The Influence of Business and Media on Indian Foreign Policy

Abstract

Notes

1. Thomas C Schelling, Report of the US Congress Commission on National Security Considerations Affecting Trade Policy, Washington DC, 1971.

2. R.N. Cooper, “Trade Policy is Foreign Policy,” Foreign Policy, No.9, Winter, 1972–73.

3. See Sanjaya Baru, Strategic Consequences of India's Economic Performance , Academic Foundation, Delhi, 2006/ Routledge (London, 2007) & Francis & Taylor (New York, 2007), Citic Press (Beijing, 2008). (Chapter 2: “The economic dimension of India's foreign policy”). Nehru said: “Talking about foreign policies, the House must remember that these are not just empty struggles on a chessboard. Behind them lie all manner of things. Ultimately, foreign policy is the outcome of economic policy, and until India has properly evolved her economic policy, her foreign policy will be rather vague, rather inchoate, and will be groping.”

4. For a discussion of trends in economic diplomacy and the role of economics in bilateral diplomacy see I.P. Khosla (Ed.), Economic Diplomacy, Konark Publishers Pvt Ltd., Delhi, 2006, and Kishan S. Rana, Bilateral Diplomacy, Manas Publications, Delhi, 2002.

5. See Baru (2007), Ch. 20: “Sizing up the competition”, Ch.37: “IT and the e-economy: The ballast for India-US Relations”; and Ch.63: “An India of Narayana Murthy or Sudarshan?”

6. See Sanjaya Baru, “India and the World – Economics and Politics of the Manmohan Singh Doctrine in Foreign Policy,” ISAS Working Paper No. 53, November 2008. Accessible via http://www.isasnus.org/events.

7. At The Financial Express, where I was Chief Editor at the time, we were constantly bombarded by information from Indian business about “unfair” trade competition from China. The FE ran a series of news reports under the banner “Enter The Dragon,” drawing attention to the “China threat” in the Indian market. Soon China began increasing its imports from India. This created a business lobby in India that saw a “China opportunity.” At FE we began a new series, in 2002, called “Beyond The Great Wall.”

8. A forthcoming book discusses in some detail the phenomenon of Indian multinational enterprise – Ravi Ramamurti & Jitendra V. Singh, (Ed.) Emerging Multinationals from Emerging Economies, Cambridge University Press, 2009.

9. Economic Survey, 2007–08, Ministry of Finance, Govt of India, 2008.

10. See Baru, ISAS Working Paper No. 58 (2008).

11. Interview to author, September 2008.

12. This information was provided by Dr Amit Mitra, Secretary-General, FICCI and Mr. Ramesh Chandran, FICCI.

13. Initiative to Transform Yale University's Engagement with India, Available at: http://opa.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=6223 Sunil Mittal Joins Carnegie Endowment Board of Trustees, At: http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=22901&prog=zgp&proj=zsa

14. There is continuing controversy in the Indian media and on the internet about allegations made in the papers of the “Mitrokhin Archives” regarding KGB funding of Indian journalists. Similar allegations have been made about CIA funding of media personalities. More recently there have been allegations that countries like China, Iran and Pakistan have been active in winning friends and influencing people in the Indian media. But all these remain unsubstantiated charges and rumors. Accessible via http://www.southasiaanalysis.org.

15. The cozy relationship at the time between the foreign policy establishment and the media was best summed up by the current Spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs: “In the comfortable old days – again, we need to look no further than 15 years ago – the world of diplomacy in India was covered by a set of about 20 erudite, polite gentlemen of the press and the dutiful Doordarshan and All India Radio. Briefings were comfortable, friendly and somewhat leisurely affairs, full of intellectual wit and repartee. The media persons would gather what they could before turning to the chai, samosa and gulab jamun and thereafter find, their way back to their offices to type out the stories for the rest of the evening. Today, we have to deal with not only a hugely expanded print media but also more than 30 24-hour TV news channels, several news agencies and even on-line journals. “ Navtej Sarna, ‘Media and Diplomacy’ in Atish Sinha, ed., Indian Foreign Policy, Challenges and Opportunities, Academic Foundation & Foreign Service Institute, New Delhi, 2007.

16. See for example, Rajdeep Sardesai's comment: “The other ministry which equally effectively manipulates the media is the Ministry of External Affairs. When they take you on a summit being attended by Atal Behari Vajpayee, they ply you with the choicest whisky and caviar on the flight and in turn it is expected that you will follow, hook, line and sinker what the ministry is saying. For instance, if the prime minister's recent visit to China is a success or if the Ministry of External Affairs feels it is a success, then you have to say that it is one. If you choose then to interpret that somewhere down the line there has been a compromise on Tibet, you are not supposed to use the word, ‘compromise’ because the overarching philosophy is that since they paid for you to come to China, how can you now write that the prime minister has sold out on Tibet? … because the media does not have the means of resisting the pressures from them (the reason being that sources of information will be completely cut off) it often toes the line.” Rajdeep Sardesai, “Manipulations and Bias in News,” in Uday Sahay, ed., Making News: Handbook of the Media in Contemporary India Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 166–171.

17. Sarna's essay on “media and diplomacy,” published in a major official publication of the ministry of external affairs and proclaimed as an authoritative and comprehensive survey of Indian foreign policy is almost entirely focused on the domestic media, with only a passing reference to foreign media!

18. The pro-active role of Indian media on human rights abuses in Tibet is a good recent example of media activism exerting pressure on Government.

19. See C. Uday Bhaskar, “KS: Vamana of Indian Nuclear Theology?” in C. Uday Bhaskar ed., A Bouquet of Tributes to K Subrahmanyam at 75”, New Delhi, 2004. Bhaskar observes: “Through seminars, workshops, lectures and his steady stream of newspaper articles, K Subrahmanyam(KS) shaped the Indian response to the nettlesome nuclear issue and the media became a contested domain… . . The TOI's op-ed page became a veritable battle-field. Sanjaya Baru, the editorial page editor, played a central role in shaping the Indian debate and from my modest perch at the time, I would aver that KS through his searing columns helped steer the debate over the CTBT so that the government of the day could take a firm decision in the matter.”(p.55)

20. Smruti S. Pattanaik, Elite Perceptions in Foreign Policy : Role of Print Media in Influencing India-Pakistan Relations, 1989–1999 New Delhi, Manohar, 2004.

21. One must not exaggerate the significance of this factor. Despite high business interest in Africa, Indian media's coverage of Africa is abysmal. On the other hand, the large presence of Indians in the Middle East and Persian Gulf has contributed to high media coverage of the region, including in the regional media in States like Kerala, which is home of a large proportion of migrant labor to that region.