Leo Tolstoy’s classic Anna Karenina begins with the famous sentence: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The Indian subcontinent is somewhat like this. A collection of unhappy neighbours – unhappy with each other and unhappy among themselves.
Nepal is troubled but may return from the edge as it experiments with democracy, Bangladesh remains sullen, violence prone and increasingly radicalised, Myanmar is aloof and distant but showing some signs of thaw, Sri Lanka is troubled and helpless unable to come to terms with its minority and Pakistan continues to be inimical and increasingly radicalised. Our largest neighbour, China, is powerful, aggressive and ambitious. Further away, in the extended neighbourhood, to our west, Iran is becoming regionally powerful and strategically important for India and Afghanistan, at war with itself, is slipping away into perpetual chaos.
The Indian subcontinent is somewhat like this. A collection of unhappy neighbours ““ unhappy with each other and unhappy among themselves.
The South Asian region holds the largest concentration of the world’s poor, all its religions are represented here, but also has the largest concentration of Muslims. In today’s context of events in the neighbourhood, a general anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world, given the behaviour pattern of some of our neighbours in using terrorism as a tool of foreign policy or as a force equaliser and a sense of rising expectations in an economically resurgent India, disequilibria of various kinds could occur. Handling these could be India’s major challenge.
India cannot help its size and has to live with the title of a regional hegemon or even a bully. We are at times accused of being arrogant and intrusive or on other occasions of being haughty and indifferent. It is an imperfect world.
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An economically resurgent India is now an accepted reality, only the pace and range can change. It is legitimate to wonder what the consequences could be for India’s neighbours. There has been unequal economic and political development all over Southern Asia, including Iran and Afghanistan. Therefore, it is politically and economically heterogeneous and varied. India’s rise is not a threat to her neighbours but can have positive consequences depending upon how leaders of these countries view this – as a threat or as an opportunity.
An economically resurgent India is now an accepted reality, only the pace and range can change. It is legitimate to wonder what the consequences could be for Indias neighbours.
Even before the current Indian reforms kicked in a big way, Bhutan had shown the way. India financed and built the Chukha hydel power plant and India now buys electricity from Bhutan. As a result, the per capita income of the Bhutanese is higher that the Indians living across the border.
Nepal could easily opt for a similar project for its rivers that flow into India but refuses to do so and the rivers run through their course without adding any value to Nepal’s economy except for minor irrigation and it earns nothing from India. Like other smaller countries it has often played the “China Card” while dealing with India. And China has played the Nepal card in dealing with India.
Bangladesh shows similar reluctance and prefers to keep its people unemployed and poor rather than cooperate with India in spheres of sharing the gas, transit rights and so on. Perhaps if it did not have the option of letting its people illegally migrate to India it may have been more cooperative and looked less at distant shores for support. A Bangladesh-Myanmar tie up to supply gas to China in preference to India has been made possible because of Chinese money power and its closeness to Myanmar.
India cannot remain solely dependent on sources like Saudi Arabia who have used their petro-dollars to fuel insurgencies in the region. Indias dependency on Iran will increase with passage of time.
After years of isolation under the military regime of Ne Win, Myanmar had emerged from this in a rather dramatic way in 1988. India had at that time missed an opportunity to get a toe-hold in this neighbour and let China take the lead. China had moved into the vacuum post-1988 and since then it has been an uphill climb for India. China is today Myanmar’s main weapons and military supplier and the close economic ties provide China with a strategic access to the Bay of Bengal. However, the Mekong Ganga Cooperation initiative of six countries – India and Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam for cooperation in tourism, telecommunications education and culture are important beginnings. The BIMSTEC agreement where Myanmar became a member in 1997 could bring Myanmar and India closer through regional frameworks.
Iran is an important component in India’s economic rise. As the economy gathers further momentum the demands for energy will increase in an energy deficient country. Iran is strategically important for India not only for the energy supplies that it has but also as it provides access for Indian trade with Central Asia denied to us by a recalcitrant Pakistan. Iraq used to be a major supplier of oil but no longer. Besides, India cannot remain solely dependent on sources like Saudi Arabia who have used their petro-dollars to fuel insurgencies in the region. India’s dependency on Iran will increase with passage of time.
Today Iran is the most powerful state in the Gulf and despite massive US military presence in region it is Iran that really calls the shots in Iraq and the US is only second in the power structure. Even Hamas and Hezbollah, Syria, the Lebanon and the Palestinians are more beholden to Iran that to any one else. A withdrawal from Iraq by the US – it is only a question of how and when – will leave the Arab and Muslim world ‘victorious’ against the infidel for the second time in less than two decades. It would be treated as a victory of the faith by radical elements threatening not only apostate regimes in their own regions but be ready to take on others. This would include India.
