Indias Policy of Non-Reciprocity in South Asia: Unending Challenges

By Christian Carbone

India is often perceived as a regional power, but a closer look reveals that it is in a disadvantageous position vis-à-vis China in South Asia. The first reason is that Indian governments never had the political, economic, and military capacities to pursue their regional power ambitions with their neighbours in the long run. South Asian countries could always play the China card in order to evade India’s influence. Second, India’s new South Asia policy with the focus on trade and connectivity has improved regional cooperation since 1991. But China remains an economically more attractive and politically more reliable partner for India’s neighbours. South Asia though often loosely defined comprises small island like Maldives to India a country of continental proportions. Its short six or seven decades old political and independent history has witnessed the amazing functioning of the largest democracy in India to Kingdoms in Bhutan and Nepal to political upheavals through frequent coup d’états in some countries in the group as well as resurgence of democratic communism in Nepal. Besides two of the major countries have nuclear capabilities that is further compounded by the already nuclear Chinese in the larger neighbourhood trying to keep their stilted balance by proxy through Pakistan. Above all almost all countries have suffered and witnessed extremism and terrorism often exported from outside and across the borders though some have in the process become the havens of terrorist groups and camps as part of their unstated policy in order to serve their myopic untenable foreign policy goals and objectives. The present work is compiled to analyse India's foreign policy in the context of South Asia. As such the present endeavour attempts at portraying some crucial issues concerned with the diplomatic relations of India with some South Asian countries. Hopefully, the information gathered herein will prove useful to all those interested in the study.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alpha Editions
• Release date: Nov 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9789352978625

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Preface

India is often perceived as a regional power, but a closer look reveals that it is in a disadvantageous position vis-à-vis China in South Asia. The first reason is that Indian governments never had the political, economic, and military capacities to pursue their regional power ambitions with their neighbours in the long run. South Asian countries could always play the China card in order to evade India’s influence. Second, India’s new South Asia policy with the focus on trade and connectivity has improved regional cooperation since 1991. But China remains an economically more attractive and politically more reliable partner for India’s neighbours.

India’s South Asia policy, if it wants to induce bandwagoning toward itself, has to take into consideration the security sensitivities of Pakistan as well as its deterrent capability, and the sensitivities of India’s smaller neighbors on a range of issues including feared loss of sovereignty and distinctness of their identity. It has to combine incentives such as non-reciprocal trade openness with reassurances on vital threat perception issues including military posture, as well as treatment of its Muslim and other minorities. This would be a vital factor in the threat perceptions of Pakistan and Bangladesh; India should lead but not be domineering. Good precedents are the revision of the Indo-Bhutan Treaty in 2007 to remove obsolete provisions and the agreement to consider amending the Indo-Nepal Treaty of 1950, both of which were desired by the smaller country. While the ideal way towards regional integration would be the adoption of a regime of common norms and policies, this is not feasible given that SAARC bars the discussion of domestic issues.

Despite its historical and cultural links with East and Southeast Asia, India in its post-Independence foreign policy largely tended to ignore the region. The structural constraints of the Cold War proved too formidable despite India’s geographic proximity to the East Asian region. It was the end of the Cold War that really brought East and Southeast Asia back to the forefront of India’s foreign policy horizons.

South Asia though often loosely defined comprises small island like Maldives to India a country of continental proportions. Its short six or seven decades old political and independent history has witnessed the amazing functioning of the largest democracy in India to Kingdoms in Bhutan and Nepal to political upheavals through frequent coup d’états in some countries in the group as well as resurgence of democratic communism in Nepal. Besides two of the major countries have nuclear capabilities that is further compounded by the already nuclear Chinese in the larger neighbourhood trying to keep their stilted balance by proxy through Pakistan.

This is a reference book. All the matter is just compiled and edited in nature, taken from the various sources which are in public domain.

Hopefully, the information gathered herein will prove useful to all those interested in the study.

—Editor

1

India’s Foreign Policies in

South Asia

India’s foreign policies in recent years have made commendable progress in terms of relations with major world powers. Relations with the United States are moving towards more strategic cooperation to secure India’s national security interests.

