.34 He further writes that at the “regional level, Nehru’s whole thinking and strategy on national security was to seek out political solutions to situations of conflict.”35

As Manu Bhagwan has argued India was instrumental in the shaping of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at the United Nations in 1948.36 India also took an active role in promoting decolonization. India advocated for the decolonization of Indonesia at the UN, and argued that that France and Italy give up their colonies around the world. Indeed, when the Dutch forces were unwilling to withdraw from Indonesia and were attacking the freedom fighters there, the Indian interim government in 1946 withdrew Indian troops from Indonesia and Nehru, later in 1948, invited the Indonesian nationalist leadership to set up a government in exile in India.37

However, much of this ‘thinking beyond oneself attitude’ seems to undergo a sharp change after the 1962 military defeat at the hands of the Chinese where India found itself friendless. More importantly, it was a wake-up call for the country that it needs to worry less about the welfare of the world and more about its own security. In the sense the phase of feeling of secure (a false feeling although it was) was now practically over: it was now time to take care of its security.

34 Kapur, p. 22.35 Kapur, p. 2336 “A New Hope: India, the United Nations and the Making of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." Modern Asian Studies, 44(2), March 2010: 311-34737 H. S. Josh, “India Decolonization and the United Nations”, in S. C. Parashar (ed.), United Nations and India, ICWA, 1985

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This sense of insecurity makes India, one could argue, more rigid and dogmatic about its practices and claims of sovereignty.

India is now seen spending more on defense preparedness, unwilling to talk about plebiscite in Kashmir and consistently waters down the provisions of the special status given to J&K by negotiating with Kashmiri leaders to reverse much of its provisions, eventually abrogates the special status given to Sikkim, starts rethinking its nuclear options with the Indian politicians debating the merits and demerits of the country going nuclear in an unprecedented manner, and talking to the US about the possibility of a nuclear umbrella for itself. When Indira Gandhi comes to power this quest for power and status reaches a high. In other words, India was becoming more conscious about the need to protect its sovereignty in the traditional manner, like every other ‘normal state’. In this sense, one could argue that it was insecurity and instability that prompted India to become more conscious about its sovereignty.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta argues that “[I]n the aftermath of India’s experience with the UN on the painful Kashmir issue, and the domestic vulnerabilities that this issue exposed, New Delhi began to invest much more heavily in the sovereignty principle.”38

The post-Cold War years, the crucial years of uncertainty, witnessed India becoming surer of its nuclear pursuits, its global role as a ‘normal power’ and the need to pursue diversified partnerships. And yet Indian practices of sovereignty were nowhere close to what they were in the first one and half decade of its independence and, to a great extent, the uncertainty prevailing in the international system, the heightened levels of Pakistan-sponsored insurgency in Kashmir and the American pressure on Indian nuclear programme could be seen as probable causes of it. However this rigid attitude towards practices of sovereignty seem to undergo changes in the new millennium especially after the beginning of the Indo-US dialogue following the Indian nuclear tests of 1999. The first few years of the new millennium witnessed increased tension with Pakistan but better relations with the USA and the rest of the international community.

The relationship with Pakistan takes a new turn with the changed policies of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraff who sends clear signals of reconciliation with India. The new government in New Delhi headed by Manmohan Singh then took the India-Pakistan peace process inaugurated by Prime Minister A B Vajpayee and President Musharraff forward. Indeed, the Indo-Pak peace process between 2004 and 2008 is widely understood to be the most successful in the history of their bilateral relations.

India is also highly regarded in the international system. The Indo-US nuclear deal has given it a new status in the nuclear non-proliferation regime even though it has not signed the NPT. It is currently seeking support from major international players to be admitted into various export control organisations in the nuclear arena. India could potentially find a place in the renewed UN Security Council. India is also increasingly seen as a rising power, regional stabilizer and a responsible nation that upholds enlightenment values.

