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India Suborned: The Global South and the Geopolitics of India s Vote Against Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Ravi Palat
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Ironically, in the very year when the fiftieth anniversary of the Bandung Conference is being commemorated, the Manmohan Singh government unceremoniously dumped India's long espousal of independence in international affairs and voted with the United States and the European Union to censure Iran for allegedly violating its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Safeguards Agreement. The vote, at a meeting of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on 22 September 2005, was doubly incongruous as the Indian Ministry of External Affairs’ website clearly recognizes that these allegations were “not justified” and that it would “not be accurate to characterize the current situation as a threat to international peace and stability”.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 3 , Issue 10 , October 2005 , e18
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Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2005

Footnotes

*

I gratefully acknowledge the comments of Mark Selden, Faruk Tabak, and an anonymous reviewer on earlier drafts of this article.

References

Notes

[1] Government of India, Ministry of External Affairs, “Explanation of Vote on Draft Resolution on the Iran Nuclear issue at the IAEA Govering Body Meeting,” 24 September, 2005

[2] Praful Bidwai, “India Diminishes Itself,” The News International, 1 October, 2005.

[3] Michael T. Klare, “Revving Up the China Threat: New Stage in US-China Policy”.

[4] David Albright & Corey Hinderstein, “Iran Building Nuclear Fuel Facilities: International Transparency Needed,’ ISIS Issue Brief, ISIS Issue Brief 12 December, 2002.

[5] Siddharth Varadarajan, “Iran and the Invention of a Nuclear Crisis,’ The Hindu, 21 September, 2005.

[6] “108th Congress, 2nd Session, H.CON.RES.398, Concurrent Resolution) May 6, 2004.

[7] http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/infcircs/2004/infcirc637.pdf

[8] Siddharth Varadarajan, “The World Must Stand Firm on Diplomacy,” The Hindu, 23 September, 2005.

[9] Varadarajan, “Iran and the Invention of a Nuclear Crisis.”

[10] Aijaz Ahmad, “Iran: Imperialism's Second Strike,” Frontline, XXII, 21, 8 October, 2005.

[11] Siddharth Varadarajan, “What the IAEA Really Found in Iran.” The Hindu, 22 September, 2005.

[12] Ravi Arvind Palat, “On New Rules for Destroying Old Countries,” Critical Asian Studies, XXXVII, 1, March 2005, pp. 86-87.

[13] Andy Mukherjee, “China and India May Put Commerce Above Conflict,” International Herald Tribune, 6 April 2005. Elsewhere—in Bangladesh and Myanmar—the two Asian giants compete against each other in energy projects, Tarique Niazi, “China, India and the Future of South Asia.”.

[14] Leslie Wayne, “A Deal for Jet Fighters Opens the Door to India,” New York Times, 16 April, 2005.

[15] Lora Saalman, “Redrawing India's Geostrategic Maps With China and the United States.”

[16] Conn Hallian, “Sleight of Hand: India, Iran & the United States,” Foreign Policy in Focus, 19 October, 2005.

[17] Bidwai, “India Diminishes Itself.” Immediately after India's vote against Iran at the IAEA, an irate Iranian ambassador announced that a $21 billion deal to supply India with 5 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas annually for a twenty-five year period is off. Through some deft diplomacy, Indian officials were soon able to announce that the deal was revived. This does not refer to the pipeline deal that is still being negotiated.

[18] James Kynge, “Chronic Over-Investment, Excess Supply, and Endemic Corruption: Can China Keep Its Booming Economy?” Financial Times, 23 September, 2003.

[19] Randeep Ramesh.”Chindia, Where the World's Workshop Meets Its Office,” Guardian, 30 September, 2005.

[20] Jerry Harris, “Emerging Third World Powers: China, India, and Brazil,” Race & Class, XLVI, 3, pp. 23-24.I am grateful to Bill Martin for bringing this article to my attention.

[21] Ibid., p. 21.

[22] Marc Frank, “Eye Surgeons Bring Ray of Hope to the Caribbean.” Financial Times, 21 October, 2005.