The challenge of proximity

S HY A M S A RA N

SOUTH ASIA is today the politically correct way to refer to a region once better known as the Indian subcontinent. While political divisions may have made the Indian prefix somewhat presumptuous, the subcontinent remains a reality as a compact and easily identifiable geographical space occupied by a diverse people, who nevertheless share a common history and enjoy strong cultural affinity and kinship ties. The subcontinent is also a natural economic unit with a very high degree of intra-regional complementarities. Therefore, even though our region is home to several independent and sovereign states, there is a compelling argument in favour of charting a course towards a South Asia Union, where political divisions become progressively less relevant as benefits of economic integration and growing interdependency grow in salience. It is on the basis of these geographic, historical and cultural continuities that one can hope to build a new and productive architecture of cooperation that has so far eluded the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). For India, the important question is whether regional economic integration will serve Indias interests involving, as it inevitably would, a free flow of goods, services, peoples and ideas across our borders. Or would a policy of insulating ourselves from our neighbours be more prudent? How will regional economic integration impact on the ongoing process of globalization of the Indian economy? Will the forces of economic integration and interdependence help in overcoming political and psychological barriers which have bedevilled the region? Conversely, will these barriers continue to trump the forces of economic integration and interdependence? It is now accepted wisdom that the globalization of the Indian economy with more outward and liberal economic policies has delivered high growth rates and relative prosperity. India sees itself as an integral component of the dynamic and even dramatic transformation of the Asian economy. The much talked about shift in the centre of gravity of the global economy from West to East is both a condition as well as a consequence of Indias own emergence as an economic powerhouse. We see the globalization process as involving India in concentric and ever widening circles of economic cooperation. In this architecture, regional economic integration in South Asia becomes an integral part and inner most zone of these concentric circles. It is difficult to see how India can take full advantage of the growing and even more dense web of economic interaction and interdependence binding Asia together, while remaining in relative isolation from its own immediate periphery.

It is also difficult to visualize India being able to focus over an extended period of time, say for
the next 20 to 25 years, on delivering rapid economic growth, unless we can ensure a relatively

peaceful and stable periphery. Crises in neighbouring countries, conflict situations or worse, the possible emergence of failed states, may so completely preoccupy us that we may be compelled to divert our national energies to dealing with the consequences of a troubled neighbourhood. Therefore, efficient management of our neighbourhood becomes a necessary condition of ensuring that for the forseeable future, our energies remain focused on economic development and eradication of poverty. Insulating ourselves from developments in our neighbourhood is not possible. In an age of globalization, it is also not desirable, since the larger integration into the global economy which we seek, also requires pursuit of economic integration in our own region if it is to deliver its full benefits. If the pursuit of regional economic integration of South Asia is in Indias interest, what would be the most appropriate strategy to achieve this? What are the challenges we need to overcome? The defining feature of South Asia is asymmetry. India is by far the largest among the countries of the region, larger in size, population and economic and military capability compared to all others combined. It shares land and maritime boundaries with all its neighbours, but they do not with each other. There are significant ethnic, linguistic and cultural spill-overs across Indias borders with each of its neighbours. The Indian footprint is visible across the subcontinent. These are largely absent if we consider relations among our neighbours themselves. It is this asymmetry which influences the perceptions and attitudes that shape the neighbourhood policies of India and South Asian nations. This is the challenge of proximity we need to deal with.

Apprehensions among our neighbours concerning political and economic domination by India
are a given. They are inherent in asymmetry. It is inevitable that our neighbours will engage in hedging tactics to countervail Indias dominant position. This should neither lead to a constant moaning about a perceived lack of affection from our neighbours; nor should India react with a prickliness that often borders on acute anxiety, whenever our neighbours are deemed to be wooing other suitors. The first often leads to excessive and mostly misdirected generosity and accommodation; the second to harsh over-reaction and a constant blame game. There arises a kind of siege mentality and a tendency to shut out a neighbourhood perceived as being hostile and unfriendly. Against this background, it is not difficult to see why, in 1985, when SAARC (South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation) was established, it was mostly seen in India as a ganging up of hostile neighbours to try their own containment strategy against this country. These suspicions were to a large extent justified, certainly if we examine the motivations of at least some of our neighbours. During the past decade there has been a steady rethink in Indias approach to its neighbourhood. The new Indian approach is encapsulated in Indias current message to its neighbours look upon India as an opportunity and not as a threat. From being a reluctant and often suspicious partner in SAARC, India is now an unambiguous champion of a vision of an integrated region where shared prosperity could help usher in peace. It is India which articulated, at the SAARC Summit of 2002, a blueprint for a South Asian Union with a common market and also a common

currency. Since then, it has taken a number of initiatives to promote economic integration in the region and this trend is likely to be further strengthened in the coming years.

What has led to this change in outlook? This policy shift has been based on the growing belief
that the pursuit of economic integration in South Asia must be an indispensable component of the globalization of the Indian economy. Additionally, there is also an assumption that the pursuit of economic integration with a web of interdependence it will inevitably result in, offers prospects for overcoming the political and psychological barriers that divide the region. Asymmetry in this context can be an advantage. The very size of the Indian economy, its expansive diversity and increasing openness and liberalization, provides an opportunity for this country to emerge as the indispensable engine of growth for all its smaller neighbours. The same asymmetry should give us confidence to remove barriers to the free flow of goods, services and investment as part of a SAARC Free Market, even if this requires non-reciprocal benefits to be extended to our neighbours. The experience of free trade and comprehensive economic cooperation with Sri Lanka, the mutual benefits that Bhutan and India are beginning to enjoy as a result of hydropower development in Bhutan, the enmeshing of the Indian and Nepali economies thanks to an open trade and open border regime, have resulted in greater mutual sensitivity to political and security concerns and overall, more stable and positive political relations between India and these countries. Nevertheless, if our objective of building a dense web of interdependency in our region is to be realized, a number of challenges will need to be overcome. First, the mindset needs to change. We must stop looking at our borders as walls behind which we can insulate ourselves from our neighbours (which in any case is practically not possible as the porousness of the Indo-Bangladesh and Indo-Nepal borders would testify) and begin to treat them as connectors.

Second, and related to the first, we must stop treating our own border states and border areas as
some kind of buffer zone, safeguarding the more populous and more developed interior areas. Such an approach may have had a certain logic during the time of British colonial rule. However, in independent India, all territory within our borders is national territory. All people living within these borders have an equal status and equal rights to development. The hangover of British colonial attitudes, which most visibly survives today in the continuing institution of inner-line permit, has retarded development in our sensitive border areas, increased the sense of alienation among people residing in those areas and increasingly detached them from the national mainstream. Both development and security have suffered as a result.

Third, once we are able to bring about this critical shift in our approach to borders, border states and frontier areas, the objective of regional economic integration would require a concerted plan for improving connectivity between these areas and the rest of the country, and parallely, between India and our neighbouring countries. These must go hand in hand. There is also an urgent requirement for upgrading border infrastructure, such as immigration and custom checkpoints, quarantine facilities and tourism promotion facilities. Our border states and border areas can play the role of connectors only when such transport and border infrastructure is put into place. This is a huge challenge since today we are not even as connected as we were in the subcontinent before 1947. In the context of our relations with Pakistan, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signalled a new approach when he said, I do not have the mandate to change borders; but I do have the mandate to make these borders irrelevant over a period of time. But this is a principle applicable to all our neighbours. Over a period of time, the establishment of transport and communication connectivity amongst all the countries of South Asia will enable the uninterrupted flow of goods, services, peoples and ideas through such cross-border transmission belts. After years of relative neglect, the government has finally begun to fast-track the implementation of projects in this sector.

Another significant part of Indias neighbourhood policy is based on the recognition of the
crucial role that culture and people to people contacts can play in forging a shared identity. There are very strong cultural affinities among the people of the subcontinent. The ethnic, cultural and linguistic spillover across Indias borders with its neighbours is as much an asset as it is a complicating factor in our interactions with them. These cultural affinities with peoples of neighbouring countries (witness the success of the celebration of Punjabiyat between Punjabispeaking people across the India-Pakistan border) can be leveraged into reinforcing a sense of togetherness and shared identity. This, too, is beginning to be reflected in our cultural exchange policies, with a conscious priority being accorded to our neighbours.

India is the current chairperson of SAARC and thus in a unique position to promote the
objective of economic integration in the region. We must use this opportunity to convince our neighbours that far from being threatened and dominated by India, they have available to them a vast, productive hinterland that would give their economies far greater opportunities for growth than if they were to rely on their domestic markets alone or on economic and trade relations with countries outside the region. India must make itself relevant to the growth aspirations of the people of the entire subcontinent. As the largest economy in the region, India will inevitably have to shoulder the greater responsibility. It will have to be far more liberal in opening up its markets to goods from SAARC neighbours than it has been so far. We will have to make a larger financial contribution to developing connectivity and cross-border infrastructure. If we are able to convince our

neighbours that India is prepared to make them full stakeholders in its economic destiny, then the goal of a vibrant and globally competitive South Asian Economic Community would be within reach. The impact this would have on the Asian and global economy would truly be momentous.

A return to democracy
DE B MUK HA RJI

OVER the past thirty-six years since its emergence, Bangladesh has continued to confuse Indians. The massacre of the man acknowledged (now officially) as the Father of the Nation and much of his family was the first major jolt to our perceptions of Bangladesh. This was followed by military takeovers at intervals and the apparent rise in Islamic fundamentalism. Democracy appeared as elusive as the smile on the Cheshire cat. Many of the events have been deplorable and, though most hurtful to the Bangladeshis themselves, our understanding perhaps has remained circumscribed. Even before its birth, Indians saw Bangladesh through the prism of their obsession with Pakistan. The Indian distaste for the foreign policy of Pakistan and its antics on Kashmir resulted in a kind of sympathy for the Bengali East Pakistanis, seen as being exploited by Rawalpindi. 1971 was perceived as a victory of Indian arms against the Pakistan Army, with neither full understanding nor due acknowledgement of the role of the Bengali freedom fighters or the sacrifices of the people. Many in India were pleased that the emergence of Bangladesh had finally disproved the two-nation theory. Now, as a reaction to the neutral to negative content of our present relationship, one discerns a dismissiveness towards Dhaka and a fresh assumption that it may, after all, be no different from Pakistan. To understand the complexities of our troubled neighbour, it may be useful to take a historical perspective as even the distant past continues to influence thinking, and hence events, in contemporary Bangladesh. The emergence of a linguistic-cultural nationalism after 1947, fuelled by the economic exploitation by West Pakistan, is well documented. There are, however, grey areas, even scholarly disagreement on the history of the Bengali Muslim. There is the view that much of the conversion to Islam took place due to state patronage. Hindus, particularly of the lower castes, it is said, fled the tyranny of the caste system to a more egalitarian society. Conversely, it is argued that the delta, where the Muslims were to be in a majority, was outside the pale of rigid Brahmanical Hinduism, and less oppressive.

It is further argued that the rapid growth of Islam in Bangladesh was not, as is often assumed, during the period of the Bengal sultanates from the 13th to the 16th centuries, but during subsequent Mughal rule which followed a secular trajectory. Conversions to Islam, some believe, were due largely as a result of the example and preaching of Sufi saints. There is no agreement on many of these points, and the question why there should be a concentration of Muslims in the remote east of the subcontinent, far from the immediate impact of Turk and Mughal invasions, does not still have a conclusive answer.

What is notable about Islam in Bangladesh is its syncretic nature, which would seem to sustain
the view of its Sufi origins. Numerous examples of worship and prayer bear out the non-rigid nature of Islam in Bangladesh. This was not always to the liking of those who looked to Arabic as the holy language and Central Asia or Arabia as their home. The conflict between Bengali and Arabic or Urdu is by no means a new phenomenon, as we shall see later. The elite ashraf of Bangladesh, claiming descent from Muslim invaders, considered themselves superior to the dark skinned natives of Bangladesh with Hindu forefathers. This contempt was to be echoed by the West Pakistani in 1971, as Bangladesh was ravaged and the native Muslim regarded as no better than a kafir. Towards the end of the 19th century, the ashraf of Bengali Muslim society painstakingly laid out charts of who was to be considered a good Muslim. It even included a five level caste system of society depending on the degree of inter-marriage between the ashraf and the native, the last rung, expectedly, held by the Bengali Muslims who could claim no foreign blood in their veins.