This new sense of security and accommodation in the international system has had its implications for Indian practices of sovereignty. On Kashmir, the recent India-Pakistan has produced some out-of-the-box solutions to resolve the Kashmir issue. The former Pakistan President Musharraf had proposed a "four-point solution" to the Kashmir issue in 2006: soft or 38 Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Reluctant India, Journal of Democracy, Volume 22, Number 4, October 2011, pp. 97-109

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porous borders in Kashmir (but no change of borders); autonomy or "self-governance" within each region of Kashmir; phased demilitarization of all regions; and finally, a "joint supervisory mechanism," with representatives from India, Pakistan and all parts of Kashmir, to oversee the plan's implementation. The Indian side was not unwelcome to this idea of a settlement, with the Indian Prime Minister saying that the borders between the two sides of Kashmir should be made irrelevant.39

It is now abundantly clear that the resolution of the Kashmir conflict lies in an approach that goes beyond the rigid confines of the Westphalian sovereignty and the two governments seem to have started thinking along those lines. There are already some admirable CBMs that have been put in place in J&K that essentially revolve around the idea of unifying, through trade, contacts and other consultative mechanisms, the erstwhile Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir. If one sees that as the beginning of a settlement process in Kashmir, what we are actually witnessing, in a sense, is the elements of a post-Westphalian approach to resolving the Kashmir issue. It is true that this is not yet a widely accepted idea among the New Delhi-based strategic community let alone in the rest of India. However, what is clear is that there are likely to be more takers for such a settlement that symbolically crosses the limits of Westphalian sovereign notions, than a redrawing of the borders to find a solution for Kashmir.

As part of an additional protocol that India signed with the IAEA, India has agreed to let the IAEA inspect its civilian nuclear installations for the first time in history. Indeed, the first round of IAEA inspections in the country’s civilian reactors have already taken place. India is also in the process of finalizing a domestic nuclear liability legislation having taken into consideration the demands of those selling India nuclear reactors.

India had objected to the UNSC-mandated US-led liberation of Kuwait from Saddam’s forces calling it great power bullying led by the US.40 India also objected to the intervention in Kosovo in 1999. Indeed, this aversion to foreign powers’ presence on the soil of other nations goes back to the colonial era. Even though the Mandate System of the League of Nations had no effect on India, the Congress party and Nehru were against it and had called it ‘a new form of colonialism”.41

However, in the recent past India has begun to subtly nuance its position on the question of intervention and related issues. India had voted against Iran in IAEA thrice over in 2005, 2006 and 2009. While India had taken a pro-Syria position in 2011, India voted against Syria in the UNSC resolution on Syria sponsored by the United States, France, Germany and Portugal. Commentators have argued that this “is not consistent with India’s opposition to foreign military intervention to settle internal conflicts.”42 On Libya, while India did criticize the coalition airstrikes on Libya, it did not vote against it when it was put to vote in the UNSC, which can be

39 Sanjaya Baru, “Kashmir endgame”, Sep 20, 2010, http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/sanjaya-baru-kashmir-endgame/408530/40 Hall, Ian. 2013. ‘“Tilting at Windmills?” The Indian Debate over the Responsibility to Protect after UNSC 1973', Global Responsibility to Protect Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 84-108.41 India and the United Nations, Report of the study group of Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi, 1957. P. 6.42 http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2012/07/19/india-joins-the-west-on-syrian-crisis/

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seen as silent approval for it. Later, India approved of the African Union intervention in Libya arguing that "decisions relating to Africa should be left to the Africans".43

These subtle changes in the Indian policy towards intervention show that the country is willing to look at the question of sovereignty in a new light. This has to be seen in the context of the newfound security, as well as acceptance and accommodation that India finds in the international system.

There are changes with regard to the issue of democracy promotion as well. C Rajamohan argues that

[S]ince the end of the Cold War, however, supporting democracy abroad as an objective has begun to factor into India’s policymaking. This priority has been triggered by intensive engagement with the United States since the early 1990s. In the final days of the Clinton administration and through subsequent terms of the Bush administration, Washington has emphasized the importance of India as the world’s largest democracy, underlined the role of shared political values in transforming bilateral relations, and explored options for working with New Delhi on the promotion of democracy worldwide. India has in turn confronted new challenges, such as potential failed states in the region; managing consequences of internal conflicts within its smaller neighbors; and if possible, nudging these countries toward democratic evolution.44

Raja Mohan point out that in 1999, India joined the Community of Democracies initiative, which has 10 founding members. This engagement of India saw new heights during the Bush era. Raja Mohan writes:

