As finance minister during 1991-96, Manmohan Singh laid the foundation for India’s economic transformation and the consequent rise on the global stage. Less appreciated is his decade-long tenure as prime minister, from 2004 to 2014, which helped develop a matching foreign policy strategy through regional peace and a global partnership with the United States.
But difficulties with his own party, opposition from the left and right of the political spectrum, and entrenched resistance from the bureaucracy and the foreign policy community prevented Singh from realising the new diplomatic possibilities that came his way very early on in his tenure.
Within the span of a few weeks during early 2005, as prime minister, Singh had the opportunity to explore major breakthroughs in three of India’s most challenging relationships — with Pakistan, China, and the US. The story of Singh’s foreign policy was largely about how his three diplomatic initiatives in the spring and summer of 2005 unfolded in the rest of his time as PM.
To be sure, the three possibilities had emerged under Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1998-2004) and were ripe for picking under Manmohan Singh. After all, foreign policy is a continuum that does not end with one government and begin with another. But each government brings something subjective — in terms of worldview, political will, and domestic capability — in dealing with the objective external circumstances.
In the end, it is important to remember that your interlocutor has a veto. It is not all about us. One needs a willing sovereign across the table to turn opportunities into outcomes. If Pakistan and China were not convinced of the need for immediate peace with India, Washington was eager to build a new and expansive relationship with Delhi.
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with Dr Manmohan Singh. (Express Archives)
P V Narasimha Rao and Vajpayee navigated the many external crises trying new approaches to Pakistan, China, and the US. This included the testing of five nuclear weapons by Vajpayee in 1998. Inheriting a favourable situation, Singh pushed the accelerator on the three diplomatic fronts.
The visit of General Pervez Musharraf in April 2005, ostensibly to watch a cricket match in Delhi, provided the occasion to explore the broad contours of a settlement on the Kashmir question. Serious back-channel negotiations on Kashmir — conducted by Ambassador Satinder Lambah from the Indian side — could not, however, be brought to a close.
The ruling leadership of the Congress party was utterly uncomfortable making big moves with Pakistan. The party would not even let Singh visit Pakistan. As Delhi dithered, the momentum dissipated on the Pakistan side as Musharraf’s power began to ebb and relations were back in crisis mode after the Pakistan-sponsored terror attacks on Mumbai during November 2008.
It is pointless to speculate whether stronger political will in Delhi could have given a new direction to India-Pakistan relations during 2005-07. But there is no denying that a major diplomatic opportunity with Pakistan was lost.
Dr Manmohan Singh in conversation with the World Bank President Lewis T Preston in 1992. (Express Archives)
April 2005 also saw the visit of the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, to Delhi and the signing of an agreement on the principles and parameters for settling the intractable boundary dispute between Delhi and Beijing. It was indeed the first time that such an understanding was finalised.
But the negotiations to settle the boundary soon stalled, as Beijing began to reinterpret the provisions of the agreement. Although India was eager for a settlement, Beijing seemed reluctant as the power gap between the two nations widened rapidly in favour of China from the mid 2000s.
As a rising China under Xi Jinping turned politically assertive and unveiled muscular approaches to boundary disputes with its neighbours, the Sino-Indian relations too entered a complex mode. This was reflected in a series of military crises. The first major border flareup occurred in 2013 towards the end of the UPA rule.
Singh’s American story turned out to be very different, and consequential. In March 2005, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser of President George W Bush came to Delhi promising to resolve the long-standing nuclear dispute with India. That, in turn, was part of a new US initiative to rearrange the Asian security order with India as a strong regional partner.
Quick diplomatic action after that saw Delhi and Washington sign a defence cooperation agreement in June 2005 and a civil nuclear initiative in July 2005. The scale and potential scope of the new diplomatic engagement with the US flustered the Congress party amidst vigorous opposition from the left allies of the UPA. If Vajpayee had created the nuclear opening with the US, Lal Krishan Advani’s BJP attacked Singh’s historic deal with Bush. The left and the BJP joined hands to pull down the Manmohan Singh government.
Former US Secretary Dr Henri Kissinger during a meet with former PM Dr Manmohan Singh in 2004. (Express Archive)
The government survived the challenge but the Congress leadership had no political appetite for wrapping up the nuclear initiative with the US. It was Singh’s threat to resign that pushed the Congress Party to formalise the initiative in 2008.
Although he returned as PM in 2009 with a bigger mandate, Singh struggled to implement the many new agreements with the US. The Congress leadership had little political interest in that project. It needed the government of Narendra Modi, who enjoyed a majority in the Lok Sabha with full control over his party’s foreign policy, to do the heavy lifting on the strategic partnership with the United States.
However, if Singh had not acted with great conviction to put his crown on the line in 2008, it would have been much harder for the Modi government, which was certainly bolder and more self-assured, to rapidly transform the US relationship over the last decade.
Turning around the US relationship amidst widespread political, intellectual, and bureaucratic hostility will go down as Manmohan Singh’s greatest strategic legacy as prime minister. It complemented and reinforced his contribution to India’s economic rise in the 1990s.
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It was also the willing partners in Washington — successive American presidents George Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden — that helped turn the US into the most valuable partner for India today. Neither Singh nor Modi had such luck with Pakistan and China, both remaining major challenges for India.
In the end, Manmohan Singh’s diplomatic life highlights two important lessons. One is the importance of a sovereign seizing fleeting diplomatic opportunities that arise. The other is the need for a solid domestic political consensus on foreign policy that is so important in converting ephemeral diplomatic moments into lasting strategic outcomes.
The writer is a contributing editor on international affairs for The Indian Express
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