Re-visiting neighbourhood policy
N Sathiya Moorthy
No discourse nearer home or afar on India's geo-strategic imperatives for the 21st century has been complete without a strong and at times repeated reference to the 'String of Pearls' theory involving China. A theory floated by western strategic thinkers, it had takers in India immediately afterward - to try and ward off the threats from China. Now, it seems to have more takers in the nations of the proponents of the theory. Many are actively engaged as much in India's neighbourhood as with India, with which they have strategic cooperation agreement or arrangement. Some of these bilateral arrangements may still be in the pipeline but that does not alter the course, either in their geo-strategic appeals to India or their own geo-strategic appeal for some of India's neighbours.
Nothing explains the emerging Indian predicament
than the recently-signed MoU for the US to gift a 'border management system' for
Maldives, after the Government of President Mohammed Waheed Hassan Manik had
cancelled the existing one with the Malaysian firm, Nexbiz. The Waheed
Government had offered reasons similar to those that it had proffered in the
case of Indian infrastructure major, GMR Group, for the cancellation - though
the issues were more complex and even more politicised in the latter case for a
variety of reasons. The Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) of former President
Mohammed Nasheed, which had condemned the Nexbis cancellation as strong as the
GMR, is yet to react to the new MoU for the US 'gift'. The Malaysian Government,
which at the height of the GMR cancellation controversy, had worked hard on the
ground to try and save the Nexbis contract - it was against payment - too has
maintained silence. Or, so it seems.
Maldives is not the only nation in the Indian
sub-continent after domestic difficulties of some kind or other. The US is there
already in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to a greater or lesser degree, both
militarily and otherwise. The American influence would continue in these
countries even after the planned and promised withdrawal of NATO troops from the
region. If anything, Afghanistan could become the alternate or accompanying
theatre for an emerging and at times inevitable 'cold war' of the 21st century.
Already, neighbourhood nations in various combinations - the list includes
China, Russia, Pakistan and Iran - have been talking to one another. India is
caught in the middle. It cannot count on its US strategic partner as much on it
could count on the erstwhile Soviet Union, particularly in terms of not pursuing
a South Asia policy independent of Indian concerns, interests and consultations
with New Delhi.
Apart from Afghanistan and Pakistan, the past
years witnessed increased US involvement in countries such as Bangladesh, where
the American Ambassador of the day was seen brokering peace between the
conflicting political stake-holders and in brining in the armed forces to run an
'election-eve government' the last time round. It should be said to the credit
of Amb Patricia Butenis that the armed forces returned to the barracks once the
people of Bangladesh had voted in the Awami League back to power, one more time.
In Myanmar and in Nepal, where again military junta and Maoists respectively had
held sway, 'democratisation' has had the American - and not the Indian
footprint. Today, in Sri Lanka, where India used to be the sole external power
that the Government, the political Opposition and the minority Tamils - and the
Muslims too, to an extent -- had regarded with respect, the US is all too
visible through the UNHRC process.
'China factor' and more
It would not have been an easy task for a large
and strong nation like India to carry the Governments and peoples of smaller
neighbours with it, as they have more fear of the unknown in bilateral equations
of the kind. The domestic developments in these countries - more than nearer
home (Tamil Nadu in the case of Sri Lanka, for instance) - dictates that New
Delhi is not seen as an 'interventionist' force of some kind. As the experience
of the past has shown, stake-holders in these countries want India in their
midst only on their selective terms, not even for helping them to achieve the
'common good' of their respective nation as a whole.
Given the complexities of geo-strategic and
location advantages some of them (purportedly) enjoy and the increasing
pulpit-threats flowing from the 'China factor', New Delhi, still licking its
wounds of 1962 vintage, cannot but be cautious, not only about Beijing's
intentions and reach. It also has to be cautious and concerned about the limited
capacities some of India's neighbours have in exploring and exploiting the
limited advantages that they still enjoy viz India. While evaluating the Indian
position(s) based on what it can do in any given circumstance and the larger
global mood, New Delhi still needs to take into account the geo-strategic
advantages that India has to offer, strategic partners - existing ones and
emerging possibilities, and explore and exploit them, as well.
The Indian perception on these matters would
still be conditioned, and hence impeded by its concerns about a raising China
and its intentions, influenced as both are by existing and emerging scenarios on
the bilateral front, and 'multilateral front' if one were to include Pakistan as
a third arm in the India-China equilibrium after the 'un-fought war' of 1962,
that too, independent of India-Pakistan equations, which have been on a see-saw
all through, instead. In the emerging context, with the US and its known and
identifiable and trusted regional allies making inroads into what is
acknowledged as India's 'strategic backyard', they have 'out-sourced' part of
America's larger strategic concerns in what has for them emerged as the
Indo-Pacific region (focused and narrowed down from Asia-Pacific) to India,
Washington also seems to be wanting to develop independent modules of American
presence in India's own neighbourhood.