The July 2005 White House summit between Bush and Singh went beyond the nuclear question to announce a joint global democracy initiative. India and the United States declared that they “have an obligation to the global community to strengthen values, ideals, and practices of freedom, pluralism, and rule of law” and agreed to assist states seeking to become more open and democratic. Bush and Singh committed to support the new UN Democracy Fund, which had the relatively modest objective of funding projects for strengthening democratic institutions and promoting human rights around the world.45

The Indian understanding regarding the support for democracy was clearly laid down by the then foreign secretary in 2005: “As a flourishing democracy, India would certainly welcome more democracy in our neighbourhood, but that too is something that we may encourage and promote; it is not something that we can impose upon others”.46

India does not really see human rights as universal rights, at least not yet. Gentle nudge is all India is willing to do when it comes to democracy promotion of human rights promotion. This

43 http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-05-25/news/29581862_1_libya-crisis-african-union-africa-india-summit44 C. Raja Mohan, “Balancing Interests and Values: India’s Struggle with Democracy Promotion”, The Washington Quarterly, Summer 2007, 30:3 pp. 99–11545 Ibid.46 Shyam Saran, “ndia and its Neighbours”, February 14, 2005, http://www.indianembassy.org/Speeches/1.htm

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applies to others as well when dealing with India. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is accused of by the Congress-ruled Central government as a mass murderer of Muslims and yet when the US government refused him a visa to visit the States, the Indian government did not support the US’ decision. This is seen in the Indian attitude towards caste and race issues as well. While soon after independence, India had no hesitation in equating the two, contemporary India is unwilling to do that. India was against the inclusion of caste in the resolution against race in the 2001 Durban Conference against racism.47

However, India’s economic policy seems to remain disconnected from the above linkage between security and practices of sovereignty. The command economy model that was adopted pretty much at the beginning of the nation’s journey after independence with focus on core sectors of the economy and import substitution continued till the early 1990s when the systemic forces forced India to shift to an open, globalized and privatized economy. While the India state seems to have openly embraced the principles of a globalized economy, there are indeed differing voices from within the country. The Communist parties of the India, in particular, have been critical for the government’s new economic policies. They have also critiqued the concept of Special Economic Zones. Although the rightwing parties (under the umbrella of the Sangh Parivar) have been advocating economic self-reliance, while the BJP-led NDA was in power, the country’s economic policies were hardly different.

One reason why India’s centralized economic policy did not open up along with the other transitions that India went through after the 1962 debacle is that quite unlike the logic that giving up the de-emphasis on military strength and military alliances is necessary to bolster the country’s security, it was felt that continuing with the policy of economic self-reliance was important in the country’s national security. Moreover, economic globalization was in any case not a powerful idea in the early 1960s.

Sovereignty and the role of perceptions and expectations

Indian arguments and practices of sovereignty are also shaped by its perceived and expected role in the international system. Nehruvian, Post-Nehruvian and contemporary arguments and practices of sovereignty clearly show this linkage. This argument is also linked to the previous argument about the linkages between security and practices of sovereignty in the sense that India felt more secure when the international system was willing to accept the country into its fold on terms decided by India, and as a result India was willing to think out of the box on issues relating to sovereignty. Moreover, the country’s self-perception of its role in the system also had an impact on its practice of sovereignty: when it felt that it had a global role to play it was more open-ended vis-à-vis its practices of security. Let’s examine these arguments further.

In the Nehruvian worldview, India had a global role of promoting and building peace, cooperation and understanding in the international system. And although the international community did not necessarily endorse this self-conceived role, the Nehruvian project was to use the support of like-minded states in the international system to make the difference it wanted to. And this perceived role made India adopt practices of sovereignty that were open-ended and less dogmatic. The India after Nehru and the 1962 war with China looked at the international system

47 See Manoj Mitta, “How India flip-flopped over caste and race at the UN”, October 4, 2009. http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-10-04/special-report/28082727_1_descent-based-discrimination-cerd-caste

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very differently. While the Nehruvian India saw a pacific international system and peaceful co-existence as desirable and achievable objectives which it clearly worked towards, the post-Nehruvian India saw a world that is friendless and dangerous. Not only that the international community was not accommodative of the Indian concerns, the major powers of the system, indeed, argued that the policy of non-alignment was a more of a problem if anything.

