India is ironically caught up in a bind. Having emerged from the fears o recession with its growth story more or less on track, India?s wish to surge ahead economically and join the ranks of the world?s powerful economies, will remain a dream if it?s neighbourhood remains troubled. Apart from the threat of terrorism, it is clear that Pakistan is sliding into anarchy. It is a volcano that could go completely out of control, and the spillover effects on India?s border regions, could be quite considerable. Of equal concern is India?s eastern neighbourhood, specially the posturing by China along India?s borders. But, first let?s look at Pakistan.? ??
Pakistan?s all powerful military machine is now caught in a quagmire as it battles the ferocious tribes of Waziristan on Pakistan?s border with Afghanistan. Few believe that Pakistan?s military could subdue these tribes, as the Pakistan Army has neither the experience in battling insurgencies nor is the entire army committed to this push, which clearly leaves a handful of generals who have undertaken to please their paymasters in Washington.?Instead, Pakistanis have been witnessing a wave of suicide bombers that has made the country the most unstable in the region.?Clearly, the military and intelligence agencies that fed and nurtured terrorist groups?in fact, they still?hope that these would be strategic assets in the long run?are in a state of shock.
What, however, matters to India is the future of Pakistan?s fledgling democracy and in turn the several institutions that a country needs for democracy to function beyond the ballot box. In the long run, a Pakistan either under military control again or worse still, under the hard-lined Islamic regime, will be bad news for India.?The worst nightmare would be if Pakistan?s nuclear weapons fall into the hands of either their Taliban or a terror group such as the LeT or Al Qaeda.?Clearly, the answer lies in America changing course and looking beyond its obsession of Al Qaeda by adopting a two-pronged military approach for Pakistan.?One, would be to shift some of the NATO forces from Afghanistan into Pakistan?s tribal region to support Pakistan?s battles in Waziristan, and to be monitored closely if enough is being actually done.?And the other is to provide NATO special forces to protect Pakistan?s nuclear facilities. Only then there is some hope for the world to extricate Pakistan from the mess that it has landed itself into.
Moreover, President Obama would be wise to respond to the biggest foreign policy challenge?to let Afghanistan be governed federally with President Karzai restricting his influence to the district of Kabul. The rest of the country can be run by their various tribal warlords, as has historically been the case. To try and make Afghanistan into a functional democracy will take many decades. And for India to assume that its aid package of over $1.2 billion dollars coupled with nosey RAW operatives spread all over Afghanistan, will get New Delhi influence in that war torn land is clearly a waste of time, effort and money.?
New Delhi would do well to concentrate its energies and resources on India?s much neglected northern and eastern neighbours such as Nepal and Bangladesh. Just imagine if India had poured a half a billion dollars each into Bangladesh and Nepal?instead of what it put into Afghanistan?and the benefits that India would have reaped in return.?For one, both the governments in these countries would have been more willing to curtail anti-India sentiment which has allowed Pakistan?s intelligence agencies to use both these countries as bases for terror groups to launch initiatives within India. Equally the funding of water related project?a sore point with both Kathmandu and Dhaka? from funds provided by New Delhi would buy public support for India and weaken the traditional anti-India posturing of many politicians in both these countries.?But that apart, India can help these two neighbours in creating institutions so essential for their democratic process to succeed.
What India can get in return is access to Dhaka?s energy resources, and cooperation in stemming the large inflow of illegal immigrants?by estimates in excess of 10 million people?from Bangladesh whose population continues to grow rapidly as its resources shrink simultaneously. But if this goes unchecked, it could lead to genocide with local groups in east India targeting Bangladeshi refugees. And in Nepal, the Maoists groups have been in the news for all the wrong reasons over the past several years. The China-centric Maoists keen not only to internally reshape Nepal?s political landscape but to build strong bridges with China, by marginalising New Delhi. Bhutan is fortunately the only island of peace in India?s troubled neighbourhood.
South of India, although Sri Lanka has destroyed the LTTE, it is still to come up with a post conflict strategy for its vast displaced Tamil populace. India could have another refugee crisis. While India?s relations with Colombo are perhaps the best handled part of its neighbourhood policy, the domestic politics of a theocratic Sri Lanka, which leaves the Tamils clearly marginalised, cannot be ignored by New Delhi. Moreover, the growing clout of China in the island has begun to ring alarm bells in Delhi. China has been building a port?possibly as part of its gratis built operate transfer initiative, as it has done in Gwadar in Pakistan and in Burma?that will give Chinese ships and staff unhindered access into Sri Lanka. Apparently India missed the bid for this project! But by this, Chinese encirclement of India, with naval bases in Burma, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, is complete. Add to that its growing diplomatic clout in Kathmandu and Dhaka, Beijing is and shall remain New Delhi?s greatest rival as it seeks strategic space in what India has traditionally regarded as its turf.
And the recent aggressive posturing by China, specially with regard to its claim over Arunachal Pradesh coupled with the long standing agenda of restricting the role of the Dalai Lama has left India in a bind. Moreover, with China continuing to arm Pakistan with missiles and nuclear weapons and by giving Islamabad the diplomatic shoulder to lean on, with the intention of keeping New Delhi bogged down in the traditionally hyphenated Indo-Pak rivalry, China?s agenda is to build its international stature, grow its economy at a phenomenal pace, modernise its military to dominate Asia and the world. India on the other hand is more concerned with high table rights in a war ravaged Afghanistan?a country that can give India nothing more than goodwill ? and has yet to apply a strong set of initiatives to win over, at least its troubled neighbourhood.
?The writer is specialist on military and strategic affairs