Continued US and NATO involvement is an unfortunate necessity but the present system only encourages a belief among the radical Islamic elements that the West does not have the stomach for a long haul and that they are beatable.
Afghanistan remains a difficult case for India because of lack of direct access. Grafting democracy in an essentially tribal and strongly ethnic hierarchical society was never going to be easy. Economically, Afghanistan like all other countries would seek to benefit from access to Indian resources and expertise but this is unlikely to happen so long as Pakistan considers Afghanistan its private preserve and prevents a strong independent government from emerging in Kabul. Afghanistan may thus remain unaffected by India’s economic gains that other countries in the region will derive – apart from the monetary assistance that India may be able to render from time to time. As of now it seems to show little promise of recovering from the mess it is in.
Continued US and NATO involvement is an unfortunate necessity but the present system only encourages a belief among the radical Islamic elements that the West does not have the stomach for a long haul and that they are beatable. Deployment will have to be on a larger scale because the existing troop deployment will not secure victories against a resurgent Taliban force that threatens to continue their campaign even in the winter. Obviously they are well endowed. Yet either way it will be a victory for the jehadists – staying on means more anti-American anger in the country and leaving now means giving the jehadists another victory in the region. This is probably Pakistan’s calculation.
China‘s ambition extends beyond Asia and increasingly sees itself as the only challenge to the US. It would therefore want the US recede from Asia as the first step. As a corollary to this it would not allow India to become its peer competitor. However, India-China relations remain on the upswing with the year ending with a visit by President Hu Jintao in December. Although there were no surprises, none were really expected. The surprise was that there was no surprise in Pakistan and the much talked of China Pak nuclear energy deal did not materialise – at least not overtly. This needs to be watched considering that Hu went to Pakistan at a time when anti-US sentiments were at their highest in recent years, he has, wisely chosen to watch how the India-US deal plays out before committing to civil nuclear energy for Pakistan.
China”˜s ambition extends beyond Asia and increasingly sees itself as the only challenge to the US. It would therefore want the US recede from Asia as the first step.
The next issue is how might India-Pakistan relations evolve in the context of continuing Indian economic and political success. This largely will depend on how much maturity, farsightedness and realism, Pakistan’s leaders show in the years ahead. The other important question is how might Pakistan itself evolve in the years ahead. So long as its rulers keep the mainstream democratic forces stifled and lean heavily on the mullah nexus for their own survival, Pakistan will inevitably slip towards Talibanisation. In its relations with India:
The first reality is that the Pakistani establishment must understand that only sovereignty is equal, not power. Unfortunately for the subcontinents history, off-shore balancing and force equalisers over the years have given Pakistani leadership the impression that it can attain parity with India.
The second reality is that unofficial trade between India and Pakistan is at least twice as much as the official trade. So if it shows maturity and farsightedness, it would seek closer economic ties with India in trade and even manufacturing. This would give Pakistan access to the vast Indian markets that the Chinese want to grab as well as access to cheaper India goods instead of having to import them from else where.
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It must think of MFN, transit rights and trade with India. Its refusal to grant this will not slow down India’s growth but Pakistan will have missed an opportunity. The mullah-military tie up that stifles democracy and has over the years inculcated a jehadi mindset and its single-point agenda is likely to remain a stumbling block. It is their choice. India has begun to look east – to Southeast Asia and Japan.
The Pak Army is the strongest political party in Pakistan and in our region anti-incumbency is a strong factor. This is bound to happen in Pakistan one day and that would affect the entire country where the political systems have been cramped for so long.
There is also an impression that a successful resolution of the Kashmir issue is necessary for India to be able to play a global role. This is one fallacy. We have the example of China, whose current disputes with Japan and India and with other neighbours earlier, have not prevented it from attaining its present position. In fact US-China political relations are not the best and can sour from time to time. The converse is equally true-good economic relations can submerge political differences some of the time but not in perpetuity.
The continuation of the jehad in Kashmir and other indiscretions with the Taliban despite all promises have for some time now been showing clear signs of a blow back in Pakistan.
The other fallacy is that we hope that a solution will be given to us by Pakistan. We have to find it in Kashmir. One has only to read the latest Baroness Nicholson report to the European Parliament to understand how the West now considers Pakistan’s role in POK to be tenuous and intimidating. Similarly, the latest Human Rights Watch report of September 2006 is a severe indictment of the Pakistani establishment in POK.
