Country isolated or emerging superpower-the jury is still divided on that issue. But fact is, India lost out on key opportunities during Prime Minister Vajpayee's US visit, and Commerce Minister Murasoli Maran's posturing at Doha.

By Ashish Gupta & Anil Padmanabhan

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee

Intimidated them.'' if there is one phrase from the WTO Ministerial Summit at Doha (November 9-November 14) that has caught the collective fancy of India Inc., it is this, Commerce Minister Murasoli Maran's pithy summation of how he stood up to the might of the First World.

Coming soon after Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's claimed successes in getting US President George W. Bush, and the un General Assembly to see the Indian point of view, during his visit to the US between November 8 and 10, there does seem to be some substance behind the smug smiles some government functionaries sport these days.

Vajpayee is the silver-tongued orator who showed George W. Bush the error of his ways in not labelling Pakistan a terrorist state. And Maran is the unsung saviour of the entire developing world who stood up against the might of the US and the EU. ''India was under great pressure (at Doha), but nothing worked on Maran,'' exults T.K. Bhaumik, Senior Advisor, Policy at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). ''At the un General Assembly, Vajpayee was successful in ensuring that Pakistan had no gains on the Kashmir issue,'' says Dr Brahma Chellaney, a defence analyst.

Forget the hosannas for a minute; ignore the headlines in the dailies that have suddenly discovered a partisan strain of nationalism; and shut your ears to official statements from the government on how successful the Prime Minister's trip to the US, and Maran's soap-box style oratory at Doha were. And look beyond, at the real issues.

While you may be tempted to ignore the frippery, don't. Compare the relative sartorial statements made by Vajpayee and Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf in the US (neither will ever model for Hugo Boss, but even the most patriotic of Indians will accept that the man who rules over the country across the border does cut a dashing figure). Or, if it's substance you'd like to restrict the comparison to, focus on their relative intonations. Kanti Bajpai, a Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University's School of International Studies, admits that while Musharraf benefited during his US trip from not having to bother about the opposition or a Parliament back home, Vajpayee didn't exactly set the stage on fire with his oratory. ''Indian politicians are not used to being crisp; they are semi-evasive. In contrast, Pakistan's military leaders have been very good with the media. And then age matters.''

As for Doha, India's gains may have well been offset by Maran's abrasive lone-ranger act. According to Jeff Schoff, Senior Fellow at the Washington-based Institute of International Economics, ''India fared much better than the speeches of its commerce minister would indicate.''

How The Audition Failed

The Prime Minister's visit to the US is just the last in a series of MIS-steps made by those nameless individuals who craft the country's foreign policy. First, the perception in the US was that India did not leverage its relationship with the Northern Alliance adequately to push through the UN peace plan. And by seeking to have Pakistan declared a terrorist state, the Indian government has just served to reinforce Pakistan's fears of Indian hostility.

That's not to suggest Pakistan has done better. Musharraf is walking a tightrope. The ISI's stance on the Taliban is well-known and fundamentalists within the country aren't too happy with their President's support of the US. And he too has wasted effort on rhetoric over India's role in Afghanistan and the thorny issue of Kashmir, which India would have everyone believe isn't an issue at all. So, who won in this game of losers? ''India has lost both domestically and internationally by adopting a Pakistan-centric stance post September 11,'' explains Radha Kumar, Senior Fellow at the New York-based Council For Foreign Relations. ''Internationally, the loss is greater for India than Pakistan, as India had the opportunity to stake its claim for a (greater) global role, while Pakistan had to focus on crisis management.''

Maybe, in the desire to better its relations with the US, India did too much too soon. ''We do stupid things,'' rues Bajpai. ''Our initial offer to the US about (the use of Indian) air-bases put the Americans in an embarassing position; and Vajpayee made a speech in Parliament in the wake of the September 11 incident saying, 'I told you so...'. This isn't done.''

Indeed, some political analysts believe India may have actually been better off by just sitting tight. ''Politically, India should distance itself from the US and try to come closer economically,'' says Sunil Dasgupta, an analyst at Washington's Brookings Institute. But as the happenings at Doha went on to show, that doesn't seem to be happening.

Economically, India couldn't have expected much from Vajpayee's US visit, so, despite the gains made by Pakistan-including Bush's offer of aid, and his promise to open up the US market to Pakistan's textile exports-things aren't as bad as they could be. ''Pakistan was bankrupt and if it had not asked for something, the country would have imploded,'' says Rafiq Dossani, a consulting professor at Stanford U's Asia-Pacific Research Centre. ''What could India have asked for?'' Thus, while the pm's US visit may have had an indifferent outcome from the political perspective (negative, if one were to consider opportunities lost), it doesn't seem to have done anything on the economic one. That, Maran took care of at Doha.

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