India Ought to Be Relieved It Isn’t a West Asian Interlocutor

Pakistan’s role as a mediator in the West Asian crisis is being framed by the Indian Opposition as a diplomatic setback for the government. This is yet another example of the lack of bipartisan consensus on India’s foreign policy. The NDA government, however, must share some responsibility for the absence of a unified global front, as it has, for some time, used foreign policy measures as Prime Minister’s personal achievements to win domestic brownie points in national and local elections. However, India not being clubbed with Pakistan is neither an embarrassment nor an impediment to its regional aspirations.

Pakistan is a Western vassal; it is the last-born darling child of the British Empire. It was carved out of India not because of Mahatma Gandhi’s generosity nor Jawaharlal Nehru’s incompetence, but to safeguard the British Empire’s interests in West Asia. The last ADC to Viceroy Mountbatten, Narinder Sarila, in his book, The Shadow of the Great Game, has explained the process and the need for the creation of Pakistan, quoting colonial generals and politicians. The only difference is that the Western alliance is now led by the US. But Pakistan’s raison d’etre remains the same.

Pakistan has to safeguard Western interests in the region, which includes maintaining a military capability with 170 nuclear warheads. With its existing missiles, from the Pakistan-Iranian border, these nuclear weapons can target Israel, yet neither Israel nor the US has ever considered Pakistani nuclear weapons programme an existential threat, for obvious reasons. Israel does not appear to have any doubt that Pakistan could leak nuclear technology or lend its arsenal to its Muslim neighbour in an existential fight,  why? Simply because Pakistan is a trusted US ally, with little independent nuclear policy, perhaps without full operational autonomy over the warheads. However, when these nuclear weapons are analysed, one thing emerges in crystal clear terms –––these are not Islamic warheads threatening the West, but instruments of nuclear deterrence primarily aimed at keeping India in check.

In this context, India should feel relieved that it is not being dragged into a process that would neither be a negotiation nor a mediation, but rather a unilateral imposition of Western will or Trumpian idiosyncrasies. From the initial five-day reprieve for Iranian power facilities, Donald Trump has personally extended the no-bombing window till April 6 via a social media post. But this promise holds little value because the Russians, just hours earlier, cautioned against a nuclear catastrophe. 

The Russian foreign ministry statement on Thursday is striking: “Despite US President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated assurances that on March 23 he had ordered a five-day pause in attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure, a new highly dangerous strike was carried out on March 24 in the immediate vicinity of Unit 1 of the Bushehr Nuclear Plant. We are deeply outraged by this reckless and irresponsible manifestation of a destructive course. It gives the impression that the aggressors are deliberately seeking to trigger a large-scale nuclear catastrophe in the region in order to conceal and justify their criminal actions…”

The message had a clear subtext: “The lives of the plant’s personnel, including Russian specialists, remain under constant threat. This is categorically unacceptable to us.” A month after the outbreak of the war, this is the first time the Russians have explicitly acknowledged their role in supporting and safeguarding Iranian energy infrastructure. While Russia has not threatened direct action, it has demanded that the parties involved “put an end to their unprovoked aggression”. Within six hours, Trump announced the new deadline of April 6 for further negotiations. 

Russia’s announcement of the presence of its personnel and the warning of a “large-scale nuclear catastrophe in the region” are extremely serious, consequential. It has all the forebodings of a nuclear winter in West Asia, which the statement spells out.

Meanwhile, India woke up to the good news that Iran counted it as a friend alongside Russia and China, and allowed its oil and gas tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. This is not the occasion for the country to play someone else’s handmaiden, rather it is a moment to calm domestic nerves by lowering excise duties on petrol and diesel, as it did today, and by ensuring supply to keep kitchen fires burning. This is where India’s priorities and its interests lie, not in playing the super-negotiator who has no control over what Trump posts on social media next. No Maradona nor Messi can score when goalposts keep getting shifted. Pakistan is not negotiating between the US and Iran, but for the US, and it is better for India not to get caught in the neocolonial quicksand.

But there was indeed a significant setback to India’s prestige during this crisis. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement on the conflict in Parliament unfortunately skipped condemning the assassination of the Iranian leadership. India need not have named the US or Israel, in fact, even Russia has avoided doing so in its strongly worded defence of the Iranian nuclear power plant. But the prime minister should have called out the unacceptable assassination of national leaders as a matter of principle.

Foreign policy, no doubt, ought not to be self-righteous and should be firmly grounded in practical self-interest. But there cannot be greater pragmatism than upholding the principle of protecting one’s own national leadership. If today the Iranian national leadership can be wiped out, what stops neocolonial forces from decapitating other similarly inconvenient national leaders of the Global South?  At the very least, India should even now condemn the assassination of national leaders by foreign powers.

For it reminds India of how it was colonised, one princely state after another, through the elimination of its rulers some 200 years ago by those seeking monopoly trade and taxation rights. The story is too familiar to be missed.