There is a very real fear in the Pakistani ruling establishment that a secular and successful India on its borders would undermine both Islamic Pakistan and the two-nation theory. This in turn would undermine the primacy of the Army. Pakistan’s equality is illusory and largely contrived with assistance from outside. This has led to years of adventurism and the feeling that Kashmir would be available to Pakistan. A ruling class that seems reluctant to assist its present benefactor to the extent it can or should, is hardly likely to do so for arch-enemy India unless it knows that the country has a price to pay.
The Pak Army is the strongest political party in Pakistan and in our region anti-incumbency is a strong factor. This is bound to happen in Pakistan one day and that would affect the entire country where the political systems have been cramped for so long. The assassination attempts, suicide attacks and events in Balochistan and Waziristan, Bajaur are not a happy signal for the Pak Armed Forces. The anti-incumbency factor as we call it here can afflict the Pakistan Army as well.
An India closer to the US and China with a Pakistan closer to Russia and even Israel is a possibility. But an India that pulls away from Russia in its new found friendship with the US can only be described as pursuing short term and shortsighted strategic policies.
As the Indian economy picks up momentum, there will inevitably be inequalities in India’s various regions but there will also be opportunities for all of India’s regions and neighbours. A booming national economy with its 300 million middleclass will only lead to greater integration of regions including Kashmir, draw the average Kashmiri into the Indian mainstream and lessen the appeal or fear of radical Islamic terrorists wishing to Talibanise Kashmir.
Pakistan must understand or get the message that Kashmir and India may seem caught up in an unhappy marriage today but a marriage it is and it is not going to be annulled. This understanding and then acceptance is long way away in Pakistan.
In a globalised world, interaction between economies and countries will necessarily change. An India closer to the US and China with a Pakistan closer to Russia and even Israel is a possibility. But an India that pulls away from Russia in its new found friendship with the US can only be described as pursuing short term and shortsighted strategic policies.
So far the tendency has been, especially in Pakistan, to oppose India at every forum and for China to exclude India from the corridors of international power. The edges would hopefully get diffused and there would be greater mutual confidence of learning the value of living with each other, rather like France and Germany.
Another question asked quite often is how would the smaller South Asian States react to an economically successful India. Undoubtedly there will be disequilibria and inequalities. Bu these will be there within India and the next few years will be crucial as India must stay the course. There will be for instance demographic pressures on India both internally as populations move to the cities for employment and those from neighbouring countries move to India also for new opportunities. This will lead to greater integration but is bound to create local tensions as well. It is going to be a question of managing these and other contradictions emanating from rising expectations. Sri Lanka and Bhutan have seen the opportunity in this but Pakistan and Bangladesh have not.
The Failed States Index for 2006 prepared by the Washington-based Fund for Peace, lists Pakistan (9), Afghanistan (10), Myanmar (18), Bangladesh (19), Nepal (20) and Sri Lanka (25) as the most dysfunctional states in the world ““ six of our neighbours rank in the top 25.
The Failed States Index for 2006 prepared by the Washington-based Fund for Peace, lists Pakistan (9), Afghanistan (10), Myanmar (18), Bangladesh (19), Nepal (20) and Sri Lanka (25) as the most dysfunctional states in the world – six of our neighbours rank in the top 25. It will be agreed that this is not a comforting scenario. Refugee flows, rising demographic pressures, factionalised elites, a legacy of groups seeking vengeance, deteriorating public services, a security apparatus that operates like a state within a state, and criminalisation or delegitimisation of the state are some of the symptoms. A dysfunctional state has considerably reduced ability to provide basic security and good governance to its people and has lost control over the use of force within its boundaries. It is not that these countries will eventually collapse and will do so in the order that has been listed. The choice whether or not to continue to slide down the scale and become totally dysfunctional is also the individual choice of the states.
We have seen how the influx of Bangla immigrants to the extent that they may be about 15-20 million in the north east and spreading to the rest of India have caused considerable socio-economic tensions and have also changed the ethnic component of several districts. India also does not have the capacity to bolster the sagging systems in all these countries for all times. The possibility of a failed state in the neighbourhood is a nightmare for India. India cannot afford to have an influx of refugees or the induction of jehadi warriors from across its borders.
Added to this, India continues to face multiple sources of terrorism – from the Pakistan-led Islamic terrorists in Kashmir and now in the rest of the country; Maoist rebels in a huge north-south belt right through India; ethno-nationalist separatists in our north-east with boundaries with Tibet, Myanmar and Bangladesh. There are no easy answers to this. But it is self-evident that India has to pay more attention to strengthening its internal security systems and institutions as there is unlikely to be any appreciable let up in the activities of terrorists.