The Battle of Plassey (1757) ended over five centuries of Muslim rule in Bengal. The most
grievously affected were obviously Muslims in positions of authority. Shortly thereafter (1793) came the Permanent Settlement of Lord Cornwallis, facilitating the creation of a wealthy and influential landed gentry, largely Hindu. The 19th century saw the rapid growth of an educated Hindu middle class who had no inhibition in learning from the West. Education and the efflorescence of ideas led in turn to what is known as the Bengal Renaissance. It was not a renaissance in which the Bengali Muslim participated. 1857 further increased the angst of the Indian Muslim, including from Bengal. With an increasing realization of the changed circumstances, effort began to pull Muslim society out of its abject depression. Men of vision tried to ensure modern education for the Bengali Muslim. Incidentally, the 1871 Census showed that Muslims were in a majority in several districts of Bengal that now constitute Bangladesh. Slowly, with a decline of ashraf bias against education to lower classes of Muslims, a self-conscious middle class began to grow. Soon thereafter, the interests and the voices of the peasants were also heard. Of importance is the nature of Hindu-Muslim relations in Bengal. The Muslim elite clearly and naturally had a position of advantage during the Sultanate and subsequent Mughal rule, though

Hindus were not entirely excluded. But the rulers had been just to their subjects, and there was no inter-communal tension as was to be seen from the end of the 19th century onwards. Equally, the two societies led almost parallel lives. An opening comment in Sharatchandra Chattopadhyas Shrikant, written almost a century ago, is revealing of mutual perceptions: This afternoon there was a football match between Bengalis and Muslims. Most of the peasants in Tagores zamindari in East Bengal were Muslims. Yet Muslims did not feature in his stories, even as many of his devotional songs reflected the Sufi poetry of his neighbour, Lalan fakir of Kushtia. Bankimchandra Chattopadhaya made little effort to mask his distaste of the yavana, while Bengali Hindu writers wrote in praise of the Marathas and Rajputs who had fought the Turks and Mughals. The syncretic Islam of Bengal did not make it immune from occasional Wahabi campaigns of the 19th century.

The Partition of Bengal (1905) came at a critical juncture. The Bengali Hindu was beginning to
question the Raj, while the Muslim ashraf had made peace with it (the Muslim League was founded in Dhaka in 1906 with ashraf leadership, and the blessings of the Raj) and a Muslim middle class was becoming conscious of its rights. The creation of a new province with Dhaka as its capital aroused hopes of a revival of Bengali Muslim fortunes, soon to be dashed with the annulment of the partition in 1911. Among the entire political leadership of Bengal and India, only Chittaranjan Das saw the storm clouds ahead and formulated the Bengal Pact of 1923, offering a fair deal to the Bengali Muslim in keeping with the numerical strength of the community. However, the bhadralok press and politicians of Bengal scoffed at it and the Congress rejected the pact at its annual session. The next few years would see an increase in communal riots. A disciple of Das, Fazlul Haq, was now to establish himself as a champion of the rights of peasants.

The (West) Pakistan centric attitudes in India often blur our recollection of some of the events
that led to Partition. It was Fazlul Haqs brief dalliance with the Muslim League that gave it a foothold in Bengal. Haq, however, was discarded once he had served his purpose and an unholy alliance with the British governor brought the League to power in Bengal. Expectedly, Jinnah and the League leadership chose to entrust the party to an ashraf with no roots in the land. Finally, it was Chief Minister Suhrawardys complicity in the great Calcutta killings on the Direct Action Day called for by Jinnah that made Partition inevitable. History may judge that it was Jawaharlal Nehrus thoughtless comments about the Cabinet Mission proposals that tilted the balance, but it was surely the body of solid support from Bengal that helped convert the Leagues demands into reality. As Partition approached, many non-feudal Muslims from Bengal seemed to prefer a united and independent Bengal. This was not acceptable to either the League or the Congress. And the Bengali Hindu who had fought for

reunification of the province after the Curzon partition of 1905, was now unwilling to be part of a Muslim majority nation, particularly after the riots of Calcutta and Noakhali. After 1947, the Bengali Muslim of East Pakistan rapidly learnt that Pakistan was not his promised land. The demand for treating Bengali at par with Urdu was peremptorily rejected by Jinnah in 1948. On 21 February 1952, students of Dhaka University agitating for their language, faced police firing. The status of Bengali had been in dispute for long. The ashraf and much of the ulema had for centuries emphasized that religion demanded the primacy of Arabic. Towards the end of the 17th century, a Bengali Muslim poet pithily reflected the passion of the times when he wrote, He who knows not his mother tongue, knows not the name of his father. The virtues of Urdu were extolled by both the Muslim League leadership and, subsequently, the central government of Pakistan. Subliminally, if not consciously, the language movement of East Pakistan helped establish the primacy of indigenous Bengali speakers in politics. It was, as one analyst commented, the homecoming of the Bengali Muslim.

The internal contradictions of the Pakistani state would have, sooner or later, led to a parting of
ways. Some degree of acceptance of East Pakistans demand for autonomy may even have resulted in a confederal structure. But the massive electoral victory of the Awami League in 1970 (giving it an overall majority in Pakistan), Bhuttos thirst for power, the arrogance of the military and, finally, their brutal ravages in 1971, made independence inevitable. There was no need for Bangladesh to suffer from any crisis of identity. Pakistan was always proud of not being India, a negative self-definition not conducive to nation building. Bangladesh, on the other hand, drawing on its linguistic-cultural heritage could claim a hoary lineage, one that did not in any way detract from its parallel Islamic heritage and identity. But the ghosts of the past are not easily buried. In April 1977, the military government of Ziaur Rahman renamed the citizen from Bengali to Bangladeshi. Whatever the laboured post-facto explanation, the intention was quite simply a return to the Lahore Resolution of Muslim majority states. The efforts at negating the gains of the language movement created grounds for a fresh crisis of identity. Even now, in 2008, there is a strong and renewed popular demand for calling to account the perpetrators of crimes in 1971. 1971, the culmination of the struggle for the acknowledgement of a linguistic-cultural identity and economic emancipation, remains the defining benchmark for many. There was a reversal of the process of building a new nation with the assassination of Mujib. What has been in evidence since, even if in different forms, is a replay of the underlying principles of the centuries old struggle between the ashraf and the indigenous, between Urdu/Arabic and Bengali, Fazlul Haq versus Nazimuddin, indigenous syncretic Islam and Wahabi Islam, the fair skinned Pathan/Moghul and the dark Bengali. It is a conflict between the spirit of 47 and the spirit of 71. Until this issue is resolved, it is unlikely that Bangladesh will be at peace with itself.

In the past three decades, Bangladesh has experienced two military takeovers (in 1975 and
1982) and several attempted intra-military coups. After the brief period of democratic representation following independence, sullied by Mujibs imposition of a one party state, there were fifteen years of military or quasi-military rule (1975-1990). Street action restored parliamentary democracy, which lasted till 2006. The military returned to centre-stage in January 2007. This time around the declaration of emergency with military backing was welcomed by most, as the previous government had brought the country to the edge of anarchy and civil war. It is also difficult to deny that neither major political party, the Awami League or the Bangladesh National Party, has distinguished itself in promoting democratic norms. Presently, people wait and watch if the military will allow free and fair elections by the end of the year.

Of deep concern to Bangladeshis in recent years is the rise of Islamic extremism. Though
revivalist elements had made their presence felt on past occasions, what distinguishes the recent upsurge is the foreign links and the violence. Several factors have converged. There is anger at the real as well as perceived focusing on Muslims as agents of terror, particularly by the West. Many of those trained in terror in Bangladesh are veterans of either the mujahideen or the taleban in Afghanistan. For an even longer period there has been the involvement of the ISI of Pakistan with India as the objective, and to this has lately been added the terrorist organizations based in Pakistan with their sights on India as well as the established state in Bangladesh. Dubious Arab funds have sustained the jehadi elements. The Ahmediya community in Bangladesh has been targeted as being nonMuslim and its places of worship attacked. The Hindu community became in the target of widespread violence after the 2001 elections for having supported the Awami League. And though a courageous media in Bangladesh has regularly highlighted the training and activities of jehadi elements, all previous governments have invariably dismissed the issue. With a land border of over 4000 kilometres with India, much of it over flat deltaic territory, close cooperation would be expected. There is a substantial flow of visitors from Bangladesh to India for purposes of business, tourism, education and medical treatment. There is also considerable cultural connectivity. The level of people to people contact is not, however, reflected in the relations between states or in Dhakas foreign policy. As a lower riparian, there is legitimate concern in Bangladesh about the future flows of the many rivers that enter from India. Though the Ganges Treaty of 1996 has removed a major irritant, there is concern about others. India may not have unrestricted usage of upstream flows, but has a responsibility to hundreds of millions of her own citizens. Also, there is little possibility of a long term solution without the involvement of all co-riparians. Similarly, Bangladesh feels that India needs to be more generous with trade concessions, given the large deficit in balance of trade. India, on the other hand, is unable to understand Bangladeshs continued refusal to grant transit facilities to the North East.

And while it is possible that the government of Bangladesh is not directly responsible for the
large scale illegal migration or the provision of sanctuaries to Indian insurgents, Dhakas disinclination to engage in productive discussions on these issues of vital concern to India remains a stumbling block in enlarging the scope and content of our relationship. In recent years there has been added concern as jehadi elements with Bangladesh connections have been active in India, allegedly with support from elements of the previous government. It is, however, important to underline that jehadis pose a far greater threat to Bangladesh itself and this is well recognized in the country. One must allow for reservations understandable in a relatively smaller neighbour, though Bangladesh with a population of 140 million is not small in absolute terms. And there could be truth, as well, in the charge that Indias excessive preoccupation with the western neighbour leaves her with little time for others. But the absence of a close relationship, or even understanding, must primarily be laid at the door of Dhakas inability to decide on whether to approach relations with India in a spirit of cooperation or by maintaining a cautious distance, as the spirit of 47 would dictate. As Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus said in 2006, the persistent negative depiction of India by politicians for their political reasons is of no benefit to Bangladesh.

Bangladeshs relations with the rest of South Asia too are not warm, with the exception of
Pakistan. A section of the political spectrum looks hopefully towards Pakistan as a counterpoise to India. They resent the break-up of Pakistan and primarily hold India responsible, as articulated bluntly by a home minister only a few years ago. Beyond emotions and the memories of a common struggle for the establishment of Pakistan, however, there is no great substance in the relationship. It is one of advantage to Pakistan, which has used Bangladesh surrogates for acts of subversion in India, or assistance to Indian insurgents in the North East. The issue of so-called stranded Pakistanis or Bihari Muslims, a term used for Muslims who had migrated from India to the then East Pakistan and sided with the Pakistan Army in 1971, remains unresolved, with Pakistan declining to rehabilitate the majority. Those who are imbued with what is termed as the spirit of 71 see Pakistan with distaste. Just as Pakistan has sought to break free from the subcontinent and look westwards for a new anchor for its identity, Bangladesh has made conscious, but as yet unproductive, efforts to get closer to ASEAN. Its future success would, however, depend on the performance of its economy. Dhaka has also sought closer links with the Islamic world, and while these are considered important for internal politics, there is no substantive content.

Besides the European Union, an important source of aid, the two countries with which
Bangladesh has cultivated cordial relations are China and the United States. Both countries had opposed the independence of Bangladesh, and in the case of China relations were established only after Mujibs assassination. Successive governments in Dhaka have given China importance

in their foreign policy perspectives. For some, China, together with Pakistan, is seen as an insurance against the immediate large neighbour, India. With a steady improvement in SinoIndian relations, however, this element of the calculation is likely to be re-assessed. Nevertheless, China is an important supplier of military equipment and its trade with Bangladesh has grown rapidly to the extent that the bilateral trade deficit has now outstripped the deficit with India. The United States has a major presence in Bangladesh, including in the exploration of gas. American efforts to obtain special facilities in Chittagong port, with possible strategic implications, have not yet fructified. Bangladesh has a healthy trade surplus with the US, which is an important destination for Bangladeshs garment exports.

Besides the unresolved questions of identity that run as an undercurrent through the political
debates, a major drawback for Bangladesh has been the irresponsible nature of politics since the restoration of democracy in 1990. The high-handed efforts of the ruling party to ensure success in the elections due in early 2007, the high levels of corruption, and the emasculation of institutions that can make democracy function, pushed it to the edge of a precipice which could only result in mass civil unrest. The efforts of the army-backed regime over the past year to cleanse the system and bring about some semblance of order were initially welcomed by most sections of society. However, the establishment may be in error in trying to effect changes that go well beyond the stated objective of creating the conditions for holding free and fair elections. Empowerment of institutions such as the Election Commission and separation of the judiciary from the executive are welcome changes, but societal, political or attitudinal change can only emerge through democratic consciousness. It is only through the democratic process that fundamental issues of the past and the future can be resolved. What may be underlined is that over the past century the Bengali Muslim has been conscious of the power of numbers and has demonstrated a healthy disdain for feudal or autocratic power. Though there have been military coups, the armed forces are not integral to the political structure, as in Pakistan. India may not be loved, but it does not provide an excuse for continued domination by the military. And in this perhaps lies the expectation that Bangladesh will soon return to a democratic framework, hopefully with a chastened and more responsive and responsible political leadership.

