The Hindu : India's new neighbour

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Thursday, Mar 28, 2002

Opinion

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India's new neighbour

By C. Raja Mohan

Instead of objecting to American military presence in the region, India must leverage it to move the neighbourhood towards peace and prosperity.

THE UNITED States of America is India's newest neighbour. American troops are now in Pakistan and Afghanistan. As part of the ongoing war against international terrorism, the U.S. has warned that it would confront the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) if it undermines the present peace process in Sri Lanka. The U.S. is also offering military assistance to Nepal to fight the Maoist threat. Traditionalists in the Indian foreign policy community are squirming with unease at the turn of events since September 11. It is possible to argue however that the growing U.S. engagement in the region is an extraordinary opportunity to transform the international relations of the subcontinent.

The new sense that the American military presence in the subcontinent could be stabilising and productive runs counter to the idea of a "Monroe Doctrine" that seems to have animated Indian strategic thinking about its neighbourhood. That India must try and exclude other major powers from operating in the subcontinent, like the U.S. in Latin America, was an objective Jawaharlal Nehru himself emphasised. India's insistence on maintaining special and exclusive relations with its smaller neighbours became part of India's foreign policy tradition. Nehru's daughter's muscular policies towards the neighbours in demanding strict bilateralism and opposing the presence of other powers in the region was called the "Indira Doctrine". Rajiv Gandhi's punitive actions against Nepal for the monarchy's dalliance with China and his demand on Sri Lanka in 1987 not to give military bases to any external power reflected the same trend.

The time has come for India, however, to look back and see how effective this Indian attempt has been, whether it is sustainable, and if not think of alternative ways of stabilising the subcontinent. First, effectiveness. India never succeeded in implementing its own version of a Monroe Doctrine for the subcontinent. Pakistan successfully resisted this from the outset and drew the U.S. and China into the regional equation. The U.S. involvement in the region was largely guided by Cold War considerations of containing communism and the former Soviet Union in Asia. American policy in the region was not driven by a fundamental dissonance with India.

China believes it has an interest and the right to develop full and untrammelled relations with all the countries in the subcontinent. Over the decades Beijing has developed an "all-weather" partnership with Pakistan. China's ties with India's other neighbours, too, have steadily expanded over the decades, with or without India's acquiescence. Unlike China, Russia was willing to defer to Indian sensitivities in the subcontinent. That was reinforced by a de facto alliance between New Delhi and Moscow during the Cold War. But Russia too intervened with its military forces in Afghanistan for nearly a decade during the 1980s, setting off a train of developments whose consequences are still reverberating in the subcontinent.

In sum, India could not prevent the other great powers from injecting themselves into the affairs of the subcontinent. Meanwhile, its efforts to prevent them from doing so have resulted in a growing resentment against New Delhi in its neighbourhood and introduced frustrating complexities into India's regional policy. Huge anti-India lobbies have consolidated in every one of India's smaller neighbours, an easy target for political mobilisation by not only the great powers but Pakistan as well.

The political elites in India's neighbouring capitals have played these resentments effectively to keep New Delhi off balance with constant threats to bring another great power into play. As a result, India's own ability to develop constructive relations with the neighbours has suffered. More fundamentally, India's ability to ensure the security of the smaller neighbours has been undermined. The disastrous intervention in Sri Lanka showed how the warring groups in a neighbouring country seek to draw India into their internal conflicts on one side or the other and eventually target India itself as the threat. As a result, India now has little inclination to either mediate in the Sri Lankan conflict or directly involve itself in Kathmandu's war against the Maoists. An intervention by New Delhi would end up making India itself a big political issue.

Second, sustainability. In a globalising world, India cannot hope to keep the other great powers out of the subcontinent. As every one of the South Asian nations seeks cooperation with the rest of the world, the economic presence of other countries, China in particular, will rapidly grow in the subcontinent. As nationalism and independent identities grow among India's neighbours, the old ways of doing political business in the region are not going to work. Not surprisingly, India, unwilling to be drawn into the Sri Lankan conflict had to let the Norwegians broker a peace process in the island-nation. India also cannot hope to retain the outmoded 1950 treaty of peace and friendship with Nepal as the cornerstone of bilateral relations.

Third, looking at the alternatives, India has no choice but to quickly and consciously modernise its relations with its smaller neighbours taking into account the new global and regional realities. Contrary to the widespread fears, the new external context may, in fact, facilitate India's own strategic interest in restructuring the region.

The efforts by all the nations of the subcontinent to liberalise and globalise offers a historic opportunity to promote regional integration around the Indian market. The growing American and Chinese economic presence in the region will facilitate rather than hinder the integration of the subcontinent.

On the political side, there will be many in India who will be tempted to argue against the American presence in our neighbourhood on the basis of old prejudices and mindsets. India's approach to American military involvement in South Asia, which might be with us for a long while, must be defined by two considerations. Does it serve India's interests? And is it based on a long-term convergence of interests between India and the U.S.?

The American military involvement in the region after September 11 has brought some immediate gains for India in the form of the ouster of the Taliban regime, a reduction of the influence of Pakistan in Afghanistan, and more fundamentally increased U.S. pressure on the Pakistani military to give up cross-border terrorism and launch the nation on a new course emphasising modernity rather than jehad. None of these objectives, to be honest with ourselves, could have been accomplished by India on its own. India also should have little reason to oppose some welcome pressure on the LTTE to give up its old tactics and limited U.S. military assistance to Nepal in defeating the threat from Maoist extremism.

Cynics might want to suggest that the above developments might merely be unintended consequences of September 11 and that New Delhi must remain wary of a long-term American presence in the region. But a confident view would suggest that there is a new convergence of political interests between New Delhi and Washington to defeat the forces of extremism and terrorism in the region, end the economic partition of the subcontinent, and promote political moderation and economic modernisation in the region. Instead of objecting to American military presence in the region, India must leverage it to move the neighbourhood towards peace and prosperity. To make this work, we need to see sustained and transparent consultation and cooperation between New Delhi and Washington to promote a different future for the subcontinent.

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