India’s delay in confirming its participation at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, Norway, when the jailed Chinese pro-democracy activist Liu Xiaobo will be honoured in absentia, has confused and confounded some and made others anxious.

New Delhi’s silence is particularly surprising because enquiries to the Nobel Institute have suggested that the Indian ambassador to Norway, Mr Banbit Roy, can be expected to attend the December 10 ceremony. The Institute had invited 58 ambassadors based in Oslo and at last count only China, Russia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Cuba, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines had declined the invitation.
At least 36 countries, including the US, the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands have confirmed their attendance. In fact, British Prime Minister David Cameron is expected to attend a business event in China at the time of the ceremony. Obama, who was seen in India as being soft on China not so long ago, has agreed to send Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, to grace the ceremony.
Dr Yang Jianli, a former Chinese political prisoner who is a friend of Liu Xiaobo and his wife Liu Xia and is now a permanent US resident, can’t understand New Delhi’s diffidence. “There is no reason whatsoever not to send [the Indian] ambassador. India is the largest democracy and therefore it is very important and I urge the government of India to send [its envoy],” Dr Yang told this newspaper.
“India cannot afford not to send, I don’t think India can afford to succumb to China’s repressive tactics,” Dr Yang said.
He will host a reception in Oslo on the eve of the ceremony to which Nancy Pelosi, US Congressman Chris Smith, Amnesty International’s chief Salil Shetty, US government-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) president Carl Gershman, Adam Michnik, a former Polish dissident and now editor-in-chief of a newspaper who was a leading organiser of the opposition to the Polish communist government, among others, have been invited. Invitation has been sent out to the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, too, but he is expected to send his representative instead.
Dr Alka Acharya from the Centre for East Asian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, says the violence of the Chinese responses to the announcement of the prize to Liu Xiaobo surprised her, as did the threats of consequences to any nation that attends the ceremony. The issue has put India in a tight spot but she suspects India will not want to muddy the waters ahead of the mid-December visit here by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
“I’d think we should not be seen as being browbeaten by China but in the interest of Sino-Indian relations the Government of India may well decide that it may not be appropriate [for the Indian envoy to Oslo to attend],” Dr Acharya told this newspaper.
There is another view that idealism has never driven foreign policy and that the Nobel prizes are a political issue; they are in a sense like the Miss World contests that are accused of being driven by market considerations.
India’s vacillation is in contrast to the optimistic note on which Mr Obama concluded his visit here. In his speech to the joint session of Parliament, he had said that as the world’s two largest democracies, India and the US must not forget that the price of their own freedom is standing up for the freedom of others. “... speaking up for those who cannot do so for themselves is not interfering in the affairs of other countries. Its not violating the rights of sovereign nations. It is staying true to our democratic principles, Mr Obama had noted.