‘We don’t have the luxury of not taking a stand’

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Ronen Sen worked with three Prime Ministers and helped shape India’s policy on Israel. In this interview with Parul Chandra in the context of the Iran-Israel conundrum, he speaks of the virtue of taking a stand as against posturing, while remaining alive to evolving situations.

Israel is said to be putting pressure on India to support a UN Security Council resolution against Iran on the terrorism issue after last Monday’s bombing of an Israeli embassy car in New Delhi. How do you see these developments?

I don’t think it’s a question of pressure. And I don’t think that we should look at this issue in terms of whether it’s American pressure on Iran, or Israeli pressure on India. What’s happening is that there are a lot of developments, and it’s quite clear to me that we no longer have the luxury of not taking positions because you don’t have a non-aligned position, you don’t have a G-77 position.
If you have any aspirations at all to play a role that behoves a country of our size and potential, then we will have to take positions of our own in terms of our overall international responsibilities, as a responsible country in the comity of nations and in terms of our own interest.
There have been a large number of developments, and as all the pieces on the chessboard are moving at the same time, the issues are complex. They’re not given to black and white, simplistic, solutions. There are numerous shades of grey. We have to take positions as we go along. There will be debate and discourse, and this is healthy in any democracy. But we have to take positions.

The Israelis have accused Iran and the Hezbollah of carrying out the recent strike.

If you look at it in the proper context, this is not the first time that the Israelis have been attacked here. The first time was on 26/11 when Jewish persons were targeted. Apart from India, Israel and the US were targeted. Some say we should not get entangled in what’s happening in West Asia.
In the overall context of what I just said, we can no longer pretend that we are isolated or immune from these developments.
If you look at the situation —it’s a terrorist act, and we’ve acknowledged it as such. We’ve again acknowledged that it was not a random terrorist attack but a targeted one. We also cannot escape the fact that we have to take into account the correct position that we’ve taken in the past that we should not view
terrorism in a sub-regional or regional context, or put incidents in different compartments.
You have to view the entire phenomenon of terrorism as a hydra-headed monster which has to be handled globally, and with full international cooperation. The least we can do is to condemn this action and to say that the perpetrators will be brought to justice. We cannot arrive at any immediate conclusion since investigations are still on. We have to make it clear that we cannot let such a thing happen, and that there will be consequences.

How do you see the growing India-Israel relations in recent years when we consider Israel as we speak of terrorism?

There’s not much awareness that the decision to resume diplomatic relations with Israel was taken during Rajiv
Gandhi’s tenure as Prime Minister. I worked closely with him and we had a fairly elaborate, step-by-step process which was in progress; for instance, in extending the jurisdiction of the Israeli consul in Mumbai, sporting events, cooperation in agriculture, and moving on from there.
We had a number of contacts, overt and covert. Ultimately, Prime Minister Narasimha Rao completed the task. We became the last major non-Arab country to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. Since then, the relations have developed very rapidly, particularly in sensitive areas in terms of counter-terrorism where we’ve got invaluable assistance, sensitive defence technologies etc. These areas have a critical bearing on our overall security. They have been partners with us and reliable partners at that.

Has the recent attack put India in a tight spot vis-a-vis its relations with Iran and Israel?

No, I don’t see it that way. I don’t see why we should see the position in that manner. The issue is not one of resisting US pressures. There, it is not the Jewish lobby as such. The issue has much broader support than that.
In the present-day context, you have to take into account Israel, the Gulf countries, the Arab League, other major countries in that area, Turkey and the European nations.
If you see this as pressuring, the reaction will be that of posturing. This is not the time for posturing. You have to look at the issue in objective terms.
The situation is developing rapidly. We have to see all the developments as they are taking place. There are, of course, a lot of double standards
internationally.

What do you have in mind?

Double standards about Western positions, American positions, Indian positions vis-a-vis democracy in West Asia, North Africa and elsewhere in the world, too. The Americans of course have double standards in every respect, whether we speak of monarchies, theocracies or autocracies. Take Burma, where there was a change in the (American) position. In the case of Iran, even during my stay in the US, there was not one given position. It evolved with the situation. Even today, I’m sure that as pressures mount, the US is also continuing with efforts to establish contacts.
The US, while talking about democracy, shored up military governments in Pakistan. Even in terms of non-proliferation, there was Chinese assistance — it was virtually a Chinese programme that was transplanted into Pakistan with the US looking the other way. Whereas people are looking at Iran as the destination of proliferation, nobody’s looking at the source of proliferation.
At the same time, we have commonalities in approach (with others). We’ve also said that an Iran with nuclear weapons, or another country with nuclear weapons in our region, is not in India’s interest. We’ve also said in the past, and this remains valid even now — that Iran undertook certain obligations voluntarily (as an NPT signatory), and it should stick to those obligations.
Naturally, we cannot be frozen for all time in a particular position. The situation is evolving and we have to adjust ourselves creatively while holding on to certain principles and values. We will have to see how our interests are best served, and take positions accordingly. But we should not be opportunistic. Flexibility does not mean opportunism.