This had a clear impact on the Indian openness to the international system and its practices of security. This phase continues till the beginning of the new millennium. In the new millennium, India is nuclear-weapon capable, has a thriving and globalizing economy, and is increasingly accepted into the international system. India is expected by the international community to play a bigger role in the management of regional conflicts and security and partner with the great powers in sharing various system-maintaining responsibilities. India sees itself as an emerging power that has a responsibility towards the international system. Not only have the Indian positions on non-proliferation issues changed, subtly though, but also it has now started taking an active interest in the area of global commons. From the language of non-alignment, the country now uses the language of strategic autonomy that essentially means that India can and will enter into strategic partnerships, unlike earlier, even as it will steadfastly maintain strategic autonomy.

Emerging Practices of sovereignty

The end of the Cold War and the changes in its domestic political and economic processes has given rise to new practices of sovereignty. India is no longer characterized by the ‘Congress System’, to borrow a term from eminent political scientist Rajni Kothari. The era of one party system is practically over; domestic politics in India today is characterized by regional and national coalitions as well as constant political bargaining among them. The arrival of coalition federal governments in New Delhi has ramifications not only for the country’s political system but also for its federal relations as well as foreign and security policymaking. The arrival of coalition governments especially because it coincided with the economic liberalization process in the country has given the Indian states far more political, economic and even foreign policy making power than ever before. Mattoo and Jacob have argued48:

In practice, the central government has exercised strong control over India’s external relations since the Constitution came into force in 1950. The constituent states have, with some notable exceptions, played little role in the formulation or implementation of the country’s foreign relations. However, this centralized control has begun to weaken over about the past decade. A variety of factors are responsible, and this gentle erosion of central authority, de facto if not de jure, is likely to continue in the future. This gradual loosening of the centralized control over foreign relations, of course, is not always a conscious or voluntary act by the Union government.

They further argue that

[t]here are four interrelated reasons for this growing influence of constituent units on foreign relations. First, the special constitutional status given to some states (as in the case of Jammu and Kashmir) may give the states’ political leadership a

48 Amitabh Mattoo and Happymon Jacob, "Republic of India", in Hans Michelmann (ed), Foreign Relations in Federal Countries (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press and Forum of Federations, 2009), p. 169.

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voice in the country’s foreign policymaking. Second, the political weight of a leader of a particular state can also influence foreign policymaking, albeit in an informal manner. Third, coalition governments at the centre have provided space for state governments and leaders to exercise greater say on foreign policy issues because coalition Union governments are formed by regional parties, many of which are based exclusively in one state. Finally, although the Constitution has not undergone change, the forces of globalization have created new practices and possibilities that have already given the states a greater role and will continue to do so in the future. This is especially evident in the case of foreign economic policymaking.49

What is the implication of this new federal identity for the Indian conception of sovereignty? While giving special status to federating units is nothing new for the Indian state as it happened in the case of J&K, what is happening now is that even though the forces of globalization and coalition politics have not conferred any special status to any unit in the federation, they have indeed made it possible for the Indian states to encroach on the traditional sovereign roles of the union government. This has led to practices of para-diplomacy and new notions of state sovereignty.

These centrifugal tendencies are further strengthened by the realization in India50 that the country should become part of the many regional economic partnerships in which the Border States play a crucial role. The emerging focus on regional interconnectedness, regional economic partnerships etc. has the ability to further redefine the Indian notions of sovereignty.

Conclusion

This paper has argued that the Indian conception and practices of sovereignty have been in constant evolution in response to the internal and international environments, both ideational and material. Based on the above discussion, one could conclude that the Indian conception and practices of sovereignty are positively responding to the systemic pressures and incentives today than ever before. While the various domestic structures have indeed formed the basis of the Indian view of sovereignty, the template thus formed is not inflexible as is increasingly seen in the Indian practices of sovereignty today. One core variable in this context is the country’s desire for and invitation to great power status in the contemporary international system. This ‘aspirational identity’ is clearly playing a role in nudging India become more receptive towards the international system and various global norms and values.

If so, the emerging trends in Indian foreign/diplomatic policy may be better understood if looked at as a series of negotiations that are taking place between the basic foundations of its notion of sovereignty and the desire to mainstream itself into the international system, in its own way, at its own pace.

49 Ibid, p.176.

50 Shyam Saran, Indian Foreign Secretary, “India and Its Neighbours”, Speech given at the India International Centre, February 14, 2005. Available at http://www.idsa.in/node/1555

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