The scholar Kanti Bajpai has argued that ‘Rising powers seem to get the IR they need.’ But it won’t just happen. We need to change the way we all think about international relations — my younger readers, the future leaders of this country, and we, its present ones. The MEA has to be willing to play its part, in collaboration with those responsible for educational policy, to bring about the change I have been calling for, but there is no institutional proposal yet in place to make that happen.
To return to Amitabh Mattoo, he warns that ‘India’s inability to develop a sophisticated and comprehensive understanding of the world outside will have more serious consequences than just the dwarfing of a discipline. It could well stunt India’s ability to influence the international system.’ That is an outcome that, for all the reasons I have described, we can ill afford.
So much for the MEA, think tanks, public and intellectual opinion; but what about the formal structures in India’s domestic politics that constitutionally could impact foreign policy making: the formal Opposition in and out of Parliament, and the state governments in India’s federal system? A vital element of India’s governmental consensus, going back to the days of the independence movement, has been the parliamentary system of government, with its structure of an elected majority being confronted daily by an organized Opposition. Former British Prime Minister Lord Attlee testified to this on the basis of his experience as a member of a British constitutional commission. Indians, he noted, ‘believed that the Westminster model is the only real one for democracies’; when he suggested the US presidential system to Indian leaders, ‘they rejected it with great emphasis. I had the feeling that they thought I was offering them margarine instead of butter.’ Indian politicians, including the communists, turned to the system with great delight, revelling in adherence to parliamentary convention, down to the desk-thumping form of applause, and complimenting themselves on their authenticity. (The CPI leader Hiren Mukherjee proudly asserted once that British Prime Minister Anthony Eden had felt more at home during question hour in the Indian Parliament than in the Australian.) Faith in the parliamentary system was reaffirmed in the open jubilation of the Indian political class when the post-war regimes of Pakistan and Bangladesh both opted to discard the presidential form of government; in the wide regret when the latter nation reverted to it; and in the public outrage that Mrs Gandhi should, during the Emergency, have contemplated abandoning the parliamentary system for a modified form of Gaullism.
In India, the Opposition members of Parliament enjoy a wide range of formal powers and responsibilities in the field of foreign policy — at least theoretically. Under Article 246 of the Indian Constitution, Parliament is empowered to legislate on ‘all matters which bring the Union [of India] into relation with any foreign country’. Article 253 gives Parliament the exclusive legislative authority to implement treaties and international agreements, and Article 51 urges it to promote peace as a governmental endeavour. Parliament is also the ultimate authority in regard to the budget, its financial control over the appropriations of each individual ministry affording it a means of influencing the ministry’s actions. The Lok Sabha meets normally for three or four sessions a year, for a total of seven to eight months, and at each session debates a statement by the foreign minister on the international situation. Once a year it also discusses the annual report of the MEA and the ministry’s demands for grants (I was entrusted in 2011 with the responsibility of leading the Treasury bench’s response to the Opposition’s assault on the government’s foreign policy in the Lok Sabha). Other opportunities for the expression of views on foreign policy come in parliamentary resolutions, moved by individual members, on such aspects of world situation as move them, from Chinese border incursions to the perennially popular issue of US arms to Pakistan.
The routine proceedings of Parliament include several devices for Opposition pressure on the government in the foreign policy field. Each house begins its day with Question Hour five days a week, followed by a ‘zero hour’ at which further issues could be raised. Most questions, ‘starred’ (requiring a verbal response), ‘unstarred’ (requiring a written reply) and ‘short notice’ (which usually meet with a verbal response), are submitted at least two weeks in advance, in order to enable the ministry concerned to formulate a reply. The Speaker, who admits relevant questions under the Lok Sabha’s rules of procedure (Rules 38–58), also permits up to about six supplementary questions. None of these are particularly well informed, so they are not difficult for a well-briefed minister to handle.
Another possible technique is the use of the proviso for ‘half-hour discussions’ to seek clarifications of answers provided by the government during question hour. Under Rule 55, these relate only to matters of ‘sufficient public importance’ to warrant the extra time, and require three days’ notice by at least three MPs. Rule 193 also provides for a short-duration discussion without notice, usually to draw the government’s attention to a problem it has ignored, but it has not widely been resorted to. This is probably because the Opposition has access to a more potent device, the calling-attention motion, proposed by a member for precisely that purpose. Once such a motion is admitted by the Speaker, the government is obliged to answer it immediately or to seek time to make a statement. Such motions tend mostly to be on domestic issues, but can also provide the first clue to parliamentary interest in an international issue as well — as was the case with the Sharm el Sheikh joint statement with Pakistan in 2009—and generally oblige the government to take a stand on the question (which, in the case of Sharm el Sheikh, involved some serious back-pedalling).
Of even more serious import are adjournment and no-confidence motions. Under Rule 56 of the Lok Sabha, a motion could be raised to adjourn the house on an issue of urgent public importance; such motions have often been raised on foreign policy questions. No-confidence motions, or resolutions censuring the government, are relatively infrequently resorted to on foreign policy questions, the most significant exception being that relating to India’s nuclear deal with the United States, which nearly brought down the UPA government in 2008. The Opposition can also seek to amend the President’s annual address to Parliament, setting forth the government’s general policy for the year at the start of the budget session in February or early March. In all these instances, the Opposition has opportunities to make its presence felt; it is consulted on the arrangement of business, the allocation of time (usually distributed among the various opposition groups in proportion to their strength in the legislature) and granted numerous opportunities to speak.
In addition to debates on the floor of the House, the Opposition is represented on parliamentary committees with responsibilities in the external affairs arena. Of these the most important is the Joint Consultative Committee on Foreign Affairs, created in 1953 at the suggestion of an independent member. The committee is an informal body, broadly representative of the composition of Parliament, which ‘consults’ with the minister for external affairs, who chairs its sessions, as opposed to the Standing Committee on External Affairs, which is chaired by an Opposition MP and can summon MEA staff to brief it, though it loses a lot of time on receiving visiting parliamentary delegations and inspecting passport offices. Other useful bodies are the Estimates Committee of the Lok Sabha, which examines the MEA’s estimates of expenditure and in one instance (in 1960– 61) was responsible for the reorganization of the ministry and its posts abroad; the Public Accounts Committee, which reviews government spending; and the Committee on Governmental Assurances, established in 1953, to check on the speedy implementation of ‘assurances, promises, undertakings, etc. given by the Ministers from time to time on the floor of the House’. These committees help ensure the government’s accountability to elected representatives for its foreign policy, but are rarely able to question the fundamentals or to have a direct impact on specific issues of India’s external affairs.