Win over the region first

By K. K. Katyal

FOR THE third time in a row, the new year finds New Delhi grappling with neighbourhood challenges, varying in form but unchanged at the core - intractable. If the dawn of 1998 saw the makings of a bus diplomacy (which did not take long to come unstuck), last year began in the bitter aftermath of the hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight and now it is a ceasefire in Jammu and Kashmir, rudely punctuated with terrorist strikes. The dealings with Pakistan posed serious problems in all the three cases, and there is a worrying addition this time - the bursting into the open of anti-India sentiments in Nepal.

There is a case for a thorough analysis of the how and why of it. Whatever the finding of such an exercise, there will be no escape from two imperatives - to ring out the softness of the state and ring in a new priority for the region. That is the message conveyed by the complexities and persistence of these problems.

To take the second point first, there is need for policy-makers to remind themselves of the urgency of a closer focus on neighbourhood diplomacy. It is nobody's case that the present government or any of its predecessors defaulted on attending to the ties with Pakistan - or Nepal or other neighbours not excluding China - but the fact remains it has not been possible to attain the desired normality or even near-normality. The recent events in Nepal show how little it takes to expose the fragility of an equation that was taken for granted. Pakistan- centricity, at times practised by New Delhi, was confined to ad hoc strategies, to reactive moves, with the result that deep- rooted factors of hostility continued to grow. True, you need two to a tango - and even the best efforts by India could yield results only if there is reciprocity which, regrettably, was not forthcoming. But could we say all that was possible was done and there were no costly blunders at crucial stages?

Placed as India is, the ideal of smooth relations with all neighbours, in any given period, may remain elusive. But in dealing with the region, as a whole, the loss in one case could be made good by a gain in another. If, for instance, Pakistan's intransigence comes in the way of normal bilateral relations, there could be a greater thrust on Nepal, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh. If the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation does not move forward and the progress towards the preferential trade regime slows down or the preliminaries for a free trade zone remain frozen because of Islamabad's attitude, the triangles or quadrangles could be pursued seriously (the sporadic moves initiated so far are not enough). The region, as a whole, needs to be given the topmost priority on a sustained basis as part of a coherent action plan.

This is not to suggest that this be done at the cost of other areas - dealings with big powers, the U.S., the European Union, Russia, Japan and West Asia, each important on its merits -, economic diplomacy and the like. But India's standing in the world and its credibility as a major player will be in direct proportion to the degree of its acceptability in the region, apart, of course, from its internal strength, political and economic. This has been evident in the conduct of external affairs. Take India's claim to a permanent seat in an expanded United Nations Security Council. While some in the world community recognise its soundness, others want New Delhi to win over the region in the first instance. The regional baggage carried by India now has been a major drag in its dealings at the global level.

It may be a coincidence but it is a matter of serious concern that the third consecutive new year finds India preoccupied with an uneasy relationship with Pakistan, to the near-exclusion of other matters. Add to this the crisis in the ties with Nepal.

India finds itself in an unenviable position in the region. Its sheer size, vastness of its resources and the consequent asymmetry between it and others in South Asia create the big- brother syndrome, working to its disadvantage. India has land or maritime borders with others in the region, none of which, however, has a common border. That was the reason for the slow progress of the SAARC, compared to the strides made by regional groupings elsewhere. New Delhi could not help these handicaps but could well formulate creative, innovative strategies to deal with this peculiar situation.

Even though no reminder was needed of the continued softness of the state, the developments on (or soon after) three new year days provided the disturbing evidence. The year 1998 started on a hopeful note. India and Pakistan had been engaged in composite dialogue, having worked out its modalities after tortuous negotiations. The situation took an unexpectedly pleasant turn, with the decision to start a regular bus service between New Delhi and Lahore, and the Prime Minister, Mr. A. B. Vajpayee, undertaking the inaugural journey. What happened then was recent history - the Lahore Declaration, a Memorandum of Understanding on nuclear confidence-building measures, euphoria over the historic discussions with his then Pakistani counterpart, Mr. Nawaz Sharif, the promise of a return visit and the back-channel diplomacy to resolve the Kashmir issue. The optimism, however, did not take long to evaporate. The gains of Lahore were undone by Kargil and the scars left by it continue to plague the bilateral relationship.

The bus diplomacy was a sound proposition - as was grudgingly recognised even by Mr. Vajpayee's detractors at that point of time. Those who found fault with it later spoke with hindsight, an inferior brand of wisdom. There was nothing wrong with the Lahore process, but everything was wrong with the way Pakistan embarked on the Kargil misadventure. Whether Mr. Sharif was fully in the know of it or whether the operation was the handiwork of the then army chief and present military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, was beside the point.

The lapses on the part of the intelligence set-up and the failure of the field formations to take precautions, necessary in a sensitive region, were avoidable, man-made factors. Whether the gaps, revealed then, have been plugged is not known. What is public knowledge is that Parliament did not find time to consider the report of the committee set up to enquire into what went wrong. The non-seriousness about its findings - as widely perceived - is as serious as was the original failure. Softness compounded by apathy.

The hijack episode, from December 25 to 31, 1999 was a story of disregard of routine security precautions, mismanagement and bungling. It was a series of blunders - the laxity at the Kathmandu airport, where the unlucky flight originated, the lapse at Amritsar, where the hijackers could have been overpowered and the trauma of the passengers cut short and, perhaps, the lost life saved, and the failure to stall the plane at Dubai, where it landed before flying to a safe haven, the Taliban-controlled Kandahar. The crisis management group, comprising top functionaries of the Government, evoked ridicule because of its waywardness. As a result of New Delhi's shrunken options, there was perhaps no escape from a trade-off - the release of three dreaded terrorists for the safety of 180-plus passengers. It was a bitter pill New Delhi had to swallow. But the country could have been spared the ignominy of the External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, taking the released terrorists aboard his plane to Kandahar.

And, now, the new year finds the ceasefire hanging in the balance, between hope and despair - hope because of the start of a peace process and despair because of the continued acts of violence by elements, operating from the Pakistan territory. As for the Nepal episode, attention needs to be drawn to two of its many dimensions - it had had its origin in the Mumbai underworld bid to blackmail a popular star by fanning anti-India sentiments in Nepal, and the patronage extended by the ISI to this campaign. It is time the state put an end to its softness. We deserve better new year ``gifts''.

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