India has tried a policy of unilateral concessions towards neighbours in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, but with no lasting results. It is ultimately a question of pragmatism. If making a concession in one area can yield a return in another area, it should be made. Reciprocity need not be symmetrical. If Bangladesh, as is the case now, is more cooperative in dealing with anti-Indian insurgents sheltering on its territory, India would find it politically easier to meet some of its demands on the commercial side even if some domestic lobbies are opposed.
The problem of unilateralism or reciprocity can be addressed more easily through the framework of SAARC. Unfortunately, Pakistan has from the start worked to limit progress within SAARC so that its own policy of linking improvement of relations with India to a resolution of the Kashmir problem does not get undermined. For this reason, it has yet not adhered to its obligations to India under SAFTA. Indeed, Pakistans obstructive policies account for poor economic integration in the SAARC region.
Today China is Pakistans biggest defence supplier”¦ Pakistan is now the recipient of arms assistance from the worlds foremost democracy and its foremost authoritarian state.
Indias FTA with Thailand and now with the ASEAN as a whole reflects Indias readiness to take forward looking steps to enhance mutual trade for building mutual prosperity. Now that Afghanistan has joined SAARC, common sense would dictate that Pakistan accord transit rights through its territory to facilitate Afghanistans trade with India as part of the process of stabilising Afghanistan.
Indias physical domination of its neighbourhood creates problems which it cannot master. Most of its neighbours are very small in comparison, geographically, demographically and economically. Even Pakistan, is less than 15 percent of Indias size demographically and economically and not too much more geographically. India and its neighbours share strong civilisational, cultural, linguistic and ethnic ties. This reality makes the neighbouring countries feel insecure in their separate identities. As identity is a core constituent of a sense of nationhood, these countries foster it by consciously asserting their distinct identities. As a corollary, India is projected as a threat and a hegemonic. This serves the objective of the political classes in these countries to rally the people behind them on a nationalist platform against Indias “bullying” tactics.
The ethnic links, such as those of the Madhesis in Nepals Terai region and Sri Lankan Tamils with India also generates tensions. These sections of the population are not as yet fully integrated into the societies in which they live and suffer from disabilities and discriminatory treatment. They are either suspected for their extra-territorial loyalties or are seen as instruments of Indian influence, or the sympathy and support they receive from groups in India create an atmosphere of distrust in bilateral relations.
India cannot prevent the neighbouring countries from seeking, for reasons of realpolitik, to balance Indias weight by inviting external powers into the region. This gives them greater margin of manoeuvre vis a vis India, added scope for extorting more concessions from it, as well as making themselves more eligible for economic and military assistance from powers wanting to constrain Indias rise or imposing costs on India for pursuing independent policies. Pakistan, in its obsessive pursuit of “parity” with India and a pathological refusal to accept any status of inferiority vis a vis it, has been most responsible for strategically bringing outside powers into the sub-continent.
It is quite likely that Chinas pressure on Arunachal Pradesh is intended to deter India from taking advantage of a Pakistan currently in disarray.
As against Indias nonaligned choice during the Cold War, Pakistan chose to join all possible US-led military blocks against “communism”. It obtained as a result massive amounts of military aid from the US, that in turn emboldened it to pursue its Kashmir agenda aggressively. After the 1962 India-China conflict, Pakistan got an opportunity to use China to counter India, even as it maintained its relationship with the western block. Pakistan and China, in their shared hostility towards India, have forged their “all weather friendship”. The Pakistan-China nexus has sought to permanently neutralize India strategically by transfers of nuclear weapon and missile technology to Pakistan. Significantly, the US has been complaisant, as it too has favoured a strategic balance between India and Pakistan in the belief that this is needed to ensure peace and stability in South Asia.
Today China is Pakistans biggest defence supplier. The US too has begun supplying advanced arms to Pakistan as part of its policy to reward it for its cooperation in helping combat the insurgency in Afghanistan. Pakistan is now the recipient of arms assistance from the worlds foremost democracy and its foremost authoritarian state.
US policy of hyphenating India and Pakistan was decisively abandoned by the Bush Administration in its approach to the nuclear question in South Asia, though it sought to balance its new approach to India by declaring Pakistan a “non-NATO ally”. With the change of Administration in the US and the Afghanistan quagmire in which it is caught, Pakistan has been pressing for the involvement of the US in India-Pakistan issues, especially Kashmir, to re-create a degree of re-hyphenation. To resist US demands to step up operations against the Taliban groups targeting the international forces in Afghanistan, it has argued about the danger to its security from the east, that is, India, again to bring India into the US-Pakistan equation. It has not helped its case with the US by resisting action against the perpetrators of the Mumbai carnage and avoiding action against the Afghan Taliban targeting the international forces in Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, in view of US dependence on Pakistan for its Afghanistan operations and Pakistans cynical policies, India is unable to mobilize sufficient US support for forcing Pakistan to end its linkages with terrorism by using the military and economic leverages at its disposal. In Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, Indian and US policies have converged far more than was the case in the past, with the result that the governments of these countries are no longer able to use US weight to counter the Indian “hegemony”.
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