Nepal at the crossroads

P RA S HA N T J HA

NEPAL seems to be one of those countries permanently at the crossroads. In Kathmandu, every week is a make or break one with lurking doubts about the viability of the peace process. Will negotiations break down? Are all actors committed to the peace roadmap? Will angry ethnic groups, particularly Madhesis, support the process? And the big question will elections to the constituent assembly, twice postponed in the last year, happen on April 10 as scheduled? The uncertainty is inevitable given that Nepal is undergoing a critical political transition. This becomes more pronounced at times when a political deadlock cripples negotiations. But beneath the constant turmoil, radical public rhetoric and sporadic violence, the country has undergone a fundamental transformation in the past two years. An autocratic monarch has been deposed through a non-violent mass movement. The political parties are back in the saddle. A decade-long civil war has ended with an insurgent force, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), promising to give up violence and abide by multiparty democracy. The democratic mainstream as it existed in the 1990s has been redefined, based on the recognition that the old state structure failed to address peoples aspirations. There is widespread acceptance about the need to shift from a Kathmandu-centred unitary structure to federalism, from a Hindu state to secularism, from a system controlled by hill upper-castes to a more just and equitable framework, and from a narrow notion of nationalism to a more inclusive one. Nepal truly is not the same country anymore. But it has not been easy. Nor can the process be said to be successful or complete yet, with the peace process facing multiple challenges. The Maoists have struggled to reconcile the contradictions inherent in espousing radical goals and having a militant cadre with the requirements of the peace process. The realization that they have a limited mass base, in strictly electoral terms, has not helped. The mainstream parties at the helm of the government, particularly the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist), have neither reformed nor have they succeeded in providing basic service delivery. The reluctance of parties to go in for polls, either because they want to perpetuate status quo or due to fear about electoral prospects, has created wide public disenchantment and raised questions about the legitimacy of the present system.

The opening of democratic space has meant that long suppressed voices of excluded
communities ethnic groups, women, Dalits and Madhesis have begun asserting themselves. Among these, the resentment of Madhesis in the countrys southern plains, the Tarai, ranks as the single most important phenomenon. While positive in itself, it has added to the pressure on an already weak and incompetent state headed by an 86-year-old ailing Prime Minister, Girija Prasad Koirala. The deteriorating public security, eight hours of power cuts every day, and fuel shortages does not help, lending an air of anarchy.

The monarchy is in a suspended state with the provision that the first sitting of the constituent assembly would formally abolish the institution. For obvious reasons, the palace and its affiliates would be happy to see this process collapse. While the king-army relationship has undergone some change, sections in the top leadership of the army are against being put under civilian control. They have rejected the idea of security sector reform a critical component of the peace process which would involve integrating former Maoist combatants in the national army. The civil society, which played a key role in the restoration of democracy, is fragmented and busy fighting among itself. And the delicate consensus between India, which has enormous influence in Nepal, and the rest of the international community about the right way ahead for the peace process has gone through immense strain. In face of these incredible challenges, Nepals political class has decided to hold polls on April 10. This has happened largely because of pressure from India, which sees polls as the logical conclusion of the peace process it has micro-managed, and the Nepali people, who have not voted for nine years and view the constituent assembly as the most legitimate platform to discuss state restructuring. Elections look like a real possibility now. But so does an escalation in violence from different quarters royalists, Madhesi extremists, sections of Maoists which may be used as a pretext to put off polls once again at the last minute. If that happens, it will almost certainly lead to the collapse of the peace process. At the same time, there is worry about the nature of elections, post election scenarios and the way results will impact the attitudes and commitment of the main actors towards the peace process.

Close engagement between the Maoists and the mainstream parties, particularly the NC and
UML, explains the success of the peace process so far. From the 12 point agreement of November 2005, signed in Delhi, to fight an autocratic monarch, to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) a year later marking the end of the Peoples War, the negotiation process has been tense, but characterized by flexibility. Both sides need each other. The big parties realize that Maoist participation contributed to the regime change and the peoples mandate is for peace and democracy. Going back to war is a non-option, for it would once again squeeze the democratic space and strengthen extremists on both sides. The Maoists realized they had reached the limits of their military campaign, that a takeover of the capital was not possible, and engaging with India and the rest of the international community was a strategic necessity. While there are sections among them who see the present interlude as merely a tactical ploy, the top leadership appears reconciled to bourgeois democracy and hopes to push their agenda in that framework.

The CPA provided for UN supervision of Maoist soldiers and arms. This was followed by an
interim constitution promulgated with the consent of the Maoists and the then seven-party alliance. It was decided that the first session of the constituent assembly would vote on the fate of monarchy. An interim legislature was constituted with 83 new Maoist members. And after

intense bargaining, an interim government was formed on April 1 last year with five Maoist ministers. Even as the process of the Maoists becoming an integral part of the mainstream polity was underway, there were latent issues that emerged changing all political calculations, like the Madhesi rebellion. Elections were slated for June. But neither the parties, nor the Election Commission were prepared for it. The new poll dates were announced for November 22. But it was in this period that tensions within the Maoists came to the surface. There had been rising discontent among sections of the Maoists. The former soldiers were living in miserable conditions in cantonments, with the government dragging its feet on even releasing their payment. The cadre was disillusioned they had been told that the peace process was a victory for the Maoists, but there was little visible achievement with all revolutionary aims on the back burner. The government had not even set up a commission to investigate cases of those who have disappeared, or provided compensation to families. To top it all, the electoral base of the Maoists was by all indications limited, with even internal calculations suggesting that the former rebels would not win more than 10 to 12 per cent of the vote.

The radical section of the leadership, especially former military commander Ram Bahadur
Thapa Badal and senior leader Kiran, had been skeptical of the peace process from the outset. They now ratcheted up the rhetoric, claiming that the Maoists had lost out because they had given up on their core agenda of republicanism, a fully proportional representation based system, and nationalism, by cozying too much with the Indians. With the moderate leadership on the defensive, the Maoists imposed two new preconditions immediate declaration of a republic and full PR. Even as the other side had not fulfilled its part of the bargain honestly, this shifting of goalposts by the Maoists was seen by observers in Kathmandu as a move to run away from polls. Elections had to be cancelled once again. And the last few months of 2007 were characterized by a political deadlock. It was only in end December, under tremendous pressure from civil society and the international community, that the NC and Maoist reached a compromise. Under the 23-point agreement, the country would be a republic, but this had to be confirmed by the CA. And the electoral system, which had a mix of first-past-the-post and PR seats in equal ratio, would be modified to allot a greater share to the PR seats. Under PR, a party gets to select candidates in accordance with its vote share its list has to be inclusive of the countrys marginalized communities, with half the seats for women. The Maoists, who believe they have a greater chance of winning votes in PR than direct seats, have expressed their commitment to the April 10 polls. The challenge for the peace process, and the reluctance to go in for polls, has come from other sections of the SPA as well. The right wing, particularly in the Nepali Congress, has consistently made provocative statements. This faction, which includes the PMs daughter and now minister without portfolio Sujata Koirala, has openly advocated ceremonial monarchy, is flirting with conservative sections in the army, and is viscerally opposed to the Maoists.

The NC, it is widely believed, has the most to lose in elections. It has a disproportionate share of power in Kathmandu, but faces the threat of serious losses in the Tarai, its erstwhile vote base. Many in the party still want to save the monarchy, and Koirala wants to anoint his unpopular daughter as successor in both cases, a no poll scenario seems more helpful. At the same time, Girija Prasad Koirala seems to have realized that an alternative political configuration might crop up if elections do not happen, strengthening the right wing in the short term and the ultra left in the long run, and thus threatening his and NCs political survival. He has publicly staked his legacy on holding elections in April an important reason to believe that polls will indeed be held this time around.

In January 2007, Nepal saw a mass movement by Madhesis, who comprise 33 per cent of the
countrys population. Madhesis are people of plains origin who live in the Tarai, share extensive cultural, linguistic, religious, and kinship ties with people across the border in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and speak Maithili, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Urdu and Hindi. Hill-centric Nepali nationalism, which revolved around notions of one language and one dress, saw Madhesis as outsiders. They were systematically discriminated and excluded from state structures. While a few regional parties, especially the Sadbhavana Party (SP), did try to raise the issue of Madhesi discrimination, they were neither able to garner the support of the larger Madhesi population, nor make a dent in national politics. The Maoists, as a part of their strategy to tap into ethnic discontent, mobilized Madhesis to some extent, and contributed to the militant consciousness in the Tarai.

It was during the promulgation of the interim constitution early last year that Madhesis finally
began to assert themselves. Irked by an inequitable electoral system and silence on federalism, they took to the streets in unprecedented numbers for 21 days. The killing of a Madhesi protestor by a Maoist at the beginning of the agitation also lent an anti-Maoist thrust to the movement, much to the happiness of other mainstream parties and sections of the international community. The prime minister was forced to relent and, in an address to the nation, agreed to amend the constitution and increase seats in the Tarai. The Madhesi movement is as much for symbolic gestures, a sense of dignity and respect, as it is for substantive change in power-sharing arrangements and representation. Unfortunately, the Kathmandu establishment refused to appreciate the nature of the movement. The past year has been characterized by state insensitivity. Madhesi groups asked for the dismissal of the home minister, for he was held responsible for 40 killings due to police firing during the agitation, but the PM refused. They asked for the setting up of a commission to investigate the atrocities the government took four months to do so and appointed the police chief of the eastern region, responsible for the killings, as a member. There was a pan-Tarai demand to declare all those killed as martyrs, but the state dragged its feet. There was an agreement to delineate constituencies in the Tarai, but to the chagrin of

Madhesi politicians, it was done in a manner that would benefit the candidates of hill-origin. The state never implemented its promise of inclusion. When a Madhesi minister wanted to take his oath in Maithili, there was a huge hue and cry about how it could only happen in Nepali. Trivial as many of these incidents may seem, they contributed to the alienation in Madhes, and strengthened the extremists.

If Kathmandus insularity was one part of the picture, a weak and fragmented Madhesi
leadership was the other. The Madhesi Janaadhikar Forum (MJF) emerged as an umbrella formation at the head of the movement. It made a tactical blunder of continuing with the agitation even after the PM had made the concessions. The Forum leader, Upendra Yadav, was suspected of having links with the palace and the Hindu right (he had met Yogi Adityanath in Gorakhpur). These dubious links with forces which were against the peace process, an unclear political agenda, internal splits, weak organization and the failure to effectively communicate the contours of a deal it signed with the government left the party discredited. This led to a severe political vacuum in the Tarai over the past year, with mainstream parties having lost out support and the Madhesi parties unable to fill in the space. The state administration, for its part, was crippled. The process of re-establishing police posts in villages, possible now with the end of the civil war, was halted because of the Madhesi movement. There was little political direction from the top. And local officials were happy turning a blind eye to the lawlessness instead of earning the wrath of political patrons.

All these were ripe ingredients for militancy. There has been a proliferation of armed groups,
with demands ranging from outright secession to complete autonomy. The line between politics and crime is blurred, and most groups are rag-tag outfits of 20-25 people who found an easy political cover to make money. Among these, the Janatantrik Tarai Mukti Morcha (JTMM) factions, headed by Jai Krishna Goit and Jwala Singh, have emerged as the most important outfits. They lack a clear work-plan, an effective organizational structure or ideological coherence. But they have the capacity to engineer targeted communal killings, especially against pahadis in Tarai, bring life to a standstill through strikes, and create fear. The situation in Madhes is thus characterized by multiple faultlines between the state and an angry Madhesi population, between Madhesi groups and Maoists which was manifested in the killing of 28 Maoists by MJF activists in March last year, among Madhesi groups for political space, and between pahadis, who constitute 33 per cent of the Tarai population, and Madhesis. More than 200 people have died during the past year in Tarai during clashes and killings. There was a watershed moment last December when senior Madhesi leaders from different national parties quit to set up a regional outfit, the Tarai-Madhes Loktantrik Party headed by former Congressman Mahant Thakur, revealing the depth of regional and ethnic sentiments. This was greeted with hope that the movement would assume a clear political form. Subsequently, the

MJF, the TMLP and SP formed an alliance and announced a joint agitation in Madhes, demanding an immediate commitment to autonomy and right to self determination in a future federal system, inclusion of Madhesis in state organs, and a flexible interpretation of electoral laws which would allow these parties to send in more Madhesi representatives. They warned of boycotting polls in case their demands were not met. After 17 days of crippling life in the Tarai, and blocking essential supplies to Kathmandu, the Madhesi parties came to an agreement with the government, paving the way for polls on April 10.

But all is not quiet on the Madhes front yet. The armed groups have threatened to disrupt polls.
They fear that a smooth election, whose results and legitimacy is widely accepted, would marginalize them completely. Many of these groups also have links with royalist elements in Kathmandu, their interests converging in discrediting this process. At the same time, militants do not have the capacity to wreck the entire election on their own. They also realize that people want polls. At one level, extremists will engineer a few bomb blasts, attack election officials, and possibly kidnap and kill a few candidates, while at the other, they will strike deals with candidates promising security in return for money. Kathmandu would be prudent to kick-start a process of back-channel communication with them, in order to defuse the immediate damage as well as bring them on board in the long-term.

India is the most important international actor in Nepal. In fact, its influence is such that it is
seen as separate from the rest of the international community almost as another local actor. New Delhis role over the past two years in Nepal has been fairly constructive from brokering the Maoist-parties pact, opposing the royal despot, mediating negotiations at every step in Kathmandu, consistently emphasizing the need for elections, and forcing the government and Madhesi groups to come to an agreement. For once, Indias stated interest of wanting a stable Nepal converges with that of the Nepali people at large. There is little doubt that India would use its massive influence and leverage for its own economic and security interests, but that argument cannot be used to minimize the positive role played by the Indian establishment, in particular the PMs special envoy Shyam Saran and Ambassador Shiv Shanker Mukherjee. However, this cannot be said of the entire Indian polity. The BJP has not only opposed the policy position adopted by India, but openly advocated monarchy and Hindu rashtra in Nepal. Royal lobbyists have found a ready audience in the top VHP and BJP leadership in Delhi. Local Hindutva elements, from Adityanath in Gorakhpur to Baba Sanjay Nath in Raxaul at the Bihar border, have encouraged Madhesi extremists and anti-Maoist vigilantism. While fringe Hindutva elements still advocate an active role for the monarchy, the larger Sangh parivars key aim appears to be weakening the Maoists in Nepal for they believe there is a deep Naxalite-Maoist nexus, a belief that has been countered by Home Minister Shivraj Patil. The Hindu right clearly exaggerates these links, for deep differences characterize the relationship of the ultra left in the two countries.

