Indian Council of World Affairs

Hon’ble Deputy Chairman, Rajya Sabha Shri Harivansh Narayan Singhji 

Hon’ble Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha Shri Sujeet Kumarji 

Amb TCA Raghavan, Former DG, ICWA who is chairing today’s Discussion 

Members of the Diplomatic Corps, Students & Friends! 

As you are all aware, the executive-legislature interface is an essential element contributing to the shaping of foreign policy in the Indian polity and is a hallmark of democracy. Through mechanisms such as the hearings of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs on issues such as Demands for Grants or topical issues related to foreign policy and modalities such as short duration debates, calling attention notices, parliamentary questions, Ministerial statements, we see democracy in operation in the Parliament of India and the executive’s responsibility to people’s representatives and to the citizens of India. The advisory Consultative Committee on External Affairs is yet another mechanism for this inter-face; and the Ministry of External Affairs routinely provides evidence to other Parliamentary Committees as well as and when required. 

It was to capture the workings and impact of this interface that a decision to commission the book project titled ‘Indian Parliament: Shaping Indian Foreign Policy’ by Shri KV Prasad, senior journalist, was taken by ICWA. The book examines and catalogues three case studies of intense parliamentary debates having a significant impact on the course of Indian foreign policy, each set apart by approximately a decade, and with reverberations till date. These are: the case of India-Sri Lanka ties from the 1980s, the case of WTO negotiations of the 1990s, and the India-US nuclear deal of 2005-2008. 

On the case of Sri Lanka from the 1980s, the book establishes that the debates in the Parliament on IPKF presence in Sri Lanka made the Government reverse its decision and laid the foundation of India's carefully considered approaches towards its neighbours mindful of mutual sensitivities and concerns. With the benefit of hindsight, one can say that these debates in the Parliament brought home the point of the need for enhanced integrative linkages and inter-dependencies with neighbours across sectors for regional stability and security and prosperity and for goodwill for India among their people. It affirmed that India's military forces are meant for the defense of national security interests and securing the well-being of the Indian people and that its presence on foreign soil and waters would be in service of these objectives in addition to  contributing to UN peacekeeping, HADR, and other humanitarian  and environmental goals. It also provides the basis for India to adopt an approach that proactively pursues fair and equal status for people of Indian origin, and their complete integration in the countries of their citizenship, with the counter-part Governments as part of foreign policy and diplomatic outreach. 

The second case of debates in the Parliament in the run up to the establishment of WTO raised awareness among Government circles and the industry in India, then a newly liberalized economy, on the need to invest in building negotiating skills and capacity so as to be able to take informed positions and defend interests in international fora. An off-shoot of the enhanced focus in Parliament on WTO matters in the 1990s was the birth of what is now described as economic diplomacy. The debates in the Parliament also made the Government seek changes through negotiations and coalition formation at the newly formed WTO which were favorable to India and other developing countries laying the basis for India to emerge as a voice of the Global South on trade issues at the forum. The Parliament was assured that despite the economic pangs of the early 90s in the backdrop of tumultuous changes in the world like the collapse of the Soviet Union, the first Gulf War, German unification, emergence of not so friendly US as the sole superpower, India would strive to contribute in shaping the world's trade rules and not be content by being a mere rule taker especially in sensitive areas like agriculture that impacted the well-being of its people and its food security. The debate on WTO matters in the Parliament also brought home the point of the importance of the impact of trade policies on the national economy and their potential to contribute to the overall well-being of a people as well as for international cooperation – a thought that holds immense value in today’s fractured world plagued by trade and tariff wars. Learning from history and the present, it is important that the rules of trade be rewritten so as to turn trade into a harbinger of peace and prosperity and not as a forerunner of wars, colonization and empire-building, not as a tool to accumulate capital as a currency of power which is the tragedy of human development and India needs to make its contributions towards this. 

The third case of the debate in the Parliament on the India-US nuclear deal made the Government of the day explain its position and posture in negotiations which had implications for a sensitive area of national security, for the transformation of India’s relationship with the US and consequently its allies and partners, thus expanding India's circle of friends, for laying the foundation for the end of nuclear and technological apartheid for India, and for India's acceptance as a responsible country in the global nuclear order. The Parliament and the people of India were assured that this has been achieved while preserving India's principled and traditional position on the rejection of NPT – the Non-Proliferation Treaty - based on 'enlightened self-interest' and without diluting India's deep commitment to universal and verifiable disarmament. India believes that the NPT is a flawed basis of the global nuclear edifice, and this has been India’s consistent position since NPT’s inception. The Parliament appreciated that India’s dialogue with the US, then the sole superpower, on the nuclear issue post Pokhran II heralded the transformation of India from first an outlier of the global nuclear order, then a challenger to it, and now a nuclear power that is being increasingly accepted and mainstreamed into the global nuclear regime – a process that continues to be underway today as a legacy of the India-US nuclear deal. 

In the wake of the more than decade long dialogue with the US post Pokhran II and the assessment of successive governments to enhance the country’s civil nuclear energy potential for which international cooperation was considered vital, the Parliament, being acutely conscious of the need to protect its citizens from nuclear accidents and learning from the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, felt duty-bound to enact the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act. It should also be said that, since the ‘deal’ and in the backdrop of the current geopolitical turmoil and increased nuclear rhetoric, the existing global nuclear order has also begun to rumble and tumble – and the scenarios predicted are widely divergent – towards flashpoints if we were to listen to the doomsday sayers or towards a nuclear renaissance if we were to listen to the optimist. It is amidst this dichotomy and flux prevailing globally in the strategic and civil nuclear sector that discussions are now underway in India to amend the legislative framework of our nuclear sector, particularly its international cooperation dimension. The Parliament will once again be called upon to exercise judgment to preclude a nuclear Bhopal Gas Tragedy or a Chernobyl in India – tragedies of the eighties whose effects are felt till this date. The safety and lives of India’s people is paramount and sacrosanct. 

The debates in the Parliament on WTO and on India-US Nuclear Deal also raised important issues pertaining to limitations in Parliament’s mandate and oversight flowing from the Constitution regarding prior consultation or ratification by legislature of international agreements. These debates also raised issues related to sovereignty while entering into international agreements. Both these aspects need greater study and analyses. 

These three cases of intense Parliament debates on foreign policy issues have been eloquently elaborated upon by the author in this book, shepherding which has been a privilege for ICWA. I would like to end by pointing out that ICWA as a foreign policy institution is itself backed by an Act of Parliament, that the executive-legislative interface is very much built into its governing structure and that it benefits and draws advantage from this guidance.

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