Indian PMs and the art of not learning from the past

Among Indian diplomats, writing on Pakistan, Ambassador Rajiv Dogra invariably shines with his categorical assessment of what has become “a criminal enterprise” for India and the world. He is upfront and unapologetic without ever being flippant. Reading his books, especially on Pakistan (Where Borders Bleed: An Insider’s Account of Indo-Pak Relations is a case in point), one often gets the feeling of reading the work by a diplomat and a historian combined in one.

So, when Dogra comes out with a new book, India’s World: How Prime Ministers Shaped Foreign Policy, it instantly draws attention. And it doesn’t disappoint a bit. It is a fast-paced account of the eight prominent Prime Ministers of India, out of the total 14. One only wished he had delved more deeply on P.V. Narasimha Rao, about whom he himself writes: “If Jawaharlal Nehru ‘discovered’ India, and if Indira Gandhi made it ‘proud’, Narasimha Rao ‘transformed’ it.” Giving just 10 pages to this utterly neglected Prime Minister who single-handedly, and without proper majority in Parliament, transformed not just Indian economy but also foreign policy, seemed out of place. In contrast, Rajiv Gandhi, who seemed bright and made a few good amends but delivered very few tangible gains in global affairs, gets almost double the space.

Given the author’s love for history, it’s not surprising to see him devote the maximum number of pages to Jawaharlal Nehru, and rightly so. For, either via his contributions or through his follies, he shaped India’s destiny in many ways. So much so that even after seven decades of Independence, the Nehruvian edifice continues to survive, though in a crumbling shape especially since 2014.

 Dogra begins the book by telling how India and Indians were left to fend for themselves while the financially generous Marshall Plan by the US was available to rejuvenate Europe. “India made a virtue of its misery by terming it self-reliance,” the author writes. But as events suggest, the fault primarily lied with the Indian leadership who pushed idealism at the cost of pragmatism. Nothing can be more ironical, especially in the land of Kautilya who had over two millennia ago “propounded the concept of saam (advice or cajole), daam (pay or bribe), dand (punish), and bhed (exploit secrets) as the policies to be followed, as per need, by a ruler. Indians, especially in the Nehruvian times, never really went beyond the first option, and very rarely used the second. What else can explain India’s decision — or rather Nehru’s unilateral decision, as Dogra asks in the book — abdicating the UN Security Council seat for its “brother” China, which returned the favour in 1962 – and is still doing so in the Galwan Valley? It is this kind of idealistic posturing that put off even J.F. Kennedy, who was an admirer of Nehru till the Indian PM visited the US in 1961. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr writes in his book A Thousand Days, “Reminiscing about the meeting, Kennedy described it to me as ‘a disaster — the worst head-of-state visit I have had’.”

 Even internally, Nehru had disappointed many, including his friends. The author quotes Maulana Azad, writing in his memoirs quite apologetically, about supporting Nehru for the post of the Prime Minister. “I acted according to my best judgment but the way things have shaped since then have made me realise that this was perhaps the greatest blunder of my political life… (It was a great mistake that) I did not support Sardar Patel…”

 But to be fair to Nehru, he worked on a clean slate. He had no precedent to rely on. Which can explain his mistakes on Kashmir, China, et al. But what about India giving Pakistan a bloody nose in 1971 in today’s Bangladesh but losing everything at Simla. Dogra asks very pertinent questions, “Why is it that we are generous with others to the extent of sacrificing our interests? Is it because by nature and tradition we hesitate to displease a visiting guest; that he must not leave resentfully or with an empty plate? Or, is it that, despite knowing of the policy misadventures of predecessors, every new Indian leader feels that he or she can write a new chapter on a clean slate?”

 I think it’s both. In the process, the Indian leaders lose both their own respect and the nation’s. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto got his 93,000 men as well as the territory captured by India, without giving anything, except soothing words said charmingly: “Aap mujh par bharosa keejiye (Please trust me).” Bhutto had no intention of fulfilling his promise. As he told a close political aide on his return to Pakistan, “I have made a fool of that woman.” Years later, Atal Bihari Vajpayee fell more or less into a similar trap vis-à-vis Nawaz Sharif and Gen Parvez Musharraf.

This is where current Prime Minister Narendra Modi scores over others. Yes, in the first few years of his first term, there were several overtures to Pakistan, but once he saw the outcomes, he mended his ways. There are still many holes in India’s Pakistan policy, if there’s one, but at least now we have started learning from mistakes, we have started reacting to Pakistani misadventures, we have started putting the accountability clause in the relationship. After all, didn’t the Indian leadership make a monkey of themselves by first claiming the whole of Kashmir through a parliamentary resolution in 1994, and then three years later, under PM I.K. Gujral making a move for composite dialogue? This is the last thing a government should do: To revert its publicly-stated stand without any reasonable ground.

The Modi government seems to be making amends to this trend of not learning from the past and being stupidly generous. For, one overwhelming characteristic of the Indian ruling class has been its reluctance — and failure — to learn from the past, thus being condemned to repeat the same mistakes again and again. For instance, Indira Gandhi should have realised much before inviting Bhutto that he was the man behind the 1965 India-Pakistan war. Writes Dogra, “On his own, Ayub was a cautious man; he was most reluctant to risk a war with India. But Bhutto talked him into it. The time was most opportune, Bhutto added, because India was badly shaken by its ‘humiliating’ defeat in the 1962 war with China. Moreover, after Nehru’s death, his successor Shastri was ineffectual… ‘It is now or never,’ Bhutto insisted.” And, Indira was being generous to this man!

Despite deep historical exploration, this book is primarily for the layman and the general reader. It will help understand where we, as a nation, went wrong and how. And like Dogra’s previous books, it’s simple, yet profound.