China despite its traditional rhetoric has seen the wisdom of greater economic cooperation with India and departing from its hostility following the 1998 nuclear tests by India. European Union Countries and Russia have modulated their policies towards India to exploit the vast defence purchase market and economic opportunities that India presents. However, despite all of the above India’s foreign policies in South Asia need a drastic review.

If there is a growing recognition worldwide that India is a power to reckon with in South Asia and an emerging key player in global affairs, then India, at the first instance needs to reinforce and press home this reality in the South Asian neighbourhood. India’s failure to create this impact in South Asia arises from a combination of the following factors:

*India’s lack of political will to use her power to ensure that South Asian nations recognize India’s predominance in the Indian sub-continent and the Indian Ocean.

*India’s soft handling of Pakistan’s spoiler state strategies both as a hand-maiden of intrusive external powers and its attempts to provoke other South Asian nations to adopt belittling policies towards India.

*India’s inability to spell out firmly to USA and China that while they are free to follow their national interests in Pakistan, their future relationships with India would depend on their demonstrated sensitivity to India’s national interests in South Asia and that these cannot be made subservient to theirs.

India therefore has to review and modulate its policies towards South Asian countries by giving predominance to India’s strategic imperatives of creating a peaceful South Asian neighbourhood.

South Asia as a peaceful region can only emerge by strong and firm Indian policies that brook no playing around with India’s national interests.

With the above in mind, some view points are expressed below in relation to our foreign policy formulations towards the countries of the region.

Pakistan: Pakistan has emerged as a rogue nuclear state however much the United States may like to paint it white. It has proliferated uranium enrichment technology to North Korea and Iran too (estimative analysis) and thereby jeopardizing vital United States strategic interests in East Asia and the Middle East. This is taking place with the assistance of and bidding of China.

India should not therefore depend on or expect United States and China to restrain Pakistan’s disruptive policies in South Asia.

In relation to bringing Pakistan to heel in South Asia, India’s foreign policies concerning Pakistan must incorporate the following ingredients:

*Pakistan’s proxy war against India needs to be carried back into Pakistan. Self-determination movements in Sindh, Baluchistan, Pashtunistan and Northern Areas need to be exploited. India’s oft-quoted ‘pro-active policies’ must be put into effect here.

*Pakistan based terrorist organizations must be struck the way the Israel strikes back at its opponents.

*India’s foreign policies and military policies lack the essential ingredient of Psychological Warfare and allied operations.

*Pakistan Army’s stranglehold over the Pakistani nation-state and thwarting the emergence of democracy and pluralism in Pakistan needs to be vigorously exposed as part of the above operation.

*India must impose an arms-race on Pakistan the pace of which Pakistan can ill-afford economically and nor can its external patrons subsidise.

*In relation to Pakistan, India must make it clear to the other South Asian countries, that they have to choose between India and Pakistan in South Asia. Either you are with us, or against us and if their choice is against us they should be prepared to face the consequences of their choice.

Some may like to argue that the above are not realistic steps and that India does not have the capabilities to do so. This author would like to maintain, that it is within India’s means to do so seeing India’s preponderant power attributes. All that India needs is to give a ‘shaped-charge’ focus to these factors and re-order its priorities in its foreign policies. As a starter, let India change its stand in relations to the conditions it stipulates for resumption of dialogue with Pakistan. India’s strong-man, Deputy PM Advani’s constant refrain is that unless Pakistan returns the persons in the list of 20 no dialogue can take place.

This is not an advisable stand as it reduces India to the level of trading far more important considerations in its approaches towards Pakistan than the extradition of 20 street-side hoodlums.

India’s conditions for resumption of dialogue with Pakistan need to rest on far more important considerations, namely that:

*India will enter into dialogue with Pakistan only when a democratically elected government comes into power, through elections supervised by international observers.

*India will not enter into dialogue with Pakistan based on Pakistani imposed pre-conditions of Kashmir and the rest.

*India should maintain that Kashmir is not an issue historically nor is it now. Kashmir’s accession to India is non-negotiable as per the unanimous resolution of the Special Session of the Indian Parliament.

