Another Time, Tim

Why did Indian premier A.B. Vajpayee refuse to meet up with Australiandeputy premier Tim Fischer during the first senior ministerial visit (between February25-27) from that region to India barely 10 months after India’s nuclear tests? Wasthis a deliberate put-down, a reaction to Canberra’s extreme hostility post-Pokhran,as one daily reported? Or was it, as Indian sources told the Australian High Commission,bad timing as the government was precariously perched over the Bihar issue in Parliament?These and other questions unfolded within 24 hours of Fischer being in India ascontradictory agendas within the Indian bureaucracy threatened to hijack internationaldiplomacy.

As one senior source in the ministry of external affairs explained, althoughFischer’s trip signalled the resumption of Australian ministerial visits to India andput business relations on a firmer footing, it wasn’t enough to erase the bitternessof the past. "There is still resentment within the bureaucracy on both sides. Thedefence ministry is unhappy with Australia for the way it summarily pulled a student outof his class at the Australian Defence Staff College and put him on a plane to India whenAustralia heard about India’s tests."

This directly contradicted external affairs minister Jaswant Singh’s comment in anexclusive interview to the Sydney Morning Herald that the visit had"undoubtedly" put the past rancour behind them. The fact that it had takenplace, and the two sides were once again exchanging ideas on disarmament, nuclearproliferation and the Indian Ocean Rim was "in itself an aspect of the moveforward", Jaswant told the Herald.

A communication gap? Not really. Just that while the BJP-led government is now eager toshow its kinder and gentler side, Indian bureaucracy prefers to tread the more well-wornthough cantankerous path of coping with foreign relations.

One isn’t sure how much the visit achieved, but what was realised, admits a seniorand cautious Indian source, was the need for "a broad-based relationship — wherea good economic relationship should be premised on good politics. You can’t have goodrelations on the business front but criticise us on another front."

Australia had indeed shot itself in the foot with its reaction on Pokhran. It hadremoved its defence attache from the high commission in New Delhi, stopped all high-levelvisits and cut non-humanitarian aid. Once other western nations began arriving in NewDelhi to hold discussions on the nuclear issue within weeks of Pokhran, Australia was leftout in the cold. The noises for resuming relations, officials in New Delhi are now clear,are all coming from Canberra; they deny they’ve been "oozing withexultation" at Fischer’s visit. Says a senior Indian bureaucrat: "If they(the Australian government) want to fix relations we’d be quite happy to goalong." But it’ll take more than just one visit. Besides, there are doubtswhether pro-India Fischer’s views reflect the entire Australian establishment’s."Fischer’s always had more moderate views, even when he was in opposition...sothis visit has to be looked at with caution," warns another M E A source.

Not all share his pessimism. One senior source viewed as extremely positiveFischer’s comment to the Australian media that "India’s a subcontinent andin close proximity to a number of large and small neighbours; that Australia is an islandcontinent and there fore at times sees things in a different light. " Canberra’sturnaround came when Vajpayee announced at the UN General Assembly in New York that Indiawouldn’t stand in the way of the CTBT entering into force. But Australia is unlikelyto reinstate its defence attache in New Delhi prior to its signing, deadlined forSeptember this year. Says an Indian official: "I see no change in Australia’sattitude to India’s nuclear policy."

There certainly may be no shift in policy, but Canberra ’s stance has indeedsoftened, a fact even the overly-cautious M E A is unable to deny. One senior source wascategorical when he discussed why the PM didn’t meet Fischer: "Protocoldidn’t require the trade minister who was here mainly for the Australia-India JointMinisterial Commission (J M C) to meet the PM." Anyone who indicated otherwise was"jumping to conclusions based on nothing more than a reading of the minister’sprogramme while in Delhi"; just as the Indian commerce minister when he went toAustralia a year ago wasn’t accorded a meeting with the Australian premier, nor didhe expect one. Fischer’s visit did see the signing of two agricultural agreements, asports M O U and an investment protection and promotion agreement, and events which hadled to the decline of the bilateral relationship (such as foreign minister AlexanderDowner’s remarks after the May tests which Delhi said showed an abysmal ignorance ofIndia’s security concerns), are already taking a back seat.

So was Fischer snubbed or not? Jaswant Singh put all doubts finally to rest when hetold the Herald: "We don’t snub visiting dignitaries . . . don’ttake everything that appears in the newspapers as policy.