The View
NEPAL
By Akhilesh Upadhyay The Kathmandu Post
Passage To India
India must manage relationships within South Asia if it wants to rise as a great power ❖❖ Kathmandu
I
ndia’s foreign and strategic policy dilemma is a unique one and nowhere does it play out more acutely than in South Asia, its immediate neighbourhood. Growing at a fast clip in recent years and gradually emerging as a powerful voice in the global arena, India undoubtedly has the potential to take the lead in helping the economic performance of its neighbours. But that’s not going to be easy. I t h a s t o fi r s t o f a l l contend with a history of poor neighbourliness and the “noisy” discourse o f t h e d e m ocr a ci e s in South Asia. A recent 70-page report by an independent group of Indian analysts, "NonAlignment 2.0: A foreign and strategic policy report for India in the 21st century", outlines the Indian dilemma and priorities in some detail. India, the report declares, cannot hope to arrive as a great power if it is unable to manage relationships within South Asia. While it has the potential to lift its neighbours to better economic performance and social development, India cannot “wish away the fact that the history of inter-state relations in South Asia is such that India’s neighbours fear it or chafe at its perceived condescension.” That’s because of history. India, for instance, has been a key player in the last three regime changes in Nepal— in 1950, 1990 and 2006. And in just about every government change in recent years—especially after the 2008 elections—India is perceived to have engaged in strong backroom machinations to get its favoured 6•
candidate elected as prime minister. Opinions are deeply divided over the desired level and nature of Indian influence in Nepal’s domestic affairs and India’s long-term goals therein. As NonAlignment 2.0 concedes, India is a factor in the domestic politics of its neighbours and it will have to live with—and address the fact—that politicians in neighbouring countries will continue to bait India. However,
rather than getting distracted by the “noise” generated by the democracies, the report urges India to concentrate on long-term goals. Two of the six authors of NonAlignment—former Indian ambassador to Nepal Shyam Saran and editor of Hindu Siddartha Varadarajan—are notable Nepal hands. Others have strong policy research backgrounds: Pratap Bhanu Mehta, former Lt Gen Prakash Menon, Sunil Khilnani and Rajiv Kumar. The urgency of the tone of the report is noteworthy, which asserts that India’s internal development will "depend decisively" on how it manages its global opportunities. The authors believe that the
window of opportunity (10-15 years) for India is limited and the choices that are made now will lead to set of future choices, structures and dynamics necessary to achieve prosperity. They have not dished out specific policy prescriptions (which they leave to government officials) but made suggestions for a strategic consensus on India’s international engagements—across party lines, civil society, the corporate world and the media. While the report acknowledges that China and the US will remain the undisputed superpowers of the 21st century, the new and emerging world order will be structurally far more different from that of the Cold War era—which was neatly divided along Soviet and Western blocs. The new world order will instead be defined by many more and diffused power centres and regional hubs and middle level powers where coalitions will be fluid and the need for political management constant. For those of us in South Asia, what will be of principal concern is how India will use the “window of opportunity” in the next 10-15 years to further its interests in a changing world. Already, in the last two decades and for the first time in history, India has embarked on a path of rapid economic growth and, given the scale of the changes to come, it is bound to leave its mark on the new world order. Change starts at home. That the Indian intelligentsia has noticed India’s neighbourhood problem, however, will not mean much unless the foreign policy establishment puts the recommendations into practice. March 9-22, 2012