The Madhesi movement has also found support of local politicians in Bihar. To an extent, this is understandable. There are deep kinship and cultural links between Madhes and Bihar and sympathy for their brethren fighting for a just cause is natural. But criminal elements in Bihar, where law and order has improved under the Nitish Kumar regime, have found the Madhes cause a neat political cover to step up criminal activities in Nepal. The open border and links with Madhesi extremists helps facilitate this. The Indian establishment is also not guilt-free as far as Madhes extremism is concerned. Militants operate from Indian territory bordering areas of Bihar and UP in particular. The state administration has turned a blind eye to their activities. To be fair, given the nature of the cross border linkages, it may not be possible to step up the heat against these extremists, especially in a context when Kathmandu itself has not done enough to reach out. But the fact that Indian intelligence agencies, especially the RAW, are in touch with these extremists has prompted suspicion whether sections in the Indian government are planning to use the Madhes card as a leverage in Kathmandu. The Indian government would do well to come clean on the matter.

Chinas interest in Nepal has visibly increased over the past two years. For most part, Beijing
has accepted that Nepal is in Indias sphere of influence. But it was caught by surprise with the Peoples Movement and the political change that accompanied it. Enhanced US interest and activities, the Indo-US policy of collaboration on Nepal, the presence of a high-profile UN mission, the need for leverage with the new actors, especially the Maoists, and concern over developments in the Tarai has led China to a more public role in recent times. The United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) has done a competent job of arms management and supervision. But it has drawn criticism for the mismatch between its limited mandate and high visibility. The mission has a large political and civil affairs team based in regional headquarters, but their reports are not made public. The non-transparent functioning of the UN, coupled with efforts to over step its mandate, extend its tenure, and intercede as a mediator in the Tarai conflict has created suspicion about its intentions. India and UNMIN share a tense relationship, and New Delhi would be happy to see the mission wrap up and leave when its tenure ends on 23 July.

As Nepal finally heads towards elections on April 10, there is enthusiasm on the ground. But
challenges remain. For one, everyone expects a drastic escalation of violence as polls draw closer. The royalists have no incentives in allowing elections, and as they get increasingly desperate, will look for avenues to create chaos. Some speculate on the possibility of a high profile assassination. Even if they cannot prevent elections, they would like to create conditions which allow for questioning the legitimacy of the polls. The Madhesi extremists can create enough fear to prevent a high turnout. The Maoists have stepped up attacks on competitors and may increasingly resort to intimidation and force. There is

a possibility that former rebels will not do well, especially in the absence of a left alliance. But that need not, as some fear, automatically result in Maoists abandoning the process. They are locked in and know that even as the third largest party, they will have a decisive role in a fragmented polity. There have been no elections for nine years during which the polity has completely changed. There is an entire generation of new voters. Identity consciousness has emerged in a strong way. All of this means unpredictable electoral results, adding an element of uncertainty to the peace process. What will happen if large-scale violence accompanies the poll process, with a low turnout, leading to questions about legitimacy? Will it be possible to abolish the monarchy if the NC, conservative Madhesi groups and royalists win half the seats? How will the international community react if the UML and the Maoists get together to form a left-wing alliance? Will it strengthen the hands of the radicals if Madhesi parties, in the absence of any unity, fail to do well? Will the palace play up differences among the groups and engineer instability? Will the army accept clauses that force it to be more accountable to the government, more inclusive of the countrys population, and integrate at least a section of Maoist soldiers? Despite the uncertainty and challenges, a naya Nepal is within grasp. Southasias oldest nationstate is about to embark on the process of drafting the regions newest constitution. There will be fierce debates on a range of issues from the shape of federalism to the nature of affirmative action, from the judiciary to whether the country should adopt a presidential or parliamentary system. But if all goes well, these debates will take place inside a constituent assembly, elected for the first time by a sovereign people on 10 April 2008.

Opportunities and challenges

G . P A RT HA S A RA T HY

IT is only logical that relations with countries in ones neighbourhood receive high priority in the conduct of a countrys foreign policy. But there has been little understanding about what really constitutes Indias neighbourhood. Are we to regard ourselves merely as a South Asian power, as some Chinese friends choose to characterize us? Addressing senior commanders of the armed forces on 1 November 2003, former Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee said that in maritime terms, Indias frontiers extended from the Straits of Malacca in the east to the Straits of Hormuz in the

west. Further that Indias security boundaries also extended from Afghanistan and Central Asia in the northwest to China in the northeast and across East Asia to our neighbours in ASEAN. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave a similar description of our extended neighbourhood when he addressed senior commanders in October 2004. The countries in our extended neighbourhood that have substantive economic and military potential to influence events are China, Japan, Iran and South Korea. China, with its rapid economic growth and growing military muscle unquestionably poses the greatest challenge to the conduct of Indias foreign policy in the neighbourhood. Pakistan too has the potential to act as a spoiler because of the Islamic dimensions of its foreign and security policies, its nuclear potential and an ability to project itself as a valuable asset for the United States and China. This ability to influence events has, however, been considerably diminished in recent years because of domestic turmoil within the country and a growing fear worldwide that Pakistan has become an epicentre of global terrorism. Russia has an important role to play in the region primarily because of its military and political ties with China, India and Iran, and its residual influence in Central Asia. The European Union wields economic power and has a security role whenever NATO interests so demand. But the only country with power to dominantly influence events in our neighbourhood is the United States. Its global policies, therefore, will be a crucial determinant of the course of events across our strategic frontiers, more so since NATO forces are deployed in strength at our virtual doorstep, Afghanistan.

There is considerable logic in the manner in which prime ministers Vajpayee and Manmohan
Singh have defined what constitutes our neighbourhood. To our west, Pakistan and Afghanistan have become the epicentre of global terrorism. The porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan today allows the free movement of terrorists from across the world, ranging from China, the Philippines and Myanmar to our east to Algeria, Uzbekistan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, apart from EU countries like the UK, France, Germany and Spain, to our west. Whether it is the terrorist strikes of 9/11 in New York and Washington DC, or the train bombings in London and Spain, the origins and planning of such acts of global terrorism can be traced to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Worse still, Pakistan today faces the ire of its erstwhile Taliban protgs and their sympathizers and supporters within Pakistan for supporting the US in Afghanistan. The security situation has deteriorated to such an extent that even the capital area of Islamabad-Rawalpindi is no longer immune to terrorist attack. Apart from the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, there have been four other major terrorist attacks in Rawalpindi targeting the army and ISI headquarters and personnel in 2007.

The American War on Terror and the ouster of the Taliban from Afghanistan have resulted,
not in the destruction but the dispersal of terrorism worldwide. The cadres of the Taliban and its Pakistani allies have crossed into Balochistan and the tribal areas of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). A substantial portion of the Al Qaeda fled into Pakistan, with some members returning to Arab countries. With NATO forces stationed in Afghanistan, there is a sense of unease in neighbouring Iran, given the strain in US-Iran relations. Further westwards, Irans seven Gulf Arab neighbours too are uneasy, with Saudi Arabia facing a number of terrorist strikes by pro-Al Qaeda elements. Iranian-Arab rivalries and suspicions remain rooted in the Persian Gulf from where India gets 70% of its oil supply, and nearly four million Indian nationals work and remit over $ 15 billion annually to the economy. Tensions and instability in the Persian Gulf will have serious implications for Indias economic stability and energy security.

India also faces an uncertain political situation in virtually every one of its South Asian
neighbours who are members of SAARC. Maldives is facing a crisis of credibility of its leadership, with periodic acts of terrorism by radical elements motivated by religious-political ideologies prevalent and preached in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The fairness and impartiality of elections held by President Gayoom have been called into doubt. The ethnic conflict continues in Sri Lanka, with President Rajapakses government appearing determined to seek a military solution a policy that can only complicate the search for a durable political solution. India has to actively work with the international community to persuade the Sri Lankan government on the crucial need for a political settlement which meets the legitimate aspirations of its Tamil minority, while guaranteeing the unity and territorial integrity of the island nation. Bangladesh also faces an uncertain political future, with no sign as yet about precisely how the political process will be put back on track and the army returned to barracks. Moreover, radical Islamic groups operating from Bangladesh are now getting increasingly involved in acts of terrorism across India. In Nepal, uncertainty continues and concern is voiced about whether the Maoists will genuinely give up arms and join the democratic fold. Will Nepal succeed in developing viable democratic institutions in a new post-monarchical era? Bhutan alone, among Indias South Asian neighbours, appears to present a picture of stability and progress. While outlining relations with neighbours, one should not fail to acknowledge that India itself faces many challenges within its body politic problems arising from poor governance coupled with rampant corruption and criminalization of politics. It is not unlikely that in these circumstances, neighbours like Pakistan and Bangladesh may take advantage of religious and ethnic faultlines within India. Recent terrorist strikes in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai and in Uttar Pradesh have been carried out by disaffected Indian nationals deriving inspiration, motivation, support and sustenance from across our borders. Neither the causes of this development, nor its possible remedies are publicly discussed, far less effectively addressed. Moreover, the writ of the Indian state no longer runs in nearly one third of

the country, which is now under the shadow of Maoist control. Ethnic insurgencies continue in the Northeast with support from across the India-Bangladesh border. Though levels of terrorist violence have substantially reduced in the recent past in Jammu and Kashmir, problems of disaffection among sections of the population in this turbulent state remain to be addressed.

The picture, however, improves as India looks further east. Indias interaction with ASEAN, as
a part of its increasingly successful Look East policy, has grown substantially. Two-way trade with the booming economies of ASEAN countries has risen to around $ 19 billion in 2006-2007 and with China to $ 38.7 billion. But in comparison to China, whose trade with ASEAN was $ 140 billion in 2006, India has a long way to go before it can become a major economic player in East and Southeast Asia. Fortunately, India now figures in the security and economic calculations of its ASEAN neighbours, having become a full dialogue partner of ASEAN, with annual summit level meetings with its leaders. It is also a participant in the East Asian Summit, bringing together the ASEAN countries with China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand.

With China emerging as the major power in Asia, India now has to face the challenge of
cooperating with it, even while building a stable balance of power in Asia. Chinas policy of providing assistance to Pakistans nuclear weapons and missile programmes, the efforts to expand its presence through a string of pearls strategy with facilities in the Indian Ocean ranging from the Cocos Islands in Myanmar to Gwadar in Pakistan, its policy of encroaching politically and even militarily into Bhutan and Nepal, and its insatiable quest for oil, gas and other natural resources to the exclusion of India are challenges India can no longer ignore. Moreover, with its growing demand for water, China could pose serious ecological and other problems for India were it to divert the waters of the Brahmaputra river for its own use. These challenges will necessarily have to be countered with much wider exchange and cooperation with Chinas neighbours in the Asia-Pacific, like Vietnam and Japan. Hopefully, increasing cooperation with the US will add credibility and clout to these efforts. At the same time, a continuing engagement with China is required on issues like global warming, maintenance of peace and security along the borders and in promoting trade, investment and other economic ties. Despite the internal problems besetting virtually all the countries in South Asia, the one silver lining is that economic cooperation in an increasingly interdependent and globalized world order could well serve as a catalyst, not only in promoting prosperity but also in bringing the South Asian countries together. In a report titled SAARC Vision Beyond the Year 2000, a group of eminent persons from the member states recommended working together in a phased manner to make the South Asian region a Free Trade Area by 2010, a Customs Union by 2015 and an Economic Union by 2020. The Heads of Government of the SAARC countries endorsed these recommendations during the Kathmandu Summit in 2003 and the framework of a Free Trade Agreement was finalized at the Islamabad Summit in 2004. Except for Pakistan, which has

refused to implement this agreement in its trade with India, all other SAARC countries are moving ahead.

In the meantime, Afghanistan has been admitted to SAARC and is set to join its Free Trade
Agreement. With growing international interest in seeing SAARC succeed, the US, EU, China, Japan and South Korea have been accepted as observers at SAARC summits. Iran is set to follow suit. This is a welcome development as it will lead to international pressure on Pakistan if it persists in scuttling efforts to promote free trade and greater economic integration in the region. Moreover, India has also worked to develop a new regional organization, BIMSTEC, to link littoral and hinterland states in the Bay of Bengal in a process of economically integrating SAARC members Nepal, India, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka with two geographically contiguous members of ASEAN, Myanmar and Thailand. With BIMSTEC committing itself to free trade by around 2016, there could well be free trade areas extending from Delhi to Manila in the east and from Kabul to Delhi to our west. Moreover, if Pakistan continues to act in a recalcitrant manner on trade and economic cooperation with India, it could well find itself isolated from the larger trends of increasing economic integration within Asia. It must, however, be acknowledged that despite Indias rhetoric about a commitment to economic liberalization and free trade, it is widely considered as having one of the most protectionist trade policies in Asia.

