Geography Reference
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name of sovereignty, be able to oppose international interventions to protect
peoples, provided this has been decided legitimately.'
71
The standard position of New Delhi in this regard has always been, since the
Nehruvian days, to assert the pre-eminence of national sovereignty. However, of
late, unorthodox questions are now accepted in India, and even discussed by top-
ranking officials. Indian Foreign Secretary Chokila Iyer acknowledged recently
that 'the traditional absolutist notions of state sovereignty' is now under challenge.
She was not referring only to 'the ongoing process of creation of supranational
institutions in Europe', which 'could also impact on strategies and processes in
our regions of the world', for 'voluntary surrender of sovereignty…is bound to
be an increasingly intense and accepted phenomenon'.
The Foreign Secretary was directly addressing the 'dilemma' raised by
'genocide and egregious human rights violations': 'should the international
community watch as a mute spectator, restrained by the sanctity of national
sovereignty'? The answer is not yet clear, for the risks of a 'right or
responsibility of humanitarian intervention and limits on national sovereignty,
even if well-intentioned' could be 'based on the promise that external forces can
resolve all problems, in all parts of the world'.
72
But the question has now been
raised.
At stake are two related questions raised by Védrine about multipolarity: (i)
how to organize a cooperative multipolarity, a positive relationship between the
major powers? (ii) how could the poles establish 'an equitable relationship with
the whole multilateral system, in other words all the UN member countries'?
Védrine's answer may please India. To devise rules enabling 'the necessary
humanitarian intervention to be decided on under less difficult conditions than
those provided by the UN Charter' (…) is the exercise today assigned to the
international community and especially to the permanent members of the
Security Council and not just them, but also those destined to join them'.
73
Could we conclude from the above that India and France share the view that
'community of principle is the basis of [a] multipolar world' as a commentator
put it?
74
The hard
realpolitik
favored by the present Indian government may
choose nice words sometimes, but might also be direct enough. When Jaswant
Singh was asked 'where does (India) find her principal allies, her best friends?',
he carefully avoided drawing a merit list, and chose rather to locate himself on
ground occupied before by Talleyrand and Kissinger: 'I don't think countries
have best friends. Countries have best interests.'
75
Singh had clarified earlier that
'foreign policy (means) the relentless pursuit of one's own national interest and
not only the establishment of a just world order'.
76
I am not sure that the present
paradigm of the French foreign policy, which does recognize the commanding
national interest, would be so blunt regarding the quest for 'a just world order'.
Must we believe therefore that there is 'more hype than substance in the Indo-
French relationship', considering the limited progress of economic relations, and
