Indian Defence Review

If Pakistan is a reason to worry, India’s other neighbours are no less in giving headaches to the policy makers here. Apart from Pakistan, the one country with which India has a long time problematic relationship is China. To add to India’s problems, Pakistan is a major ally of China and combined together they pose a great security threat to India.

Even before the present government came into power under the leadership of Narendra Modi, India’s foreign policy was a much talked about subject within the Bhartiya Janta Party which was confident of an unprecedented victory in the 16th Lok Sabha elections.

As things started to unfold, soon it became clear that the new government would be of an absolute majority after a gap of 30 long years. Under the media frenzy and an unparalleled support of Indian public, Narendra Modi took his oath as the 14th Prime Minister of India at the sprawling forecourt lawns of Rashtrapati Bhawan.

It’s a truly special occasion whenever a Prime Minister of the largest democracy of the world i.e India, takes an oath in the swearing-in-ceremony, but this time the situation was much more bigger and magnanimous. The reason was that the heads of governments of all the South-Asian states were invited for the ceremony.

Except Bangladesh, all the heads of SAARC countries attended the event, while the Speaker of Bangladesh’s Parliament came to grace the event with her presence on the behalf of Sheikh Hasina (Prime Minister of Bangladesh). This was the first big move by the Modi Government to improve ties with India’s immediate neighbours.

This move was hailed by present and former diplomats, the members of security establishments, people in academia, civil society, media and the public at large. It showed that the government was acutely aware of the direct, deep and enduring linkages between its domestic agenda priorities and its foreign policy enablers. Secondly, to enable the economic development and political transformation of the country, India needed a stable, secure and peaceful neighbourhood.

The Pakistan Problem

The first and foremost on the list of neighbouring countries with which India wanted a peaceful neighbourhood was Pakistan and therefore when Nawaz Sharif came to India after PM Modi’s invitation to his swearing in ceremony, it gave a hope for a better future between the two neighbours.

Though, the meeting between the two leaders lasted for just 30 minutes, but the talks were termed ‘successful’ by both the leaders. The ideals of peace and harmony were echoed by both the sides. It seemed that things would change for better this time.

However, this warmth didn’t last long because then began a long phase of border skirmishes, which gradually took an ugly turn with both nations accusing each other of unprovoked firing and ceasefire violations. The India-Pakistan cross-border skirmishes are a series of intense firing exchanges between the Border Security Force and the Pakistan Rangers along the Line of Control which made the situation tense in the political and diplomatic establishments of both the sides.

With the events taking aggressive turn along the border, the government of India also chose to be aggressive. In an interview to the PTI, India’s Defence Minister said that Indian soldiers should act with “double the force”. Though this strong stance might have boosted the morale of soldiers fighting at the border but the message which went to Pakistan started raising anti-India sentiments, especially among the hardliners.

Amidst the casualties of civilians and damage to property along the side of border due to the border skirmishes, the ‘Neighbourhood First Policy’ took a big hit. Though, there are no ‘full stops’ in diplomacy, but blames, accusations, counter-accusations from both the sides made things murkier.

In International Relations, it is said that it is easier to maintain good relations when the ‘hawkish’ elements are in power rather than the ‘dovish’ ones. This is because hawkish elements are always the ones taking hard lines, so if they try to maintain good relations with their adversaries, chances are much more that things would go normal because ‘dovish’ elements are already in line for having peace.

So, Modi government which is sensed as ‘hawkish’ in the Indian political scenario, when it came to power with the agenda of ‘Neighbourhood first’’’ policy, it seemed that positive results would come out, but sadly it couldn’t happen.

The Prime Ministers of the two sides continued to meet each other at multilateral forums like SAARC (Kathmandu-2014), UN General Assembly meeting (New York-2014), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (Russia, Ufa-July2015) and at Paris Peace Conference (2015). The next meeting between the two south-Asian counterparts happened in a manner which surprised most of the international relations observers.

On December 25th, 2015, Indian Prime Minister paid a surprise visit to Pakistan while returning from Afghanistan to greet Nawaz Sharif on his birthday, as a ‘good-will’ gesture. Again, all sorts of statements started coming from political parties, diplomatic establishments, media commentators, civil society groups etc, who termed this visit by Indian PM as a watershed moment which will lead to a durable peace not only between the two countries but in the South-Asian region.

All this hoopla suddenly turned into a war-cry when Pathankot Air Base was attacked within few days of PM Modi’s visit to Lahore. Suddenly, all the diplomatic talks were halted as the media kept baying for the blood of the ‘back-stabbers’ (Pakistan).

Suddenly, political commentators started pulling out the history of conflicts between the two countries showing that whenever India tried to reach out to Pakistan, India was back-stabbed. Resemblances were drawn from Kargil War in 1999, which happened just after the then Indian Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpeyi’s ‘Bus-Diplomacy’ with Pakistan.

The government of Pakistan condemned these attacks and offered its cooperation to India. Interestingly, India allowed a 5 member team from Pakistan (which included an ISI official) to come and investigate the matter. Questions were raised by the opposition parties and media houses that why the Pakistan probe team was allowed coming to India when there was a clear suspicion of the involvement of Pakistan’s security establishments behind the attacks.

Indo-Pak relations have been a roller-coaster ride in the past 2 years under the present dispensation. There have been many highs and lows, many times diplomatic talks were stopped for no concrete reasons and were again started without any satisfactory explanation. Clearly, the Pakistan problem still looms very high and the Indian government knows it too but it is shying to accept its diplomatic failures.

If Pakistan is a reason to worry, India’s other neighbours are no less in giving headaches to the policy makers here. Apart from Pakistan, the one country with which India has a long time problematic relationship is China. To add to India’s problems, Pakistan is a major ally of China and combined together they pose a great security threat to India.

The China Threat

China of today is a ‘rising power’, both in terms of its military might as well as its economic power. One can’t truly understand the geo-politics of South Asia, if China is kept out of the picture. The Sino-Indian boundary dispute is a long standing one. Both India and China are fighting for the regional supremacy in South Asia today.

Today, China holds an observer status in SAARC and it is pushing its agenda to become a permanent member of this regional grouping, backed by countries like Pakistan and Nepal. Surely, India doesn’t want this because then it would no longer be the biggest power among the SAARC countries and as a result it would prove very detrimental to India’s ‘stature’ in SAARC and its ‘core interests’ in the region.

China, unlike Pakistan, poses not only regional challenge to India but a systemic challenge. Being a permanent member of UN Security Council (UNSC), China has time and again ‘vetoed’ against India’s bid for the permanent membership to the UNSC, and now it is trying to do the same in the case of NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group) in which India wants entry.

Secondly, China has been able to make India’s immediate neighbours to ‘bandwagon’ with itself whenever India has problems with its neighbours. Interestingly, India’s neighbours don’t have such problems with one another because they are not each other’s neighbours. It is so ironical that India being the centre, which ‘connects’ or ‘binds’ South-Asia as a region together, has proven costly to India’s interests.

China, taking the advantage of situation, has made very cordial relations with India’s neighbours in the sphere of military as well as economy. China’s role has been extremely vital in the development of ports at Gwadar, Hambantota and Chittagong in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh respectively, thereby strategically encircling India.

China possesses ‘system-shaping’ capabilities today and with its resources, it has increased its ‘economic attractiveness’ to India’s neighbours. India can’t match up China in providing the perks and concessions to its neighbours, in near future atleast.