As a result of the various regional initiatives India is now participating in, we have a framework
for growing economic integration in our neighbourhood. At the same time we are exploring the possibility of widening our regional economic network by negotiating a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement with the six oil-rich Arab states who are members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Given our past aversion to military blocs, however, we must acknowledge failure in developing viable structures for cooperative security in the neighbourhood. The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) is the only regional security organization of which India is a member. The ARF functions on the basis of consensus and has endeavoured to develop mechanisms for cooperation in areas like maritime security and disaster management. But we need to review our earlier policy of avoiding multilateral engagement in military matters and explore the possibility of developing viable security structures with groupings like the GCC, whom we regard as being vital for our energy security, and for the welfare of millions of Indian nationals resident abroad. Such a security architecture has to be inclusive and should accommodate both Iran and Pakistan. Its working should be consensual and cooperative, much like the manner in which the ARF functions. Indias role in its extended neighbourhood will be effective only if we can maintain an annual economic growth of around 9%, and if the process of growth progressively reduces socio-

economic tensions. Moreover, a country with its politics beset by corruption and criminalization can hardly be expected to serve as a role model for its neighbours. Further, while the conduct of foreign policy had enjoyed a broad national consensus in the past, this is unfortunately no longer the case.

There is also a tendency within India to believe that problems with neighbours like Pakistan and
Bangladesh, where the politics of defining national identity in positive terms is still being played out, can be instantaneously sorted out. This is unrealistic. Due to the dilemmas and contradictions over issues of national identity, some of our neighbours continue to attribute their problems to Indias alleged malevolence. Moreover, ruling military elites in Pakistan and Bangladesh have a vested interest in whipping up fears of alleged Indian hegemony. Despite these complexities, there has been progress in recent years even in relations with Pakistan. India has endeavoured not only to promote cooperation, but for the first time address differences on complex issues like Jammu and Kashmir imaginatively and flexibly. We live in a neighbourhood that is both volatile and challenging. It remains to be seen whether we have the resilience and will to address these tensions and challenges. Much will depend on the ability to keep our own house in good order and our determination to develop a national will and unity of purpose to face these challenges.

Lost opportunities in Afghanistan

I . P . K HO S L A

THE situation in Afghanistan today has to be understood in the context of the US-led attack following 9/11. Afghanistan in 2001 was a deeply divided nation onto which the Taliban had imposed a semblance of unity. The Afghans have since long resisted political unification, a characteristic they have in common with people of the mountain elsewhere in the world. The people of the mountain have three predominant characteristics: (i) vertical organization the family and tribe are the units that command loyalty, not caste or ethnicity or other horizontal affiliations that would be useful in building national unity, as in India or central Europe; (ii) there is no landed nobility, since there is little land to own and owning land is not important for social status; and (iii) a strong democratic egalitarianism the poor and the rich live in similar houses

and at tribal meetings each one expresses views fearlessly. It is often difficult to discern if any hierarchy exists. And honour is prized above all other virtues. Hence, it is unusually difficult to subjugate them and centralized political systems generally attempt, fail and eventually abandon efforts to bring them within the fold. Pashtunwali and rawaj are more important than the constitution or the laws passed under it. In Afghan society, the division between Pashtun, who have always been dominant, and nonPashtun, is added to the social fragmentation among the various Pashtun tribes, as also the different non-Pashtun ethnic groups. Though as early as 1747, Ahmad Khan of the Abdali tribe attempted to bring together the heads of different Pashtun tribes as well as of the other ethnic groups, including the Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras and Baluchis, to form a united Afghanistan, continuing struggle between the two major Pashtun tribes, the Durrani and the Ghilzai, continued over the next couple of centuries. Equally, the non-Pashtun ethnic groups too remain divided. At the religious level too there is the divide between Sunni and Shia, which, since it broadly corresponds to the ethnic divide between non-Hazara and Hazara, reinforces the latter. There are also divisions among the Sunni, between the Deobandis of the Hanafi sect for instance, and those influenced by the Wahabism of Saudi Arabia. So while successive Afghan rulers have tried to unite the different tribes and ethnic and sectarian groups, the long Afghan tradition of rejecting any kind of subjugation keeps coming in the way.

Over the years, however, while mobilization in the name of religion has proved difficult, it has
been easier to bring together the disparate ethnic and tribal groups in the name of defending Afghan freedom as a nation. Despite the predominance of ethnic and tribal affinity in the Afghan self-identity, nationalism has invariably trumped religion, though it usually surfaces primarily in opposition to the foreigner as aggressor or hostile neighbour: the British in India from the First Afghan War (1839-42) till 1947; Pakistan from 1947 till 1979; the Soviet Union from then to 1989. And though the US is not quite seen in that light, anti-US sentiment remains strong. Understandably, then, every neighbour from the British in India and Tsarist Russia to the Soviet Union and then Pakistan has consistently followed a policy of sharpening the divisions within Afghan society, in an attempt to weaken Afghan nationalism through socio-political fragmentation. The British attempt in the Second Afghan War (1879-81) to divide the country into two along the Hindu Kush mountain range failed. From 1979 to 1989 Soviet policy was similar: disperse the Pashtuns into Pakistan, while seeking to co-opt the non-Pashtun through concessions and financial inducements, and by encouraging direct relations with the neighbouring Soviet republics with ethnically similar populations. Incidentally, policies of ethnic assertiveness when the republics became independent in 1991 further sharpened the ethnic divisions in Afghanistan. Pakistans policy too reinforced this trend during the 1980s, assisting Mujahidin groups to organize along tribal affiliations. Its basic objective has been to weaken the Afghan state, partly

through a systematic policy of socio-political fragmentation. It has stronger compulsions than the other neighbours to do so: it needs strategic depth vis--vis India and has to settle its own Pashtun problem. Further, there is little prospect of the former Mujahidin returning to peacetime occupations if Afghanistan remains in an unsettled state, making available a large pool of battletested persons for use in Jammu and Kashmir as also elsewhere in India. There remains the prospect of getting gas and oil from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan.

To implement this policy Pakistan worked hard to create, train, equip and finance the Taliban to
seize power in Kabul. Since the Taliban were originally of Durrani origin, Pakistan had to switch from the Ghilzai to the Durrani. It helped that the Amir-ul-Momineen of the Taliban, Mohammad Omar was a Popalzai, a branch of the Durrani. But this was only one component of the Taliban. There were four other groups: experienced and senior army and air force officers from the Soviet sponsored Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan which ruled till 1992, and who defected in the early 1990s; the foreigners Chechens, Uzbeks, Arabs, Bangladeshis and Indonesians; the Pakistanis, volunteers as well as those seconded from the armed forces; and last, students from madrasas located in Pakistan. Remembering this can help discard romantic ideas about inspired students from seminaries leading a revolution against old and tired self-centred Mujahidin fighting among themselves for control of Kabul. Actually it was a triple pincer movement led by tanks, APCs and motorized artillery that led to the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in 1996.

Once in control the Taliban issued a series of edicts that in their rigid interpretation of the
Sharia had the effect of antagonizing the more liberal minded minority ethnic groups, as also many of the Pashtuns. Edicts forbade flying kites; the use of paper bags, playing football or chess; listening to music, dancing or going to the cinema. Insurance, interest and gambling was banned, as was photography of people or animals or reading of foreign books and magazines. All girls schools were closed, women were forbidden to work, as also from going out of their houses unless fully veiled and accompanied by a close relative. The men were compelled to grow beards, as shaving or even trimming was not allowed. In Kabul the Department for the Promotion of Good and the Fighting of Evil had dozens of inspectors constantly on the move, alert for violation of the rules for dress or prayer, authorized to mete out punishment on the spot. Even in Iran or among the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, often regarded as the leading representatives of fundamentalist Islam, this rigid interpretation of doctrine was denounced. The Taliban was, in fact, engaged in executing a carefully prepared plan to destroy the Islam promoted by Amir Habibullah in the early 20th century. This was an Islam that attempted to bring together Shia and Sunni, Tajik and Uzbek, Hazara and Pashtun to form a unified nation state, an Islam promoted and accepted by an urbanized middle class and which brought increased cohesion to the country. Taliban was not only signalling to this class that it was no longer

acceptable in the country, they were telling potential modernizers and nationalists who wanted to consolidate state and nation building by incorporating religion into the state, that the process would now be reversed by incorporating the state into religion. This was no blind fanaticism. Knowing that the imposition of rigid rules would lead to social fragmentation, it was more a carefully calibrated policy pursued at the behest of Pakistan.

The Taliban had two other projects: Pashtun dominance and ethnic separation. They tried to
rouse Pashtun passions by claiming that an unholy gang of Tajiks, Uzbeks and Shiites was trying to grab power that had always remained with the Pashtun. No wonder that in the areas captured by them, which were largely Pashtun, the non-Pashtuns were often driven out. In a process already set in motion in the 1980s, Uzbek minorities moved to Uzbek majority areas, the Tajik to Tajik majority areas, and the Turkmen to the northeast or even to Turkmenistan. In March 1995, after their first attack on Kabul was repulsed, the Taliban not only executed the Hazara leaders with whom they were in alliance but also hundreds of their followers in what seemed to be the beginnings of a process of ethnic cleansing. So much for the background of Pakistan and the Taliban. At the moment a player of much greater significance is the USA. Aware of the divisions within Afghanistan, the USA was most reluctant to get involved in ground-level operations. Post 9/11, US spokespersons repeatedly explained that they were not in the business of nation building they were after Al Qaeda. So when the Taliban refused to hand over the Al Qaeda, they had to remove the Taliban, and help install a friendlier regime in Kabul. That is what OEF (Operation Enduring Freedom) was all about to use the capabilities generated by the revolution in military affairs, including remote sensing, smart weapons and unmanned drones to locate and destroy the enemy. Apart from a few hundred special forces for intelligence gathering and liaison, everything was to be done from the air.

But it didnt quite work out that way. Most of Afghanistan was already rubble from a quarter
century of war; all one could do from the air was reduce it to finer dust, but not dislodge the Taliban. For this the US had to turn to the Northern Alliance, mainly Panjsheris, Uzbeks and other Tajiks. However, it took months to remove the Taliban from the major cities; Kandahar surrendered only on 9 December 2001. It was not till a year and a half later, in May 2003, that US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld announced the end of major combat operations. The bulk of the country, he said at a Kabul press conference with Karzai, was permissive, its secure. But it quickly became clear that getting hold of the Al Qaeda would take a long time, and it would not be possible to leave Afghanistan even when that was done. To forestall the emergence of another Taliban and another Al Qaeda, the US willy-nilly got involved in nation building. In this it had partners: the European Union, Japan, India and Pakistan. But nobody doubted that the US was in the driving seat. It steered the agreement among Afghan notables and leaders who met in Bonn under the auspices of the United Nations

in December 2001, which eventually led to the adoption of a constitution. Hamid Karzai was elected President in October 2004 and parliamentary elections completed by September 2005. Now the US (together with its allies) is involved in everything. There is the US-led OEF; an ISAF or International Security Assistance Force created by a UN resolution of December 2001. There is NATO, which took control of ISAF in August 2003. There are the PRTs, or Provincial Reconstruction Teams, a US initiative to establish conclaves or safe areas outside Kabul for international aid workers. Overall, the US has close to 27,000 troops in Afghanistan; its allies another 27,000.

In the months after the fall of the Taliban, the US faced a Catch 22 situation. Its main aim was to
search for and eliminate Al Qaeda and Taliban remnants; it also wanted to stabilize the Karzai government. The search for Al Qaeda and Taliban meant strengthening the local warlords or strongmen, since the US does not have enough troops for large ground operations. This, however, resulted in less stability for Karzai. At one point he even confessed that the warlords were a bigger problem than the Taliban. Some of the warlords have gradually been brought under control: Ismail Khan from Herat was brought to Kabul and given a cabinet post in early 2005; Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Uzbek strongman was given the job of Karzais chief military adviser. Others like Atta Mohammed from Mazar-e-Sharif and Hazrat Ali from Jalalabad were similarly displaced. Nevertheless, most warlords remain ensconced despite schemes to disarm them. Then there is Karzai. Without external military support his chances of survival are bleak. Initially, he was advised not to keep Afghan security, and instead had an American private security contractor, DynCorp. Though this has now changed, the Afghan National Army is plagued with desertions. It was to be 70,000 strong; after five years it has reached about half that figure and will likely melt into the mountainous countryside if the US and its allies pull out. The police force is even weaker. But without Karzai there is nobody else, no one who would be acceptable to as many people of different tribes and ethnic groups. He is not Americas best chance; he is their only chance.

The economy remains in shambles. The growing, processing and export of the poppy and its
products contribute a third of the GNP, over three billion dollars a year. 93 per cent of the total illicit opium in world markets is sent out from Afghanistan. More than half the population is below the poverty line; infant mortality is high, as is maternal mortality; life expectancy is low, as is school enrolment, especially female enrolment. Agriculture, once the main occupation of the Afghans, faces devastation since decades of war have destroyed the irrigation channels and the fields are so densely mined that there is no hope of clearing them for years. Poppy cultivation has taken over.