*India will enter into a dialogue with Pakistan only when it begins to respect the sanctity of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Jammu and Kashmir- a point endorsed by the United States through President Clinton’s statement.

Nepal: Nepal has been wracked by a Maoist insurgency for the last five or six years. India has remained a passive bystander witnessing the growing erosion of Nepal’s state power. Other than giving some military materiel for counter insurgency operations, no weighty measures have been taken.

India has not recognized the gravity of a Maoist take-over of Nepal as American analysts have done in depth. As per American analysts, the strategic implications of a Maoist take-over of Nepal are:

*Nepal becomes a total client state of China. A Maoist Nepal under Chinese tutelage would be a serious disruptive factor for US global strategies in the region.

*Maoist-insurgents ruled Nepal would inextricably get dragged into Islamic terrorist organizations linkages, besides China’s policies towards the Islamic world.

India needs to realise the gravity of the strategic implications, specific to India, namely:

*A China-aligned Nepal, removes an important buffer state between India and China. India would have to militarily man the India-Nepal border in strength, which may eat up two to three infantry divisions.

*A China-aligned Nepal adds to the existing China-client states in South Asia i.e. Pakistan and Bangladesh. It would be a very unholy trinity with not only the Western and Eastern flanks of India under China’s influence, but the Northern flank too added.

*For the majority peoples of India, the only Hindu kingdom in the world would slide down ignobly into a Chinese-Islamic coalition in South Asia.

India must therefore, immediately, cast away its existing reluctance and inhibitions to act firmly, even militarily, to prevent a Maoist take-over of Nepal. Fortunately in Nepal’s current Maoist-threatened environment, convergence of security interests exist between the United States and India. India must therefore jointly work with the United States to protect the sovereignty of the Nepalese state against a Maoist takeover.

It was so stated by US Assistant Secretary of State, Christiana Rocca during her recent visit to New Delhi: Working in tandem, our governments can help Nepal defeat the Maoists threat and reestablish democratic institutions responsive to the needs of the people.

India must therefore act forcefully and unapologetically in Nepal forthwith to secure her national interests. It would be a convincing demonstration of what this paper espouses: India will intervene forcefully to secure her national interests in the region.

Bangladesh: For far too long has India been oblivious to the playing of the ‘Indian-Card’ (for or against) in Bangladesh’s domestic politics. For far too long has India tolerated the use of Bangladesh as a springboard for Pakistan’s strategic de-estabilisation of India’s North-Eastern states. India could borrow a leaf from Myanmar’s dealing with the Rohinggya problem emanating from Saudi based organizations in Bangladesh. Al Qaeda’s tentacles exist in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh too is a fit case where Indian foreign policy objectives could gain a convergence with United States national interests. The China-Bangladesh Defence Cooperation Agreement adds an additional dimension to the other threats as analysed in an earlier Paper of this author.

India needs to draw red-lines in terms of India’s national interests which Bangladesh must not overstep with impunity. In tandem, India through its big business houses should integrate Bangladesh into more commercial linkages. Increased Indian economic investments in Bangladesh could generates thousands of job and remove the root cause of Bangladesh’s instability and move towards Islamic fundamentalism.

Sri Lanka: India’s national interests demand maintaining the unity and sovereignty of the Sri Lanka nation state. India’s domestic Tamil politics should not become the touch stone of India’s policies towards Sri Lanka. India needs to react forcefully to ensure that Sri Lanka remains a unified state with a set up that would meet the just aspirations of a majority of Tamils.

The above proposition entails once again the forging of mutual national interests convergence of India and the United States Sri Lanka is an important component of United States India Ocean strategy and it is felt that United States-India convergences exist already. Joint USA-India strategies and foreign policies towards Sri Lanka would be helpful in counter-acting Chinese and Pakistani overtures to wean away Sri Lanka from India’s influence.

SOUTH ASIAN ASSOCIATION FOR REGIONAL

COOPERATION

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is an economic and political organization of eight countries in Southern Asia. It was established on December 8, 1985 by Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka. In April 2007, at the Association’s 14th summit, Afghanistan became its eighth member.

