P Kharel

With its ambition of joining Big Power Club and a long-shot hope of getting aboard the United Nations Security Council as a permanent member (with or without the veto privilege), India’s average relationship with the rest of the South Asian states remains the most uneasy since its 1947 independence from British rule. What really went wrong with the world’s “largest” democracy? Inconsistencies in foreign policy approach inflicted a heavy dent on its international image and credibility. This should not have happened in a region with rich heritage from a deep past.
For any nation, good rapport begins in the neighbourhood, extending to other regions. Indian intellectuals and their media are conspicuous by excessive emphasis on its relations with Nepal “since time immemorial” pertaining to culture, religion, pilgrimage sites, trade and geographical proximity.

Incongruous
Such assertion should have been of equal — probably more — applicable to India’s ties with several other contiguous neighbours like Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan, Myanmar and Sri Lanka who all share the burden of having been under colonial rule in different forms. The need is to attune its foreign policy befitting the regional power’s international ambitions.

The British engaged India in the two World Wars. Nepal, one of the oldest independent countries, sided with history’s biggest known empire to generate goodwill and ensure its independence. Rana rulers saw the good in keeping the country safe from that powerful force whose appetite for gaining control over small states was underscored by the fact that rest of South Asia plus Myanmar was under its thumbs. British influence and presence in China was one of the strongest among several foreign powers that pounced on the most populous country for peddling opium and extracting backbreaking economic concessions.

In short, the British were an otherwise aggressive and demonstrably powerful empire. They taught many lessons — good, bad and ugly. They managed to get off the ugly hook, given their trail of encroachment, suppression and exploitation of literally hundreds of Indian states, enormous local resources and astonishingly cheap labour.

The colonial rulers quit India in 1947 but critics complain that independent India’s approach to neighbours has been one of continuity to that of the British. So much so that, in the new millennium, Indian influence has thinned particularly in South Asia and other developing regions. If wishes were concrete support, India would long ago have been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

In the latest development, Indian news media are dismayed over India not being given any meaningful role after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan. The question is: What was its role during the two decades of the presence of the US-led forces in that non-aligned South Asian country? In 1979, when the Soviets sent troops into Afghanistan and installed a pliable regime, the Indian government did not protest the intervention. On the other hand, Nepal registered a protest against the foreign interference.
For that matter, the 1971 treaty between Russia and India, shortly before India was involved in action related to the eventual emergence of East Pakistan as an independent Bangladesh, raised uncomfortable questions regarding one of the founder members of the Non-aligned Movement formally launched in 1961.

Likewise, the Indian Peace Keeping Forces’ presence in Sri Lanka, too, attracted less than pleasant questions. To make matters worse for the big neighbour, the warring sides in the island nation — Sri Lankan troops and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam — announced a truce operative until the foreign troops quit their land. New Delhi’s embarrassment heightened after a prominent Indian opposition leader, VP Singh, called for bringing “our boys back”, as they were fighting a war that “nobody wants”. Not much elaboration is required on the frosty ties between the two nuclear neighbours, India and Pakistan, who have fought several wars between them since their 1947 independence.

Similarly, crippling economic blockades clamped on Nepal since the 1960s gave a big jolt to many a Nepali. The report submitted by the Eminent Persons Group (EPG), comprising members from both the neighbours, has been gathering thick layer of dust in the cluttered cloisters of the Indian government for long. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ostensibly not been able to spare time to receive it formally. The report’s contents seem to leave doubts whether they meet the original intent and purpose of the concept floated at New Delhi’s initiative.
On India’s home front, new concerns have emanated from the recently intensified inter-state border disputes in north-eastern region. Police forces of Mizoram and Assam were engaged in exchange of fire in July. The two states share borders with Bangladesh, Bhutan and Myanmar. Comprising over 60 per cent of north-eastern states’ combined population, Assam has a special position among the “Seven Sisters”. 

Complex conditions
Some 200 Assamese policemen entered Mizoram and “forcefully took control of a Mizo police duty”. This was one of several such incursions in the recent months. The state is locked in tension also with Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh. During the British rule, the Assam province included Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram. The latter four were granted statehood in the 1960s. Mainstream Assamese call for identifying “illegal citizens”, in what others see as an effort at singling out Bengali Muslims.

The National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Issac-Muivah) wants a unified Naga homeland. On another plane, Beijing has relentless disputes over the sparsely populated Arunachal Pradesh, which shares 1,100 kilometre border with South Tibet. The abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir has triggered a new low in India’s ties with China and Pakistan. Some analysts speculate that Beijing might “try to raise the cost of India becoming too close to the US”. And Pakistan vows to “never accept” the change.

Ambitious powers cannot afford to have less than warm ties with too many neighbours. Bruce Riedel, a senior officer at the United States Central Intelligence Agency, recalls how Washington rejected New Delhi’s frantic plea for air support against the advancing Chinese troops during the 1962 war that ended in India’s humiliating defeat. The existing fate of the stalled Eminent Persons’ Group Report and the long delayed SAARC summit should also be seen in this light. Striking a neighbourly chord and avoiding the option of placing friendly neighbouring countries in a stranglehold will free the risks of long-term woes of any regional power. The results will be positively durable even as power equations and regional conditions change in a fast moving world.

(Professor Kharel specialises in political communication.)