In March 2007 it was announced that Afghanistan could have 3.6 billion barrels of oil and 36.5 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas, but experts dispute the figures. The gas pipeline project from Turkmenistan through to Pakistan remains in limbo. There is little else barring a luxury hotel in Kabul and a Coca Cola bottling plant newly opened in 2006. All this is unlikely to make a dent with the 45 per cent unemployed. Even international aid has remained elusive. In any case, foreign aid workers and consultants use up 80 per cent of that money.

Finally, a word about the Taliban today, and Pakistan. The main problem facing the US is that
the insurgency led by the Taliban, Al Qaeda and the Hizb-e-Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has been on the increase, with more US and coalition troops killed with every passing year. When the Taliban was driven out of Afghanistan in 2001 they arrived in Waziristan, part of the federally administered areas of Pakistan where the writ of Islamabad does not really run. Despite US pressure, it is the agreements that Pakistan has signed with the tribal leaders of the area, especially those of 2006 that are more relevant. They provide for a withdrawal of Pakistani forces and a return of seized weapons; the release of foreign fighters (around 2,500 were actually released); and permission for jehadis to stay on in the area, peacefully, of course. This is not quite the same Taliban as was thrown out in 2001, but it has a close enough resemblance to justify the name. The top leaders like Mullah Omar remain there with their followers, most of them Pashtuns. There is the formidable Jalaluddin Haqqani, who once told an interviewer that with a Taliban government in Kabul, Pakistan has an unbeatable 2,300 kilometres of strategic depth and that the security and stability of Pakistan and Afghanistan are intertwined. There is also a younger generation of fighters, including Haqqanis son. There are the Chechens, the Uzbeks and the Arabs, though one does not any longer hear about Bangladeshis or Indonesians. There are an increasing number of Pakistanis from the NWFP and from the Punjab. There is, of course, Al Qaeda, their trusted allies. And they have no shortage of recruits. Though US and allied commanders in the field claim that the enemy is being decimated, they continue to face deadly attacks. In general, the insurgents have learnt and are following similar tactics to those used in Iraq. There is some indication that there have been contacts between the insurgents in the two theatres, meaning that for the US this may become one war instead of two. The operations undertaken by the US revealed, in any case, that the Taliban and their supporters such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Haqqani are no more a rag-tag lot but mobile, well organized and armed and divided into a number of autonomous groups, so that the elimination of one will not make a big difference to the total level of insurgency; in other words, their capacity for making trouble is only increasing. Taliban formations, several hundred strong, have been able to conduct frontal assaults.

At one point in 2006 they took control of some parts of Helmand, though not for long. In 2007
they stepped up attacks throughout the country: in the North, Mazar-e-Sharif and Kunduz and Balkh; in the West, Herat and Farah; and of course their stronghold has always been the South

and East, Uruzgan, Kandahar, Zabol, Helmand. The Taliban and other insurgents have a safe haven in Pakistan, where the governments in the neighbouring provinces of Baluchistan and NWFP are sympathetic as well as Islamic. Not only is the 2,300 kilometre border impossible to seal, Pakistan has been unable to mount operations on its side due to tribal opposition. Pakistan which sponsored the original Taliban wants another one in control of Kabul now as an instrument for use in Kashmir, but this time under tighter control so that it does not (and the US is convinced it will not) promote missions of the 9/11 kind. This has on occasion, led to tension with Karzai. Even as the Americans try to keep a wary eye on all this, they have been trying to bring official Afghanistan and Pakistan together. More relevant, feelers are now being sent to the Taliban, based on the notion that there are moderate Taliban who could be wooed away from those who have links with Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Several Taliban such as their Foreign Minister Wakil Muttawakil are already working within the political system. Karzai himself seems to have offered to meet Mullah Omar, and has reportedly met some Taliban representatives. Overall, the current trend suggests that the political dispensation in Afghanistan favours dialogue with the Taliban in search of a honourable settlement.

For India there could not have been worse news. The Taliban and Al Qaeda combine have close
links with terrorist groups that have been particularly active in India and whose main aim is to integrate Jammu and Kashmir with Pakistan, like Maulana Abdul Wahid Kashmiris Lashkar-eToiba, and Masood Azhars Jaish-e-Mohammed and, through the Karachi mafia, Dawood Ibrahim. Every step they take towards greater influence or control in Kabul begets danger. After 1947, successive governments in India have been cautious in dealing with Afghanistan. Afghanistan should have been one of our closest friends in the region, deserving our political, economic, moral and military support to ensure its strength and stability. This means first of all that India should have supported the demand for revision of the Durand Line and for the autonomy or independence of all the Pashtuns of the North West through a process of selfdetermination, demands that Afghanistan has been making over the years on Pakistan, as a landlocked state. However, we did neither. So, although relations were friendly with high-level visits, expanding trade, aid projects and facilities for training among other co-operative ventures, there was no support for Afghanistan on the issues it regarded as critical. The Afghans were disappointed, which they showed in particular by taking an even handed position at the time of the Chinese aggression of 1962, as well as during and after Pakistans aggression in 1965.

Even during the 1960s and 1970s, as rival western and Soviet economic and military aid
programmes focused on the southern and northern provinces respectively, India could do little to

influence a development that would have been regarded as a direct security threat had it occurred in Nepal or Sri Lanka. And when Soviet forces entered the country in December 1979, Indias response was influenced more by the need for continuing good relations with the Soviet Union than by what the future of Afghanistan would mean for the neighbourhood and our security. Following the ouster of the Taliban in 2001, our political interaction with the leadership of Afghanistan has been intensive and regular. The focus of our interaction has been to support the Afghan government and the political process in the country as mandated under the Bonn Agreement, and the unity, independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty of Afghanistan. There have been several high level visits from and to Afghanistan after 2001. This includes official visits by President Hamid Karzai. From the Indian side Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as also, on more than one occasion, the External Affairs Minister, have visited Kabul.

In response to President Karzais request, India decided to focus its aid programme on: road
construction, the Zarang-Delaram road, to reduce the distance to South Afghanistan through Chabahar; irrigation and power, the reconstruction and completion of the Salma Dam Power Project in Herat province and a double circuit transmission line from Pul-e-Khumri to Kabul; water supply; and similar work on the infrastructure to ensure the foundations for stability and consolidation. Traditional areas in which India has been helping Afghanistan like health, the Indira Gandhi childrens hospital and education, the prestigious Habibia High School in Kabul and culture, also continue. Indeed, Indias assistance covers every aspect of life in the country agriculture, industry and the private sector, education and health, transport and infrastructure, the media, IT, security, law, banking, urban development. India is one of those recognised for the usefulness of its assistance programmes. All these developments, though welcome, may well be a case of too little, too late. If at all there is to be some noticeable impact of Indian policy, our involvement has to be stepped up very considerably and soon. Otherwise Afghanistan would be yet another classic case of missed opportunity, with our policy-makers losing influence in a country traditionally well disposed towards India. With Afghanistan showing few signs of settling down, the implications for our regional security can be well imagined.

No peace in sight
S . M UR A RI

SRI LANKA has all that a western tourist looks for good climate, beautiful beaches, lovely hill stations, Buddhist monasteries, ancient Hindu temples and other heritage sites. In short, its a country, as the saying goes, where every prospect pleases, only man is vile. For how else can we describe an ethnic divide between the Tamils and the Sinhalese that started even before independence in 1948 and which, after a series of anti-Tamil riots and broken pacts like the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam agreement of 1955, reached a flash point in July 1983 over the killing of just nine soldiers in Jaffna by the Tamil Tigers fighting for a separate homeland for the Tamils? Since then, over 70,000 combatants and noncombatants alike have died in the ethnic war alone, excluding over 60,000 Sinhalese, the cream of youth, killed during the ultranationalist Janata Vimukti Peramunas failed revolt in the Sinhala south against the Indian Peace Keeping Force in the late 1980s. With the Rajapakse government formally abrogating the February 2002 ceasefire agreement with the LTTE, in any case in tatters since 2006, the country is back to full-scale civil war after a period of relative, if uneasy, quiet from 2002 to 2004. With that a hope for peace, among incurable optimists, has died. July 1983 can be called a watershed in the history of Sri Lanka, in that over 10,000 Tamils were killed in a country-wide pogrom that led to the exodus of over nearly a million Tamils, a third of them to Tamil Nadu, including moderate Tamil leadership represented by the Tamil United Liberation Front and militant groups armed and trained by the Indira Gandhi regime. The result was the July 1987 peace agreement between the then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi and the then Sri Lankan President, J.R. Jayewardene which brought stability to the embattled north and east, but not peace, and offered the war-weary Tamils a measure of autonomy akin to what the Indian states enjoy. It also brought about a clear north-south divide, with the Sri Lankan government leaving the north and east entirely to the IPKF to take on the LTTE to enforce the accord, while it concentrated on the JVP in the south whose revolt it eventually crushed. After the exit of the IPKF in March 1990, thanks to a marriage of convenience between the LTTE and the then President R. Premadasa, there has been no let-up in violence with the periodic truce used by the LTTE only to rearm and start another round afresh. Its leader Prabhakaran has eliminated whoever stood in the way of his dream of an independent Eelam be they moderate leaders ranging from Amirthalingam to Neelan Tiruchelvan to Laxman Kadirgamar (who was on the other side of the fence and was responsible for getting the organisation banned as a terrorist outfit by the West), or former or ruling heads of governments like Premadasa and Rajiv Gandhi and, of course, rival Tamil militant groups. Chandrika Kumaratunga tried in vain to bring the Tigers to the negotiating table between August 1994 and March 1995 and then started a war for peace that ended in disaster five years later. But she was the only Sinhala leader to have acknowledged that even if the LTTE was eliminated, the Tamil problem would remain, a statement she made after surviving an assassination attempt that helped her scrape through the 1999 presidential election. The last century ended with a bloody war that led neither side anywhere. But the dawn of the 21st century saw the Tigers wearing the peace cap once again. The reason was the terrorist tag attached to it by India, the US, England and EU which had hurt it strategically and otherwise.

The result was the Norway-brokered cease-fire agreement between the LTTE and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe in February 2002.

From the inception, the agreement was doomed to failure. This was because Wickremasinghe
was from the United National Party and President Kumaratunga was from the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, leading to uneasy cohabitation between the two. Wickremasinghe as prime minister in a presidential system of government had no power or authority to execute an accord even if one was reached with the rebels. He contributed to an early end of talks by not keeping the all-powerful executive President Chandrika Kumaratunga in the loop. And she struck back by taking away the key defence portfolio on the ground that Ranil Wickremasinghe was compromising the countrys security by giving too much leeway to the Tigers. On the other side, Prabhakaran signed the pact only to show the world that his outfit was not averse to a negotiated settlement and thus get the ban on it lifted by the West, and if possible by India, even as he made clear in his April 2002 press conference that in his view the only permanent solution was an independent Eelam. Clearly, the deep division in the Sinhala south between the president and prime minister helped Prabhakarn to wriggle out of the talks in April 2003. Again, under world pressure, the LTTE came up with the proposal of an Interim Self-Governing Authority as an alternative to a separate Eelam, which envisaged a loose confederation between what the Tigers call the Tamil and Sinhala nations. Expectedly, it was rejected by Chandrika Kumaratunga the same way the Tigers had rejected her 2000 proposal envisaging a federal solution and recognition of Sri Lanka as a union of regions, though the package met the Tigers separatist demand more than half way. During the politically turbulent phase of the truce period, Chandrika called for early parliament elections resulting in the SLFP forming a minority government in April 2004 with Rajapakse as prime minister. When Chandrikas second term as President ended in November 2005, Rajapakse became the SLFP candidate backed by the JVP which was for renegotiating the truce agreement and a unitary solution.

This was when Prabhakarans long-term plan came to the fore. Tired of a truce and itching to go
back to war, he ensured the defeat of a self-proclaimed peacenik like Wickremesinghe by asking the Tamils in the north and east to boycott elections. In a closely fought election this led to Rajapakses victory as the south was sharply divided. In other words, Prabhakaran wanted a hawk like Rajapakse to win so that he could go back to war without getting blamed by the West. He made his intentions clear in his Heroes Day speech in November 2005 when he said the Sinhala establishment would not deliver on its promise and the Tamils had to fight for their rights. That was the cue for renewed attacks on the armed forces by the Tigers in 2006, months after Rajapakse became President. Though there was a brief lull in February and again in

October 2006 when Norway, with western backing succeeded in getting the two sides to the negotiating table at Geneva, the talks yielded no results.