History

In the late 1970s, Bangladeshi President Ziaur Rahman proposed the creation of a trade bloc consisting of South Asian countries. The idea of regional cooperation in South Asia was again mooted in May 1980. The foreign secretaries of the seven countries met for the first time in Colombo in April 1981.

The Committee of the Whole, which met in Colombo in August 1981, identified five broad areas for regional cooperation. New areas of cooperation were added in the following years.

The objectives of the Association as defined in the Charter are:

•to promote the welfare of the people of South Asia and to improve their quality of life;

•to accelerate economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region and to provide all individuals the opportunity to live in dignity and to realize their full potential;

•to promote and strengthen collective self-reliance among the countries of South Asia;

•to contribute to mutual trust, understanding and appreciation of one another’s problems;

•to promote active collaboration and mutual assistance in the economic, social, cultural, technical and scientific fields;

•to strengthen cooperation with other developing countries;

•to strengthen cooperation among themselves in international forums on matters of common interest; and

•to cooperate with international and regional organisations with similar aims and purposes.

The Declaration on South Asian Regional Cooperation was adopted by the Foreign Ministers in 1983 in New Delhi. During the meeting, the Ministers also launched the Integrated Programme of Action (IPA) in nine agreed areas, namely, Agriculture; Rural Development; Telecommunications; Meteorology; Health and Population Activities; Transport; Postal Services; Science and Technology; and Sports, Arts and Culture. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was established when its Charter was formally adopted on 8 December 1985 by the Heads of State or Government of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Afghanistan was added to the regional grouping at the behest of India on 13 November 2005, and became a member on 3 April 2007. With the addition of Afghanistan, the total number of member states were raised to eight (8). In April 2006, the United States of America and South Korea made formal requests to be granted observer status. The European Union has also indicated interest in being given observer status, and made a formal request for the same to the SAARC Council of Ministers meeting in July 2006. On 2 August 2006 the foreign ministers of the SAARC countries agreed in principle to grant observer status to the US, South Korea and the European Union. On 4 March 2007, Iran requested observer status. Followed shortly by the entrance of Mauritius.

Secretariat

The SAARC Secretariat was established in Kathmandu on 16 January 1987 and was inaugurated by Late King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah of Nepal.

It is headed by a Secretary General appointed by the Council of Ministers from Member Countries in alphabetical order for a three-year term. He is assisted by the Professional and the General Services Staff, and also an appropriate number of functional units called Divisions assigned to Directors on deputation from Member States. The Secretariat coordinates and monitors implementation of activities, prepares for and services meetings, and serves as a channel of communication between the Association and its Member States as well as other regional organizations.

The Memorandum of Understanding on the establishment of the Secretariat which was signed by Foreign Ministers of member countries on 17 November 1986 at Bangalore, India contains various clauses concerning the role, structure and administration of the SAARC Secretariat as well as the powers of the Secretary-General. In several recent meetings the heads of state or government of member states of SAARC have taken some important decisions and bold initiatives to strengthen the organisation and to widen and deepen regional co-operation. The SAARC Secretariat and Member States observe 8 December as the SAARC Charter Day.

Criticism

Not enough is being done to for rapid economic integration of the region. Apart from the fact that the recently approved South Asian University and the creation of new rail lines linking the region, people to people contacts and connectivity of region needs to be strengthened.

Political Issues

SAARC has intentionally laid more stress on core issues mentioned above rather than more decisive political issues like the Kashmir dispute and the Sri Lankan civil war. However, political dialogue is often conducted on the margins of SAARC meetings. SAARC has also refrained itself from interfering in the internal matters of its member states. During the 12th and 13th SAARC summits, extreme emphasis was laid upon greater cooperation between the SAARC members to fight terrorism.

