Does India’s neighbourhood policy need reworking?
Paper:
Mains: G.S. II India’s foreign policy, International Relations
Context
- Recent visits by Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shrinkhla and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval to countries in the region appear to show new energy in India’s neighbourhood policy.
- Over the past few years, there have been many strains in ties with neighbours – for instance, with Nepal over it’s Constitution in 2015 and now over the map, and with Bangladesh over the Citizenship Amendment Act.
Explanation
- This new energy is welcome. However, it is extremely important that our engagement with our neighbouring countries should not be episodic. It should not be event-oriented; it should be process-oriented. And we should have a plan for continuous engagement at various levels.
- India should fashion it’s diplomacy in a manner which does not give rise to feelings amongst smaller neighbours of being marginalised.
- India’s neighbourhood policy has been a constant work in progress. It is almost impossible for India to get all its ducks in a row in the neighbourhood at one time as it’s a very complex region. It is one of the largest regions in the world by population. It is one of the least integrated regions with large deficits in terms of infrastructure, connectivity and independence. And it is a region that is now being exposed to various geopolitical competition dynamics, with China making a grand entry and the U.S. developing relations on its own with some of India’s neighbours.
- If the main objective of India’s neighbourhood policy is to connect and have closer ties with immediate neighbours, India is doing more than ever today on connectivity and regional policies.
- The capacity of China to deliver on its commitments exposed India’s deficit, and by this China has done a great favour because it’s really pushed India to do much more, to focus on its neighbourhood, which for a long time it took for granted.
- In his book, The India Way, MEA S. Jaishankar says in dealing with India’s neighbours, generosity and firmness must go hand in hand. But what is needed from India more than firmness is clarity.
- It is very easy to accuse any of India’s neighbouring countries of being too close to China. But it is very difficult to set out the exact terms of what they should or shouldn’t do with China.
- Naturally all these countries in India’s neighbourhoods will try to balance. They will always be anxious about India, which is the de facto giant in this geography. The only way to really solve all this is to focus on creating interdependence in this region that will give India strategic leverage.
- All these countries in India’s neighbourhood that used to depend and rely much more on India in the past are adopting a first come, first served policy. They have an open door policy and they don’t care if it is Chinese ventilators or Indian that are reaching their capitals first.
- If we look at the various connectivity initiatives that India has taken over the last few years in the neighbourhood, in terms of energy, interdependence, infrastructure, grants and loans, the numbers have been going up. And that is not just because India is feeling more generous towards it’s neighbours; it’s because India is facing competition from China.
- If we try to match China dollar for dollar, road for road, or project for project, we will constantly be trying to catch up.
- Building connections with all our neighbours , whether it is through highways, railways, the revival of riverine transportation or sub-regional energy grids, are things that we can do, because what they do is they bring into play the proximity with all our neighbours. This proximity has to be linked with software of connectivity.
- Give national treatment to our neighbours with respect to the use of transportation network or ports, and exports and imports. We should aim to be the best possible alternative in terms of economic development of our neighbours. If we can do that, the picture will dramatically change.
- The government’s approach for coordination and cooperation with other extra regional powers except China has been welcome. Since we are not in position to match the kind of resources that China is able to deploy in the neighbourhood, it does make sense for us to join other partners, like the U.S. or Japan.
- All discussions of India’s policies in the neighbourhood today are held without mentioning the SAARC. The format of SAARC is outdated and it does not serve the complex, fluid regional cooperation agenda any longer. Pakistan has taken a very different approach to regional connectivity, it sees itself mostly as hub between China and the Gulf, so towards the west and north. India therefore had to respond and seek to gravitate more towards the south, to the Indian Ocean region, and the east, across the Bay of Bengal with Southeast Asia.
- India has revived BIMSTEC and worked in the BBIM quadrilateral for framework on motor vehicle and water governance, which don’t hold India’s cooperation agenda hostage to a consensus at SAARC.
- BBIN and BIMSTEC should be pursued on their own merits but is should not be replacing SAARC. The overall objective and the idea of fully integrated South Asia is something we should always keep in front of us. Our other neighbours, with perhaps the exception of Bhutan, are interested in SAARC. They see SAARC as a worthwhile platform for regional cooperation.
- Now, if India is going to turn it’s back on SAARC, if India walks out, there could even be a possibility of China being welcomed into SAARC. If that were to happen, our challenges would become even worse.