Subsequently, the government under Gothabaya Rajapakse, brother of the President and defence
adviser, started an all-out offensive, starting with the east. Soon, it flushed the region of the LTTE, expected as the LTTE had already suffered a split in the east during the truce period with renegade leader Muralidharan alias Col. Karuna breaking away. However, when the armed forces began an offensive in the north, the LTTE sprang a surprise by bringing its nascent air wing into play. In three precision night attacks, it successfully bombed the Katunayake airport near Colombo, oil depots in the capital and the Anuradhapura air base close to Vavunia, the northern outpost of the army after which the Tiger country begins and stretches till the Jaffna peninsula which has been under army control since 1995. In a major blow to the LTTE, the Sri Lankan air force bombed the hideout of LTTEs political wing leader S.P. Tamil Chelvan in an early morning raid, killing him along with a few other top ranking leaders. This showed that the air force acted on real-time intelligence and its Israelsupplied Kfir jets were capable of precision bombing. Even before Prabhakarn could recover from this mortal blow, which came on top of the death of his ailing ideologue Anton Balasingham, the air force struck again in the rebel-held Killinochi district in the north, this time claiming that it had hit Prabhakarans bunker and injured him. This has since been proved incorrect. More worrisome than the relentless pursuit of the military option by the Rajapakse government is the adoption of counter-terror tactics made famous by the Israeli Mossad. The deep penetration units of the army intelligence in conjunction with the anti-LTTE Karuna faction and the Eelam Peoples Democratic Party, have in the last three years targeted and killed five pro LTTE Tamil Alliance MPs, most notably Joseph Pararajasingham, shot dead during midnight mass in a church on Christmas eve. Equally shocking was the shooting down of another MP, Ravi Raja, in Colombo. What has unnerved the Tigers most is the elimination of yet another MP, Sivanesan, in a claymore mine attack inside the rebel-controlled territory on the Kandy-Jaffna highway while returning home to Malawi in Killinochi from Colombo. The Tigers blamed it on the deep penetration unit. If true, it demonstrates the vulnerability of an outfit once considered impenetrable even by the IPKF.

Using a Supreme Court verdict against the temporary merger of the east with the north brought
about by the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord, the government has successfully delinked the east. Proving that it has gained an upper hand, it conducted local body elections in the east in which predictably the Karuna faction won handsomely in Batticaloa. In other words, the Tiger homeland, comprising the north and east, is now under de facto army control except for the

Mullaitivu and Killinochi districts which are still controlled and administered by the LTTE. These two are sandwiched between the army controlled areas in Vavunia in the south and the Jaffna peninsula in the north.

The governments approach of militarily containing the LTTE has tacit sanction from New
Delhi. However, India wants the Rajapakse regime to simultaneously pursue the search for a political solution within the framework of a united Sri Lanka, a package which will meet the aspirations of all communities. The result is the proposal put forward by the All Party Representatives Conference which envisages giving effect to the 13th amendment to the Constitution, a product of the Indo-Sri Lanka agreement which promises greater devolution to the north and east. Though the UNP, under pressure from New Delhi, has agreed to cooperate with the government, the hawkish JVP remains hostile to the idea. With Norway having pulled out, the government having abrogated the ceasefire agreement, and the West preoccupied with conflicts elsewhere, it has fallen upon New Delhi as Lankas next door neighbour to play a more pro-active role, given the ethnic affinity among Tamils of Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu and its own geopolitical and strategic interests. But with Prabhakaran as prime accused in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination and the LTTE remaining a banned outfit, New Delhi cannot directly use its good offices. That is why it is indirectly helping the Sri Lankan army to gain an upper hand, give effect to the APRC proposals and then implement them on the ground in the north and east, as ultimately the terrorists can be isolated only by restoring democracy in the troubled region. The LTTEs cry of despair is evident from its latest statement which criticizes India for giving a state welcome to Sri Lankan Army Chief Sarath Fonseka after the island government abrogated the ceasefire and the armed forces launched an all-out offensive. For the first time it has condemned New Delhi, particularly the Indian army chief, for saying that India wants to ensure that the Sri Lankan army maintains an upper hand over the LTTE. Its comments like We did not leave the ceasefire agreement and we did not start the war, and We still have not abandoned the Norway-sponsored peace efforts and we are ready to take part in such efforts show that Prabhakaran is regretting the day he provoked the Sri Lankan state into another war.

Luckily New Delhi no longer has to worry about the so-called Tamil Nadu factor despite
Prabhakarans appeal to leaders in the state for support. Except for fringe elements and the Marumalarchi DMK, mainline parties no longer back the LTTE, though they are sympathetic to the Tamil cause. As Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi stated more than once, the euphoria of the pre-Rajiv assassination days are over. And Sri Lanka has ceased to be an issue in any election in Tamil Nadu since Rajiv Gandhis assassination in May 1991 at Sriperumpudur.

With no prospects of a breakthrough, either militarily or in peace efforts, the worst sufferers will be innocent civilians. Already over one lakh Tamils and an equal number of Tamil-speaking Muslims have been internally displaced in Sri Lanka. Another one lakh are in various camps as refugees in Tamil Nadu. This leaves out nearly a million Tamils spread all over the world, the so-called Tamil diaspora which funds LTTEs war effort. Unless they tighten their purse strings, which is impossible considering they still maintain links with their homeland where the LTTEs writ runs, there is no hope of a solution.

The boundary dispute with China

S RI NA T H RA G HA V A N

INDIAS relations with its largest neighbour have been blighted by the seemingly intractable boundary dispute. The dispute served as a catalyst for the war of 1962, a conflict that has cast a baleful shadow on India-China relations. Although both countries have been engaged in negotiations to resolve the dispute since the early 1980s, there appears to have been no major progress. Prior to Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs visit to China, the Indian foreign minister made it clear that there could be no dramatic turnaround on the vexed issue. The tortuous course of these negotiations coupled with periodic reports of Chinese incursions has created the impression in India that China has an unyielding stance on the dispute. Furthermore, it is felt that unless New Delhi adopts a tough-minded approach such as playing the Tibetan card as a bargaining strategy a fair and acceptable settlement is unlikely. This essay seeks to explain the ongoing boundary negotiations and to explore the prospects of a settlement. It ranges back in time to trace the evolution of both sides stand on the dispute and to place issues in context. The Sino-Indian boundary is usually divided into three geographical areas. The western sector consists of the boundary of Ladakh with Sinkiang and Tibet. Here, both India and China claim the Aksai Chin plateau and the territory south and south-west of it. The eastern sector comprises the boundary between Tibet and Arunachal Pradesh. Here, both sides claim Arunachal Pradesh. The dispute in the middle sector, along the boundary between Tibet and Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh is a minor one.

The status of the boundaries at the time of Indian independence is evident from the maps
produced by the Indian government as late as 1950. The boundary in the western and middle sectors was marked undefined. In the western sector, the British had contemplated a variety of boundary alignments in keeping with their perceived security requirements. Thus the Ardagh alignment of 1897 included the Aksai Chin area within the territorial boundaries of India, while the MacDonald note of 1899 placed it within China. Chinas refusal to respond to the MacDonald offer led the British to make further unilateral alterations as dictated by their changing security perceptions. The undefined boundary in the western sector reflected the failure of British attempts to secure a frontier agreement with China. In the eastern sector the boundary was shown as conforming to the alignment formalized between the Indian and Tibetan representatives in the Simla conference of 1914. The McMahon Line, as it came to be called after the then Indian foreign secretary, was marked on the map of the draft convention and initialled by the Chinese representative. The Chinese government, however, repudiated the Simla Convention.1 Closely related to the boundary issue was the question of Tibet. The British had sought to maintain Tibet as a buffer state, free of external influences, particularly Russian. Hence, they only acknowledged Chinas suzerainty as opposed to sovereignty over Tibet. In practice, this meant that British India maintained direct diplomatic ties with Lhasa, and enjoyed other privileges such as trading rights and armed detachments in Tibet. Independent India initially persisted with the British policy towards Tibet. However, the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950 necessitated a reappraisal. In the aftermath, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (and his military advisors) thought that neither India nor any other external power could prevent the Chinese takeover of Tibet. Hence, it was important to establish good relations with China. But this was not tantamount to a policy of appeasement, for Nehru enjoined that India should simultaneously prepare to counter any attempt by China to seize disputed frontier areas. This would require extending Indias administrative hold on these parts and improving roads and communications in border areas.

In 1954 India signed an agreement with China on Tibet, renouncing its inherited prerogatives
and recognising Tibet as a region of China. Neither side sought to discuss the boundary issue during the negotiations. With the benefit of hindsight, scholars have criticized Nehru for failing to raise the boundary issue. India, it is argued, should not have given up its rights in Tibet until China recognised the Indian-claimed boundary. This argument overlooks the fact that India had no means of preserving its rights in Tibet in the face of Chinese determination to arrive at a fresh arrangement. As the then foreign secretary explained, Indias relinquishment of its rights was a concession only to realism. Nehru, moreover, was unwilling to broach the boundary issue because India was far from consolidating its hold on the border regions, and was ill-prepared to counter any

efforts by China to take possession of these areas. If the issue became an openly contested one, India might be unable to defend its claims. Nehru was aware that the Tibetans would be disappointed with the agreement, but felt that there was little that India could do. The Indian prime minister refused to encourage separatist movements within Tibet; he was prepared at best to tolerate it in Indian soil provided they were peaceful and unobtrusive. Should China complain about any activities, India would have to curb them.2

Soon after the 1954 agreement, differences in the middle sector came to the fore. But both
countries refrained from bringing up the other two sectors. During this period, New Delhi attached greatest importance to the eastern sector, which was the largest and most populated. In the western sector, although India claimed Aksai Chin, Nehru was amenable to compromise if the rest of the frontier were satisfactorily settled. Beijings interests lay in the western sector. In 1956 China began constructing a highway through Aksai Chin, connecting Tibet and Sinkiang, which would become a link of strategic importance in maintaining control over Tibet.3 When the Indian government learnt of the road through Aksai Chin, it sent a formal complaint in late 1958. Correspondence between the prime ministers ensued, each side clarifying its conception of the boundary. Beijing claimed not only Aksai Chin but also areas south and southeast of it, and refused to accept the McMahon Line boundary, besides. Concurrently, an antiChinese rebellion was raging in Tibet. The Chinese mistakenly thought that India was abetting the rebels in an effort to detach Tibet from China and turn it into a buffer state.4 New Delhis decision to offer refuge to the Dalai Lama incensed Beijing. In the event, the confluence of the boundary dispute and the rebellion in Tibet gravely impaired Sino-Indian relations.

To subdue the rebellion, China moved its forces to the frontier with India. The Indians, too,
were fortifying their presence in these parts. This resulted in clashes between Indian and Chinese forces incidents that imposed further strain on relations between the neighbours. In January 1960, Nehru agreed to meet Premier Zhou Enlai: the correspondence between the prime ministers had been deadlocked while the situation on the frontier remained tense. The talks were held over several sessions in April 1960, yet they got nowhere. During the discussions, Zhou stated that China discerned a link between Indias territorial claims and its position on the Tibetan rebellion. Beijing evidently believed that Indias insistence on the McMahon Line boundary and its support for the Dalai Lama reflected its desire to make Tibet an independent state. Nevertheless, Zhou sought to reach an agreement on the boundary issue.

The Chinese indicated that they were ready for a package deal: if India accepted their claims
in the western sector, they would adopt a reasonable stand on the eastern sector. Whilst they would not recognise the McMahon Line, they would agree to a boundary not very different from it. This position stemmed from two concerns. First, if Beijing recognised the McMahon Line, it would be tantamount to accepting that Tibet had enjoyed de facto independence at the time of the Simla conference, weakening its claim that Tibet was an inalienable part of China. Second, there were domestic constraints on the Chinese government, especially since they had denounced the McMahon Line as a relic of imperialism and had claimed the entire eastern sector. As Foreign Minister Chen Yi stated, If the Chinese government recognises the Simla convention and the McMahon Line there would be an explosion in China and the Chinese people would not agree. Premier Chou has no right to do so. Beijing was apparently ready to give up its claims in the east, except in certain places. These were grey areas, which lay north of the McMahon Line as marked in the original maps of 1914, but were actually south of the highest watershed. Indias position which China did not accept was that the line was intended to run along the watershed, and despite discrepancies the boundary had to be accordingly interpreted. India, for its part, was focused on the western sector. Here China claimed not just Aksai Chin but also areas south and south-west of the plateau. India rejected the idea of a swap, partly because the Chinese were nowhere near their claim line in Ladakh. Indeed, China occupied these areas only after the war in 1962. As far as the eastern sector was concerned, the Indians mistakenly believed that China had sought no concessions. As the foreign secretary informed Indian envoys after the summit, The Chinese aim is to make us accept their claim in Ladakh as a price for their recognition of our position in NEFA. This, we shall see, would lay the ground for misapprehensions in the future.

In the months following the abortive summit, India and China sought to consolidate their claims
on the ground. As the Chinese began to move forward towards their claim line in Ladakh, the Indians sought to forestall them by establishing posts in areas claimed but unoccupied by China. By the summer of 1962, Beijing saw Indias forward policy especially in the eastern sector as a continuation of its attempt to make Tibet a buffer state. This perceived link between Indias stance on the boundary dispute and Tibet played a critical role in Chinas decision to go to war. Indias humiliating defeat in the war ensured that negotiations on the boundary dispute would not be resumed for nearly two decades. In 1980, Deng Xiaoping revived Zhous ideas, suggesting that the problem could be solved if both parties respect the present state of the border. This formulation, however, slurred over the differences on the eastern sector, particularly in the grey areas. The Indian response demonstrated the perceptual gulf. The foreign minister stated that Beijing was making no concession by forsaking claims in the eastern sector, for China had never possessed that area. Yet, he welcomed the prospect of this sector being settled without any particular difficulty.

