March 16, 2000

DECCAN HERALD: Do you regard President Clinton's trip to India as a personal triumph for your diplomatic efforts?

NARESH CHANDRA: I don't look on it as a personal triumph, but I regard it as a very good thing that is happening for India-US relations. There has been an awareness for some time that the full potential has not been derived, but now the decks are cleared with the opening up of the Indian market and the end of the Cold War. So the temporary factors which stood in the way of greater co-operation between India and the US are no longer there.

DECCAN HERALD: Are you disappointed that the President is stopping in Pakistan?

NARESH CHANDRA: I'm not disappointed. The visit to South Asia is actually focused on India as the administration here has made out. We will do our bit to see that the warmth of the reception, or what we can achieve from the various discussions that will take place at this time, are not unduly affected by a peripheral.

But the fact remains that after what we have gone through in the Kargil episode, also the week or so of torment at the end of December 1999, they have left a feeling that what has happened in Pakistan is neither good for the people of the sub continent as a whole or the people of Pakistan themselves.

DECCAN HERALD: There seems to be massive American interest in Kashmir. Are you concerned that the President will discuss the Kashmir issue in the course of his visit?

NARESH CHANDRA: The Kashmir issue has been under discussion. Its not that the Government of India says don't discuss Kashmir.

The point is this. Kashmir is open to the Press, its in the news. Bad things are happening. There is terrorist violence, we have to check it. We have to offer information against a very concerted propaganda and in that way propaganda, counter propaganda, discussion is unavoidable. We are not trying to say that hands off discussion.

But when official level exchanges take place, especially in a formal diplomatic sense, then we have to be very careful about the parameters and the sovereignty of nations. As friends we discuss many things. But when it comes to taking decisions which are in the security interest of India, then naturally the amount of scope available gets limited. We can't carry on a discussion when any nation tells us this is what you should do.

We will do what parliament tells us to do, what the people of India want the government to do. That's what democracy is all about. Therefore when we discuss we are willing to discuss and present the case as we say it to any friendly country.

But we are not willing and we will not be willing in the future to assign any role by way of intermediary, mediator or arbitrator, that's out of the question.

DECCAN HERALD: Is there no such thing as friendly but dispassionate interest from outsiders?

NARESH CHANDRA: There is a difference between friendly interest, positive suggestion making and meddling. We are against meddling.

The other aspect we can never forget is the manner in which the whole subject was discussed in the United Nations in 1947/48 and the absoluteness that God created thereafter. It didn't solve anything, in fact it perpetuated the problem. What we find very irksome is the constant reference back to those resolutions which are long dead.

At the time the resolutions were passed, the Chinese were not sitting on the territory that forms part of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan illegally ceded territory to China from the Pakistan occupied part of the area in the Northern territory. So the whole ground situation has totally changed.

Plus the Simla agreement, which was reiterated as recently as 1999 in the Lahore Declaration. The 1971 Simla agreement was between President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Now you say that is not effective. Who says that? The general who comes along. Then you have a Lahore declaration between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Prime Minister Vajpayee and Musharraf comes and says it's a mistake. So what are we aiming at? Agreements signed between democratic governments have to be renegotiated, they cannot be unilaterally altered.

DECCAN HERALD: How would you define the 'new relationship` evolving between India and the US?

NARESH CHANDRA: The new relationship is based on some alterations in perception and understanding. They are rooted in the new realisation in the US that it would be beneficial overall to improve relations with India, to recognise its role in Asia and the world and see how this new relationship can be put to productive use in the interests of both countries and the region.

This realisation in the US is that we have been losing time and the time has come to sit down and have a comprehensive dialogue with India.

The second is the recent developments in that part of the world. After getting rid of the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, that strong Communist beam, that was in the eyes of American officials has gone. Once that beam in that eye was no longer there, they started looking into that region as to what exactly is going on.

I think they are intelligent enough to realise some very good things and some very bad things are going on. They see on the one hand they are close to a billion people working out problems in a democratic fashion by consultation and consensus, rooted in democratic values and the rule of law.

On the other hand they found the upsurge of super nationalist, religious zeal and people misusing religious sentiment. I don't think religion is responsible for terrorism, but there are people who can make use of religion or get swayed by it so much as to lose all rationality. This brought out to them where danger exists, which area is part of the problem and which area is part of the solution.

DECCAN HERALD: Are you defining the new relationship between New Delhi and Washington as partly a function of US relations with Pakistan?

NARESH CHANDRA: We have noticed we have not been able to make progress in various fields between India and the US because there is always a rider as to how it will play in Pakistan.

I think the more the US system occupies space in Pakistan the better for us. But not at our expense and not just narrowed to the military sphere.

What people say is that these old allies had a very strong military dimension, but very little else besides.

People of Pakistan then start getting the impression that the rest of the world start looking at their military as something different. The Pakistan army is part of the Pakistani people, its not a stranger or something different. This excessive focus on the army has distorted the dynamics of internal politics in Pakistan.

DECCAN HERALD: The Pentagon and CIA were traditionally more friendly to Pakistan than India. Has that started to change?

NARESH CHANDRA: Change will take place, but there's always Newton's First Law and it takes time. It's the law of inertia. During the Cold War the CIA and Pentagon had urgent targets to meet and during this period taking on the Communist state was a very high priority. Over a period of time the CIA and Pentagon found that the Pakistani military establishment was a very co-operative tool in playing the Big Game. It got a big spurt when Brezhnev invaded Afghanistan. US Pentagon and agency involvement in Pakistan was very intense for a number of years.

After the Soviets walked out of Afghanistan, review of policy that should have taken place perhaps didn't take place. The result is that while the Soviets have gone out of Afghanistan, the problem of Afghanistan, the terrorist problem, the religious fundamentalist problem have not gone away.

DECCAN HERALD: Is it enough to sustain the new relationship with Washington merely by celebrating our joint interest in democracy and collaborating in the fight against terrorism?

NARESH CHANDRA: India and the US are being nudged closer together by factors that are not factors of convenience and urgent importance. The good thing of India and the US coming together could be compared to two elephants coming together. When two elephants come together and try to dance very often they are frequently in each other's way or stepping on each other's toes. It is because they don't know how to dance.

Then there is a feeling on both sides that is not so narrow as the Pentagon/CIA and so on, but people to people, whether it is journalists or academics, or professionals like the IT experts, business. Everyone is saying why can't we work together? This trend will survive future administrations, it will survive my coming or going and the present set of officials.