Adding heft to diplomacy with some help from science
Context: India’s ongoing ‘Vaccine Maitri’ campaign, which is aimed at provisioning COVID-19 vaccines to countries both near to and away from its immediate neighborhood, is one of the most important recent initiatives to leverage its science and technological advantages for the furtherance of its foreign policy objectives.
Setting the template:
- India’s global priorities in science and technology were clearly articulated by its first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru during his address to the country’s Science Congress on January 21, 1959.
- Nehru was aware of both the constructive and destructive power of science and made India’s intention of seeking international scientific advances for the country’s development and rise clear with added emphasis on averseness to inter-state rivalries.
- This template would set the tone for India’s international science and technology engagement for much of the 20th century, and met with mixed results as more powerful states such as the United States sought to curb its ambitions in critical spheres such as its nuclear and space programmes.
Assertion of interests:
- Despite limitations, India still managed to assist its partners from the Global South in key areas of science and technology such as health across Asia and Africa.
- The country’s national confidence would also rise during the final decade of the last century as economic dynamism led to a more proactive assertion of its interest
- New Delhi established the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India in November 1999.
- And by the early years of the 21st century, it sought to reduce its dependence on foreign countries to then emerge as a net provider of development assistance in the international system.
- India would also sign strategic partnerships bearing substantial science and technology components with advanced economies such as the United Kingdom, Japan, Israel, Germany, the European Union, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and Canada.
- Both the country’s Science and Technology Policy 2003 and Science, Technology and Innovation Policy 2013 clearly related international science and technology cooperation with national interest.
- The Ministry of External Affairs too has seen a restructuring with a Cyber Diplomacy Division, an E-Governance & Information Technology Division and a New Emerging & Strategic Technologies Division to manage science and technology issues in the nation’s diplomatic matrix.
The COVID-19 response:
- New Delhi was swift to address the global challenge by initially sending medicines such as hydroxychloroquine and paracetamol to over 150 countries, welcomed by its partners across the world.
- India’s pharmaceutical firms such as the Serum Institute of India competently partnered with the K.’s Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine project while others such as Bharat Biotech gave rise to indigenous vaccines in the shape of Covaxin.
Areas for review:
- As India, through its Atma Nirbhar Bharat initiative, attempts to secure maximum self-reliance through capacity building and creating an environment where science and technology can not only answer its own national needs and cross-border interests but also global challenges, there are issues that must be addressed.
- India’s financial apportionment to science and technology related research must rise to enable the country’s own rise — as must participation of its states, universities and private sector in research and development efforts.
- The time is also right for India’s young scientists and technologists to be made more aware of the country’s foreign policy objectives, and to also enable all stakeholders in the policy establishment to learn more about science and technology to bridge the intellectual divide.
- The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has presented the country a unique space to mainstream science and technology in its domestic and foreign policies. It is now up to India’s decision-makers to conclusively convert this crisis into an opportunity.
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