India gives US a lesson in democracy

A statement by the Ministry of External Affairs in India late on Thursday made headlines on the Times of India website.

In response to US envoy to Pakistan, Ryan Cocker's statements about how India should share evidence with Pakistan instead of making public accusations, the MEA said, " One would have expected Ambassador Crocker to understand that democratic governments have a prime responsibility to keep their own people fully informed." Ouch! That must have hit hard.

I have always been intrigued about the functional terrain that officials like ambassadors, envoys and high commissioners to countries get themselves into. I specially started thinking about it after watching an interview by Charlie Rose in Jan 2002. Charlie interviewed the former Ambassadors to India and Pakistan, Frank Wisner and Nicholas Platt. In typical Charlie Rose style, the three of them sat at a table and discussed the South Asian scenario revolving around India and Pakistan. Goes without saying, India's war on terror and the Kashmir issue was a hot topic. The most interesting part was, while talking about the Indo-Pak dispute, there was a clear difference of opinion between the two US ambassadors. Frank Wisner talked pro-India while Nicholas Platt supported Pakistan.

Yup, obviously both of them are fully entitled to their own opinion, but the US and India have too largely seen eye-to-eye on the whole Indo-Pak issue. It was funny to see Nicholas Platt clearly agree with Pakistani assertions about India like, India playing a blame game all the time, not respecting the rights of the Kashmiris and so on. It was an interesting watch to see two men from the same country having different opinions about the same issue, and interestingly in both cases, they supported the countries they formerly worked in.

Which brings me back to the first thought, about much do officials like these really get opinionated or should get opinionated about policies and relations of the country that they work in. Does it fall within the duties of let's say a US Ambassador to project to the world, the issues that the country in which he or she is stationed thinks affects them? Or is it just an obvious result of an extended duty in a foreign country, to be in line with issues surrounding that country, to the extent that he or she begins to agree by them? Or is he just allowed to have a personal opinion? I have been trying to ask these questions for a long time now. And as you can see, am still asking.

Talking of democratic statements. The one statement made my Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his address to the US congress in July 2005 comes immediately to my mind.

"We are often criticized for being too slow in making changes in policy, but democracy means having to build a consensus in favor of change. As elected representatives, you are all familiar with this problem."

This was followed by the loudest applause of the speech by the members of the US Congress.