Filling neighbourhood vacuum
Even after the military withdrawal from
Afghanistan, the US will have its naval presence in the Indian Ocean
neighbourhood of India and the rest of South Asia. On land, it seems to be
filling in a diplomatic and developmental vacuum, created by China's exit or
purported down-gradation, for which India has worked through the past years with
and on individual nations. If someone thought that New Delhi would itself fill
the vacuum, where none existed until China had arrived in the first place, that
does not seem to be happening. In the short and the medium-term, India may have
to choose between China and the US as the 'global power' that it could accept in
the immediate neighbourhood. Over the long-term, however, New Delhi needs to ask
itself if that is what it wanted, and wanted to continue, too.
For India, the 'String of Pearls' does not stop
with China. The emerging pattern of an 'exiting' or less influential China
getting replaced by the US - and long-term committed allies of the US - has a
message of its own. For now, the shape of the Indian economy may not encourage
India's neighbours to take it as seriously as they had been doing for over a
decade now. They had hoped to share India's prosperity. That did not happen,
whatever the individual case and independent reasons. Such being the case, the
developmental assistance even in that period used to come from China - and India
could not stop it, or seen as stopping it, either. That was also when the US and
the rest of the western economies had hit their lowest since the days of 'Great
Depression'. Today, the small change in Uncle Sam's pocket, which is what many
of these nations will be satisfied with, in the interim, is going to them.
Need for national discourse
For India to be taken seriously by its
neighbours, and other friends and adversaries alike, it has to be clear in its
mind as to what it is and where it is headed, and where it wants to go - and can
actually travel to. The post-Cold War, 'reforms era' riot of ideas put India
already in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans - at least in the minds of the
'strategic community' in New Delhi. The 'String of Pearls' brought them closer
home to the Indian Ocean, where alone India belongs just now, as in the
centuries past. In the midst of economic re-evaluation of the self, New Delhi
needs to flag a national discourse on India's strategic priorities and goals.
Has it already over-stretched its geo-strategic ambitions and goals, and has
spread the available and anticipated wares this in the question for which India
needs to have an open and transparent discourse, leading to attainable goals
(even if in stages and phases) accompanied by the economic strength that could
fund and sustain those dreams.
Soviet, American experiences
Post-War global history has shown that no nation
in the world had become a global power without having a secure and peaceful
neighbourhood, and a strong and supportive manufacturing base. The failed Soviet
experience would show that jack-booting the neighbour into submission comes with
an extended cost, which proved too costly in this case. The parallel American
experience of 'buying' loyalty and sharing prosperity through meaningful means
(down to the continuing large-scale illegal Mexican migration) has ensured that
no visible State-sponsored threat exists for the US to bother about in its
relatively isolated locale after 'Pearl Harbour' and 'Cuban missile crisis'.
Embarrassed as the US was, it has since smoked out the Al Qaeda attacks on the
'homeland' with a strong message across the world and continents for
recalcitrant elements not to meddle with America.
India does not enjoy such luxury or capacity, and
is not expected to acquire at least the latter in the foreseeable future even if
it manages to put neigbourhood relations (even barring those with China and
Pakistan) on an even keel without further loss of time. A nation that continues
to import night-vision thermal-imaging equipment for its battle-tanks, and has
spend billions in scarce foreign exchange on recouping and re-equipping its
war-machinery has a long way to go, both in terms of inherent military strength
and economic strength, what with the diversion of huge sums over a relatively
short period for defence procurement taking the bottom out of the nation's
economy over issues of national pride and preparedness - for an un-fought war,
after all.
At a time when Indian big businesses are
investing huge sums overseas, on captive coal-fields and manufacturing
facilities, New Delhi needs to ask itself what is needed to make them invest in
India, and minimise the nation's dependence on FDI, which experience has shown
is anyway hard in coming, particularly in the core and manufacturing sectors.
What is more, India has to be as much apprehensive of its friends as it has to
be of its known adversaries. After all, it is a larger game of global dominance,
played out over the longer term in which India is caught in. How it positions
itself and plays it game and part alike, and how and where it travels from there
is the question it should ask itself. It is as much about strategy as about
tactics, short, medium and long-terms, after all.
(The writer is a Senior Fellow at Observer
Research Foundation)
İRaajjenews.com