The year gone by has been difficult in many ways for our neighbours and, therefore, for us despite many positive developments as India gets a higher profile on the world stage and its economy begins to grow. But the year ahead is not going to be easy either.
There is still a question mark on the possibility of elections in Pakistan about their nature and independence. A good deal will depend on how General Musharraf handles the Afghanistan and Taliban issue, how he handles the domestic fallout of this, and what sort of elections are held. If they are without the mainstream politicians we will see a stronger bonding of the mullahs and military despite what he says on TV interviews to gullible audiences, and whether he goes beyond platitudes on Kashmir and actually gives India satisfaction by winding down the terror establishment. This remains doubtful. This will determine whether Musharraf is an enlightened moderate or merely moderately enlightened in the grip of those who believe in permanent hostility with India. Away from the Kashmir issue, 2007 may well be a violent year with the areas west of the Indus showing signs of ethnic and religious turbulence. Political parties, disappointed at their exclusion could add to this.
Some doubts have begun to arise whether or not free and fair elections will be held in Bangladesh in January and what would be the result.
Bangladesh is the big worry of 2007. The country has been through considerable violence in the run up to the election in January with the two ladies deeply suspicious and distrustful of each other. Some doubts have begun to arise whether or not free and fair elections will be held in Bangladesh in January and what would be the result. And if held will these be the last elections, will the Army step in and will Bangladesh turn increasingly radical, pro-Pak and inimical to India with repercussions in our northeast and east. Bangladesh, surrounded on three sides by India and crucial to India’s economic development, has the choice either to become the birthplace for the next Islamic revolution or a modern economic state. Closer ties with India would generate employment and trade within its own boundaries. In that sense India needs to become an important stakeholder in Bangladesh’s economic prosperity. There is just too much politics in Bangladesh’s economic decisions.
The same principle applies to Nepal. Both these countries suffer from the small country syndrome and there is very little India can do except to reassure them that India has enough of its own problems and would not want to seek to add to them by being a hegemonic power. Nepal struggles to get to terms with the new power equation. The relevance of the King, the status of the mainstream political parties importance of the Maoists in the politics and future of Nepal will possibly be finally determined in 2007 when the Constituent Assembly meets to decide the country’s future. The fear is that if the Maoists assess that their influence is waning and that their “constitutional revolution” is not giving them what they want, then the present peace may not last long.
Sri Lanka has a majority problem in as much as the majority Sinhala is unable to give the minority Tamils their place in the sun while India has a Tamil problem in as much as Tamil Nadu politics prevents India from playing a more active role in helping solve the island’s problems. Sri Lanka has to sort out the Tamil question and India must begin to play a bigger role here before we get swamped out of reckoning.
Afghanistan faces a bleak future. The Taliban are resurgent and NATO forces are unequal to the task. There are growing number of suicide attacks, there is increasing palpable hostility towards the West, chiefly the US and there are larger numbers of Pushtoon fence sitters waiting for the end game. Next year will be another bumper year for opium production – therefore heroin. Opium trade may account for 50% of the country’s economy but there are much larger global interests that keep this trade continuing. There is a huge and lucrative underworld economy of narcotics traffickers, arms smugglers, human traffickers and money launderers and the suppliers of the drug on the streets of Europe and the US, who thrive in lawlessness and insecurity who want this trade to thrive. Pakistan may well be asked to take the country on sublease once NATO and the US find continuance to be an unacceptable cost. One could easily see an Afghanistan Study Group next year.
No dramatic changes in India-China can be expected in 2007. China will doubtless watch India’s growing relations with the US and will seek to strengthen its position in the SCO and in Southeast and E Asia. India will be seen as a competitor but not admitted to be anywhere near a peer competitor although there will be competition in Eurasia for resources and markets elsewhere. At the same time, while the border remains unresolved, bilateral trade will soar although as far as India is concerned it needs to correct the content of its exports. Thus, while there will be border tranquility, both friendship and competition will shift into higher gear.
There are no easy solutions. Restoration of responsive and responsible governments, economic development and so on are often the recommendations but what we also need in the region are institutionalised arrangements for problem/conflict resolutions. This is particularly relevant in a nuclear neighbourhood. But so long as some feel that democracies do not get rewarded and dictatorships do not get punished, there is little chance of this happening. Perhaps an enlightened self-confident leadership in these countries would lead to a realisation that the future of the South Asian subcontinent is inextricably interlinked.
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