The new foreign minister, SM Krishna, has said the neighbourhood will be his primary focus. The big factor in India?s neighbourhood is China. That India is losing ground to China in its own backyard, from Nepal to Sri Lanka and Afghanistan to Myanmar, is now widely understood. Here is an easy guide to understanding how we might address India?s strategic problems in the Subcontinent.
How can India keep China and other great powers out of the Subcontinent?
India cannot. The idea that the Subcontinent is Delhi?s exclusive sphere of influence has a long lineage. It has never been realised except for a brief period of British India?s dominance in the region at the turn of the 20th century. In the shrinking world of globalisation, it is just not worth trying to keep other great powers out of South Asia. India?s problems in the neighbourhood do not stem from Beijing?s political genius but the lack of foreign policy imagination in Delhi. Although geography, history and culture give India huge advantages in the Subcontinent, Delhi squanders them all, because it has no grand strategy towards the neighbourhood. The day Delhi gets its act together, all others will have no option but to play second fiddle to India in South Asia.
What is the first step towards the restoration of India?s influence in the Subcontinent?
Pay attention. It is unbelievable how little contact there is between the higher reaches of the Indian government and the neighbouring countries. Let?s start with the Prime Minister of India. During his five years as PM, Dr Manmohan Singh travelled only once on a bilateral visit to a neighbouring country. The record of Dr Singh?s predecessor, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was no better. Instead of standing on ceremony and protocol, the Indian leadership must engage its counterparts next door with greater frequency, intensity and empathy.
Strong and sustained contact between the political elites of India and its neighbours would help reduce mutual misperceptions and nudge the inherently cussed bureaucracies into solving problems rather than aggravate them.
Are India?s states a problem in dealing with the neighbouring countries? Does Chennai, for example, tie down Delhi?s hands in dealing with Colombo?
No. The election results from Tamil Nadu have proved that there is no reason to pander to unreasonable demands of extremists in states. Our states that share linguistic and ethnic bonds with neighbours?Tamil Nadu in Sri Lanka, West Bengal in Bangladesh, Bihar in Nepal, and Punjab in Pakistan?can be a huge and unique advantage if Delhi knows how to leverage them. Rather than blame the regions for the failures of its neighbourhood policy, Delhi must promote links between India?s states and the neighbours. China for example has done this with great effect. The south-western province of Yunnan for example has reached out to Myanmar, Thailand and Indo-China to build trans-border economic cooperation for mutual benefit. India?s policy options will rapidly expand if Delhi encourages the chief ministers and regional parties to connect up with political formations across the border. Instead of complaining about influences from across the border, it should be India that is radiating power outwards, from the states.
What are the three most important instruments of increasing India?s influence in the neighbourhood?
Business, business and business. Unless our neighbourhood policy is integrated with a regional business strategy, India will continue to fall behind. India has no one to blame but itself for the fact that China has become the larger trading partner for many of our neighbours. India never tires of accusing the Western world of protectionism. But no country in the world today is more protectionist than India when it comes to neighbours. We have every conceivable barrier, tariff and non-tariff, to prevent our neighbours from exporting to our market. Although Dr Singh has talked of unilateral economic concessions to our smaller neighbours, our pettifogging bureaucracy finds ever newer ways to deny market access to our neighbours. India?s border infrastructure is crumbling, and badly needs modernisation to facilitate greater commercial cooperation in the region. Although Dr Singh?s government has announced plans to change all this, there is no implementation on the ground.
Should India stop intervening in the internal affairs of its neigbhours?
Yes and No. Unlike China, India cannot make a fetish of ?non-intervention?. For the neighbourhood is tied too closely to our own body-politic. The fires next door, whether stoked by ethnic, religious or other conflict, always engulf us. The real issue, then, is when to intervene and how? There are times when India must intervene, as did a few years ago in stopping Nepal?s king from shooting his own people demanding democracy. There are moments when Delhi should step back, as it did recently during Colombo?s final offensive against terrorist LTTE. There are occasions when we must help the international community fight our battles, for example against the Taliban in the Af-Pak region. What India needs is a peaceful and prosperous periphery. How we plan to get there in different parts of the Subcontinent should depend entirely on the specific circumstances.
?The author is a professor at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore