What Dixit inherited and gave

J N Dixit, the new National Security Advisor, has established himself as one of the foremost specialists in India's foreign policy and foreign affairs.

Having acquired rich experience being a member of the Indian Foreign Service and serving as India's envoy in several foreign capitals and eventually becoming foreign secretary, he has been giving us deep insights into the dynamics of foreign affairs through a series of valuable writings.

His Makers of India's Foreign Policy is the latest of these.

There is a body of writings available on how and in what way individuals shape and influence foreign policy.

Indeed Dixit's approach reflects an influence of the school of thought that stresses the role of personalities. But he goes far beyond this school of thought insofar as he does not confine himself to one particular personality, not even Jawaharlal Nehru, in his study of makers of India's foreign policy.

His spectrum is much wider, covering the individuals who contributed to the shaping of India's foreign policy.

The author discusses individuals from the period of the national movement that laid the foundations of India's foreign policy, as well as those who formulated and implemented that policy during the period since independence""all the foreign policy makers right from Jawaharlal Nehru up to Yashwant Sinha, foreign minister in the NDA government.

The book thus has an apt subtitle: "From Raja Ram Mohun Roy to Yashwant Sinha".

A major contribution of the book is the assertion that India's foreign policy has always been vacillating between international idealism and compulsions of realpolitik and that this vacillation is derived from the national movement itself.

Dixit does a remarkable job with an analysis of how various Prime Ministers adjusted India's national interests in an environment characterised by a conflict between the foreign policy idealism of the national struggle, on the one hand, and the limitations of foreign policy behaviour imposed by external forces, on the other.

Another interesting feature of the book is its treatment of a host of those people who may be called informal policy makers.

Thus, Dixit does full justice to the role played by innumerable journalists, political advisors, Prime Ministers' secretaries, special envoys, and foreign service personnel.

In that sense, Dixit clearly establishes that India's foreign policy has really been India's foreign policy and not a mere policy controlled by Prime Ministers or foreign ministers in its formulation and implementation.

However, on one count, the book disappoints. One hopes one would get some insight into the dynamics of India's foreign policy, based on the belief that Dixit should be able to reveal some information from his first-hand connections with the apparatus of India's foreign policy. That is what the book completely lacks. One feels one is traversing the familiar route, in the sense that the book gives only the known facts about India's foreign policy.

Much worse, incidents on which Dixit gives some inside details have been already covered by the media.

For example, Dixit states that in the case of the Shimla Agreement signed by India and Pakistan in 1972 after the Bangladesh war, Sardar Swaran Singh advised Indira Gandhi not to release Pakistani prisoners of war unless Pakistan agreed to a just, honourable, and permanent solution to the Kashmir issue.

But she listened to P N Haksar's advice not to take a strong position on this question and release the Pakistani prisoners of war without any conditions.

P N Dhar, who was Indira Gandhi's principal secretary, has published a series of articles indicating how India missed a historic opportunity and how Zulfikar Ali Bhutto reneged on his commitment to bring about a lasting solution to Kashmir.

My complaint is that Dixit has not made any attempt to fathom the implications of such events for Indian foreign policy and relations. He would have done a great service to the inquisitive minds if he analysed why Indira Gandhi listened to P N Haksar and not to Swaran Singh.

All in all, the book deserves to be read with care for what it says and not for what it does not.

It presents in a capsule form the quintessence of India's foreign policy during the successive periods of all Prime Ministers, highlighting the elements of continuity and change.

The book thus is a study of the dynamics of India's foreign policy. It may not be the envy of scholars but it is a help to students. It may not provide a highly penetrating analysis.

But, written in a readable and racy style, it certainly serves as an interesting bedside read which, though not rewarding in many ways, is not disappointing either, at least as a readily available concise account of the history of India's foreign policy.

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MAKERS OF INDIA'S FOREIGN POLICY

J N Dixit
HarperCollins
Pages: 328, Price: Rs 500