Free Trade Agreement

Over the years, the SAARC members have expressed their unwillingness on signing a free trade agreement. Though India has several trade pacts with Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka, similar trade agreements with Pakistan and Bangladesh have been stalled due to political and economic concerns on both sides. India has been constructing a barrier across its borders with Bangladesh and Pakistan. In 1993, SAARC countries signed an agreement to gradually lower tariffs within the region, in Dhaka. Eleven years later, at the 12th SAARC Summit at Islamabad, SAARC countries devised the South Asia Free Trade Agreement which created a framework for the establishment of a free trade area covering 1.4 billion people. This agreement went into force on January 1, 2006. Under this agreement, SAARC members will bring their duties down to 20 per cent by 2007.

RELATIONS WITH AFRICA

India-Africa Forum Summit

The third summit in a rotation basis was scheduled to be held in New Delhi, India in December 2014. But lately Syed Akbaruddin, the official spokesperson of Indian Foreign Ministry told the media that the scheduled summit is now postponed to 2015 and will include more no. of African leaders unlike previous two occasion where the event was restricted to only 10-15 African countries. Although media reports claimed that Ebola outbreak in Western African nations played key role behind the postponement of the summit. The summit is now rescheduled on 26–30 October 2015.

Mauritius

Mauritius was the only country outside South Asia whose head of government attended Modi’s swearing-in ceremony in Delhi. With people of Indian originconstituting a large share of its population Mauritias has a very good bilateral relations with New Delhi. Swaraj made her maiden trip as Foreign Minister to the island country on 2 November 2014 to attend the celebration of Apravasi Divas, marking 180 years since the first Indian indentured labourers arrived in Mauritius. There she had called on President Rajkeswur Purryag and Prime MinisterNavinchandra Ramgoolam to discuss bilateral and regional issues of common interest. On top of her agenda was talk on cooperation between Indian Navy and Mauritian Coast Guard to ensure the safety and security of the strategically vital Indian Ocean region. In support to her stress on the importance of maritime cooperation three major Indian war ships were docked in Mauritian waters including a destroyer INS Mumbai, a frigate INS Talwar and the fleet tanker INS Deepak.

Modi made his first state visit to the island country in March 2015 as part of his larger outreach to India’s maritime neighbours in the Indian Ocean where he participated in the Mauritias National Day celebration in Port Louis on 12 March 2015. He was also present during the commissioning ceremony of MCGS Barracuda, the offshore patrol vessels (OPV) that Mauritius bought from Kolkata based GRSE shipyard. The ship was earlier handed over on 20 December 2014 which marked India’s first warship export.

Multilateral Engagements

India, as one of leading developing countries, plays an active role in important multilateral forums for global governance such as United Nations, World Trade Organization, G20 leaders summit, East Asia Summit, BRICS summit of emerging economies, Commonwealth of Nations and often seen as a ‘third world voice’. Apart from these big platforms India also engaged in many regional groupings like the BASIC, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Indian Ocean Rim Association, IBSA Dialogue Forum, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, Mekong–Ganga Cooperation, BIMSTEC among others.

BRICS summit

Modi in his maiden speech at the BRICS, a group of emerging economies comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, called for brotherhood among the member states citing Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, an ancient Indian concept meaning the entire world is one family, to unitedly face the global challenges.

India together with its BRICS partner working toward launching of a financial institute rivalling the western dominated World Bank and IMF which was first proposed during the New Delhi summit in 2012 by the then Indian Prime MinisterManmohan Singh. In the 6th BRICS summit held on 14–26 July in Fortaleza, Brazil the group have agreed to establish the bank with a corpus of US$100 billion. The bank would be named the New Development Bank as suggested by the Indian side but Modi govt has failed to bag the bank’s headquarter for New Delhi which would be located in Shanghai, China.

•Later at an event in Brasilia BRICS leaders met the UNASUR heads of state/heads of government. At the same time, the Ministry of External Affairs added Spanish to its list of available languages, which the Hindustan Times read as indicative of the government’s intent to go beyond Europe, Asia and the US to forge diplomatic and trade ties with Latin American nations. He travelled there via Germany.

Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit

India is not a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which is known to be a China backed bloc for military and energy cooperation, holds observer status from 2005 and publicly expressed its wish for a full membership. Although Russia has all along backed India’s entry it was Beijing’s reservation which held it so long.

