'1998 Nuke tests brought out strategic links'

New Delhi, Jul 28: It was India's nuclear tests conducted in May 1998 that brought out the close link between foreign, strategic and economic policies, says Dr Sanjaya Baru, Media Advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Acknowledging that the importance of economic policy had been underlined far back in 1947 by the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and subsequently by others, Dr Baru, in his latest book to be released tomorrow, said it was, however, the Pokhran II tests that proved this point beyond doubt.

''It was, however, the nuclear tests of 1998 that brought out in sharp relief the link between foreign policy and strategic policy options and economic choices,'' he said in the book titled: ''Strategic consequences of India's economic performance.'' The tests had sparked a debate among economists and economic journalists on the financial and economic implications of going nuclear and on the cost of sanctions imposed on India by the United States, Japan and some other countries.

Recalling that the estimates on the cost of sanctions had varied between as little as 500 million dollars to as much as 20 billion dollars, Dr Baru, without naming the NDA, said the ''government of the day'' felt comforted by the ''optimistic view.'' However, it did not want to take chances. It launched several economic initiatives, to mop up dollars, and launched a massive diplomatic offensive, sending teams of Indian analysts and journalists to different countries to explain why India declared itself a nuclear weapons power and why the world should appreciate India's benign intent.

Dr Baru said he was also part of a team, drafted by the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) and India International Centre (IIC), ''to convince the world that a nuclear India is no threat to the rest of the world.'' ''In fact, I argued, a more self-confident and secure India and a stronger Indian economy should be welcomed by the world,'' he said and revealed that many of his news columns were the result of those travels to ''distant capitals, ranging from Tokyo and Beijing to Paris and Washington DC.

''My interest in the economics of India's economic development was stirred by this experience,'' Dr Baru says.

Before talking about the nuclear tests, Dr Baru had made a mention of Nehru's speech on foreign policy delivered in the Constituency Assembly. Nehru had said, ''Talking about foreign policies, the House must remember that these are not just empty struggles on a chess board. Behind them lie all manner of things.

Ultimately, foreign policy is the outcome of economic policy.'' This made him feel that ''surely, I thought, Nehru must have had good economic reasons for his various foreign policy initiatives.'' Subsequently, Dr Manmohan Singh had, in 1997, given an interview to the editors of ''World Affairs,'' a foreign affairs journal, which brought back the relevance of economics into India's foreign policy debates, Dr Baru says.

The end of the Cold War after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the growing salience of international trade in international relations, thanks to China's mercantilism and the creation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and India's own increasing economic engagement with its neighbours were all pointers to the renewed relevance of Nehru's dictum on the economics of New Delhi's foreign policy, he said.

It was, however, the 1998 nuke tests that brought out the importance of economic inputs in foreign and strategic policies, he said.

The 496-page book is a compilation of his newspaper columns and speeches published between 1994 and 2004, before he joined the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).

In the introduction, which contains the reference to the nuclear tests, Dr Baru clarified that the book ''does not contain any information made available to me in my present position.'' The contents of the book also ''do not reflect the thinking of the Government of India or the Prime Minister,'' he averred.

UNI