But recently Chinese president Xi Jinping has informed Modi during BRICS summit in Brazil that it is ready to welcome India together with Pakistan in order to project a united front against Islamic extremism in Central Asia including Afghanistan specially after NATO withdrawal. On 11–12 September EAM Sushma Swaraj attended the Dushanbe summit in Tajikistan where India formally put its paper for a full membership and now it is likely to be granted soon according to Chinese officials. And if everything goes well Modi could participate at the heads of government summit in Astana, Kazakhstan in December.

United Nations general assembly

Modi delivered his maiden speech in the sixty-ninth session of the United Nations General Assembly on 27 September 2014, where he called for reform and expansion of United Nations Security Council including India’s long standing demand of a permanent membership. He expressed his concerns over the relevance of a 20th-century setup in 21st century and the need to evaluate UN’s performance in the past 70 years. He had also argued why UN should serve as G-All for global governance instead of several parallel sub-groupings like G7, G20 etc. In the wake of ISIS threat in West Asia and similar in other parts of the globe he urged for immediate implementation of ‘Comprehensive on International Terrorism’ by the UN and offered India’s pro-active role in it citing India as a victim of terrorism for decades.

Prior to his speech he along with External Affairs Minister Swaraj met UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and discussed UN governance relating issues. Ridiculing the possibility of any multilateral intervention, a demand Sharif has made in his address at the UNGA on 26 September, on Kashmir related matter he stated that his govt is ready for ‘bilateral talk’ to Pakistan provided Pakistan should cultivate suitable environment for talks by giving up terrorism policy against India.

Modi commented briefly on climate change and use of clean energy, in this regards he also asked world leaders and UN officials for observing International Yoga Day, emphasizing the importance of incorporating Yoga in modern-day life style.

At the sidelines he held bilateral meetings with Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Nepali Prime Minister Sushil Koirala taking his ‘neighbourhood first’ policy forward even in New York. But there was no meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif following the recent low in the relation. Later he also met where Benjamin Netanyahu, in a first meeting in 11 years between the two heads of government, the Israeli Prime Minister who had highlighted the potential of the bilateral relation saying sky is the limit.

ASEAN-India summit

Association of South East Asian Nations or ASEAN is the 10 member block, it is one of the most successful regional block in the world. India started looking toward the group seriously from 1992 with the launch of ‘Look East policy’ and now it occupies the central position in India’s policy Southeast Asia. From 2002 onward India and ASEAN started holding annual summit at the sidelined of ASEAN summit showing the growing level of engagement between the two sides.

At the 12th India-ASEAN summit, which was Modi’s first appearance in an ASEAN meet, he called for greater connectivity with the Southeast Asian countries and mentioned that India and ASEAN can be ‘great partners’. Stressing on the importance ASEAN commands in India’s foreign policy Modi has repeatedly remarked that his govt has in the last 6 months made relation with ASEAN a top priority and turned India’s two decade old ‘Look East policy’ into ‘Act East policy’ which reflects a renewed momentum in India’s approach toward ASEAN nations. The two sides also discussed the scope of extending the existing free trade agreement on service sector as well and ways to increase India-ASEAN trade which is expected to reach US$100 billion in 2015. Modi also stressed on three ‘C’s to strengthen the relation and those are commerce, connectivity and cultural links. In the sidelines of ASEAN summit Modi also held several bilateral meetings with his counterparts including Thai Prime Minister Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and South Korean President Park Geun-hye.

ASEAN Regional Forum

Earlier Swaraj had attended the 2014 ASEAN Regional Forum followed by the related EAS Foreign Ministers meeting, held from 8–11 August in Naypidaw, Myanmar, which was her first ever appearance in multilateral forums after becoming India’s foreign affairs head. At the sidelines of the multilateral meetings she had also held bilateral meetings with her counterparts from seven countries including China, Australia, Canada, Vietnam, Philippines, Brunei and Indonesia.

In regards to controversy of territorial ownership in the South China Sea, a contentious issue impacting most ASEANmember states, where ONGC Videsh has investment in oil blocks, MEA spokesperson