Thus when discussions on the boundary began in 1981, India spurned the idea of a package
solution and called for a Chinese withdrawal in Ladakh. The Indian government was under the impression that in 1960 the Chinese had been willing entirely to give up their claims in the eastern sector. Consequently, New Delhi proposed a sector-by-sector approach to resolving the dispute. The rationale was that once Beijing acceded to the Indian-claimed boundary in the eastern sector, it would be easier for the Indian government to make concessions in the west. Moreover, to sell such a deal in the political marketplace, it was imperative that China at least gave up the 3000 square miles of territory in Ladakh annexed in 1962. The Indian government could not be seen as acquiescing in gains of war. China assented to a sector-wise approach demanded by India. But, during the sixth round of talks in October 1985, they began to press their claims over Arunachal Pradesh, particularly Tawang. The McMahon alignment of 1914 had placed Tawang within Indian territory. But the Raj had never extended its administration to the area, and Tibetan officials continued to collect taxes from Tawang. It was only in February 1951 that an Indian political officer took charge in Tawang and evicted Tibetan representatives. Unsurprisingly, the Chinese believed that they had a robust historical claim to the Tawang area. In a reversal of their earlier stance, the Chinese now called for a package deal involving Indian concessions in the east and Chinese concessions in the west. This shift in Chinas negotiating position was spurred by two considerations. Beijing reckoned that if concessions in one sector would no longer be linked to gains in another, it was sensible negotiating tactics to adopt a maximalist position in each. Besides, the domestic constraints on the Chinese government had only increased over the years. The Chinese had to obtain some favourable adjustments in the east as part of an acceptable settlement.

In the 1980s the Chinese leadership also sought to improve relations with Tibetans. In particular,
Beijing tried to work towards a settlement with the Dalai Lama and his return to Tibet. Following preliminary discussions, the Dalai Lama sent delegations to Tibet for talks. The tremendous and spontaneous welcome accorded by the people of Tibet to these delegates convinced the Chinese leadership that the Dalai Lamas return would be undesirable. Subsequently, the Dalai Lamas demands for genuine autonomy, including UN membership for Tibet, were summarily rejected by Beijing. The Chinese government grew increasingly concerned over the attempts by Tibetan exiles to garner international support. Hence, during Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhis visit in 1988, the Chinese sought an affirmation from him that Tibet was an autonomous region of China and that India would not permit anti-Chinese political activities on Indian territory by Tibetan migrs. This, of course, was consistent with the Indian governments long standing policy on Tibet.

In the following years, the discussions on the boundary dispute were focused on clarifying the Line of Actual Control (LAC). It bears emphasizing that this exercise was begun at Indias insistence. An agreement on maintaining peace along the LAC signed in 1996 admitted that the two sides had differing perceptions of the LAC. Subsequently, it was identified that in the eastern sector, these were in the grey areas along the McMahon Line: Namka Chu, Thag La, Sumdurong Chu, Tulung La, Asaphi La, Longju, and Chen ju.

The claims about Chinese incursions that are frequently aired in India pertain to these areas. In
July 2003, when there was uproar over Chinese movements in Asaphi La, the Ministry of External Affairs spokesman accepted that This is an area where there are differences in perception. In response to the recent allegations of Chinese intrusions, a senior PMO official was quoted as acknowledging that, It is only in the disputed parts [of the LAC] in the eastern sector that [Chinese] patrolling takes place. The official further admitted that both sides send patrols to these areas. More recently, the Army Chief, General Deepak Kapoor stated in an interview that a degree of misperception has been built on this particular issue of incursions... First of all, it is a matter of perception. Chinese have a different perception of the Line of Actual Control, as do we. When we come up to their perception, we call it incursion and likewise they do. To deal with such incursions, the 1996 agreement allows the parties to seek clarifications through diplomatic channels a mechanism that has been used by India. The current round of negotiations on the boundary proper began in 2003. It is reasonable to assume that the minimum requirements of both sides remained unaltered. New Delhi sought a Chinese withdrawal by at least 3000 square miles in the western sector; Beijing needed some concessions in the grey areas in the eastern sector. The political parameters agreed upon in April 2005 aimed at the reconciliation of these interests. Both sides would work towards a package settlement involving all the sectors. The agreed boundary would follow well-defined geographic features. It is worth underscoring that Beijing has insisted since 1960 that a watershed is not the only such feature. This, of course, relates to its expectations in the eastern sector. Finally, the agreement would safeguard the interests of settled populations in disputed areas. This last point amounted to an acceptance by Beijing that its claims over most of Arunachal Pradesh were notional. Yet, from Chinas perspective, they are a useful bargaining counter until a satisfactory settlement including some adjustment in the eastern sector is reached. The state, especially Tawang, is its bargaining chip not only to obtain concessions in this sector, but also to avoid having to give up too much in Ladakh.

Furthermore, Chinas stand might also be linked to Indias Tibet policy. Beijing is aware that
the demise of the current Dalai Lama would offer an unprecedented opportunity to recast its relations with Tibet. In this regard, China would be keen to undercut efforts by migrs to influence Tibetan politics in the future. An important institutional player in this regard is the Tibetan government-in-exile operating in India. Created in the early 1960s, the government-in-

exile has mushroomed into a substantial organisation undertaking numerous tasks administrative, economic, cultural and educational. The Indian government has not recognised the government-in-exile and has maintained that it would not permit it to undertake political activities. But the Chinese are sceptical about Indias disavowals, and believe that India tacitly permits anti-China activity by Tibetans. As a leading scholar of Sino-Indian relations observes, the Chinese tend to see Indias stance as further evidence of Indian duplicity.5 Hence, in the ongoing negotiations the Chinese might be looking for some form of reassurance on Tibet perhaps the dissolution of the parliament-in-exile. Some Indian commentators have argued that New Delhi should use the Tibetan issue to gain leverage in negotiations with China. But it is not clear how raising the issue in any manner can prove useful to India. It would only serve to accentuate Chinese suspicion of Indias intent. The history of Sino-Indian relations in the 1950s suggests that this would vitiate any effort to reach a negotiated settlement. After all, it was Tibet that gave an edge to the boundary dispute, leading to the war in 1962. Moreover, the Tibet issue has no purchase on the Indian political class or public opinion. It is unrealistic to assume that Tibet is an effective mechanism of leverage for India.

Ultimately, a settlement of the boundary dispute will hinge on the willingness of India as well as
China to make concessions. The Indian government has repeatedly made it clear that uprooting settled populations is unacceptable to India. This still leaves India with some room to accommodate Chinas interests in the east. Alongside a Chinese relinquishment of some territory in Ladakh, they could pave the way for an overall settlement. A final settlement will also entail some effort by India to assuage Chinas lingering concerns over Tibet. The challenge for both the governments is to move forward in this direction, whilst simultaneously ensuring that their security interests are preserved and that the concerns of domestic audiences are addressed. Such an outcome is unlikely to be achieved soon. But now, more than ever before, it is in the realm of the possible.

Footnotes: 1. On the historical aspects of the boundary dispute see, Alastair Lamb, The McMahon Line, 2 vols., Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1966; Lamb, The Sino-Indian Boundary in Ladakh, University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, 1975; Parshottam Mehra, The McMahon Line and After, Macmillan, New Delhi, 1974; Mehra, An Agreed Frontier: Ladakh and Indias Northernmost Borders, 1846 -1947, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1992. 2. Note to secretary general MEA, 18 June 1954, Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru (Second Series), vol. 25, pp. 476-80. 3. On the significance of the road, see, John Garver, Protracted Contest: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Twentieth Century, University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2001, pp. 82-88.

4. Chen Jian, The Tibetan Rebellion of 1959 and Chinas Changing Relations with India and the Soviet Union, Journal of Cold War Studies 8(3), Summer 2006, pp. 54-101. 5. Garver, Protracted Contest, pp. 74-75.

Stability through cooperation

V I NO D C. K HA N NA

AN optimal handling of the neighbourhood is a major challenge confronting the Indian foreign policy establishment. This is particularly so due to the presence next door of a powerful state. It is plausible to argue that the days of exclusive spheres of influence are over, even though some votaries of realpolitik may find this a defeatist assertion. Though a major power may be better placed than other powers in a particular region because of proximity, power equations, historical links, economic and cultural factors and so on, it has to leverage this advantageous position with skill. Any attempt to impose its will could be counter-productive because, barring exceptions, even the weakest of states have multiple options. In the case of India, there is always the possibility of its neighbours turning to China as a countervailing power. But the problem is even more complex. The very fact that India is so much more powerful than them can prompt neighbours to look for an external balancer. Clearly, it is both morally right and politically sound to base Indias relations with even the smallest of her neighbours on the principle of mutual respect and equality. This does not mean nave surrender of Indias interests. There will, alas, be occasions when the political leadership of one or the other country would be obsessively committed to an anti-Indian policy framework, even when it is demonstrably against its interests, rationally conceived. In such cases, India would have no option but to take firm but fair measures to protect its own interests. This might sometimes play into Chinas hands. But as Sino-Indian relations have improved, China has realized that it is in its long-term interests to recognize Indian compulsions, and not encourage needless anti-Indian behaviour. So one can put forward the proposition: if Indias relations are simultaneously bad with China and some small neighbour, the relationship tends to acquire a distinct anti-Indian hue; if, however, Indias relations with China are good, it reduces the anti-Indian content of that relationship.

Some analysts are so accustomed to see India-China relations as one continuous zero-sum game that every development on Indias neighbourhood is interpreted as either a Chinese gain and an Indian loss or vice versa. Of course, with each state pursuing its own interests, there is bound to be a fair degree of competition. But in the complex real world there will be developments which have negative or positive implications for both India and China at the same time. Broadly speaking, it is in the interest of both countries that their neighbourhood remains peaceful and stable. The descent of any nearby country into using currently fashionable vocabulary a failed state or, probably worse, a rogue state would present a foreign policy nightmare to both. One other commonsense proposition needs to be made simply because it is so often ignored by those who see every Chinese move in the region surrounding India as necessarily targeted at India. Some elements of Chinas relations with these countries are part of normal inter-state transactions; some of the other Chinese moves relate to her different interests and not necessarily to India, at least not primarily so.

Let us now apply these propositions to ground realities as they have evolved in our
neighbourhood. In the worst period of India-China relations the 1960s and early 1970s China seemed to go out of its way to build linkages with Indias neighbours to fit them into a larger anti-Indian design. It was liberal in the use of phrases like hegemony, big nation chauvinism and expansionism to describe Indias approach to its smaller neighbours. Of all the Chinese involvements with the subcontinent, it is Sino-Pak relations that have undoubtedly presented the most serious challenge for Indian policy-makers. This time-tested, all-weather relationship with a prominent military aid component acquired a solid foundation in the early 1960s, courtesy shared hostility to India. For more than four decades when so much else on the international stage witnessed profound changes, Beijing-Islamabad bonds have remained close. China extended strong political support to Pakistan during the IndoPak conflicts of 1965 and 1971, but did not resort to direct military intervention. However, a failure to prevent the break-up of Pakistan may have been a factor in China yielding to Pakistans pleas for transfer of nuclear and missile technology.

An improvement in India-China bilateral relations, which accelerated after Rajiv Gandhis visit
to China in December 1988, also had a spin-off effect on Sino-Pak relations. Even during the temporary dip in Sino-Indian relations following Indian nuclear tests in 1998, the Chinese, with an eye on the long-term implications, decided against a pronounced pro-Pakistan or anti-India tilt on the Kashmir issue. As the Kargil conflict escalated, in May 1999, Beijing made a special effort to appear as even-handed as possible. This could not have been of much comfort to Pakistan. Nevertheless strong links between the two countries continue, of which building the Gwadar deep-sea port is the latest manifestation. The Gwadar Port serves important interests of both Pakistan and China. To Pakistan, it provides strategic depth, reducing its dependence on the Karachi naval base that proved so vulnerable to Indias superior naval might. To China it

provides an additional facility which could be particularly handy as it moves towards building a blue water navy. Perhaps more importantly, it would be a critical staging junction in an overland route via the Khunjerab Pass in the Karakoram for Chinese exports and imports, above all for energy supplies from the Persian Gulf.

China, like India indeed like most countries in the world has viewed the rise of Islamic
extremism in Pakistan and the terrorism it has generated with deep apprehension. While China generally eschews any critical comments on developments within countries it regards as friendly, it went public last year with its demand that greater security be provided to 5000 or so Chinese nationals living in Pakistan with an increasing number of its citizens being targeted by Islamist militants. There is a widely held belief that the crackdown on the militants holed up in the Lal Masjid was in response to Chinese pressure. During discussions at an influential Chinese think tank last May, when the author was in Beijing with a delegation of Indian scholars, he and his colleagues were asked about their assessment of increasing Talibanization in Pakistan. As the domestic situation in Pakistan deteriorated last year, it is almost certain that the Chinese were as worried as everyone else about the danger of Pakistans nuclear assets falling into the hands of the extremists. In case of China there are two other sources of Pakistan-based dangers (i) the links between some elements in Pakistan and the Uighur militants of Xinjiang which borders Pakistan; and (ii) the anger of Balochi nationalists who are unhappy with Chinese involvement in the construction of Gwadar and other projects in Balochistan which they regard as an attempt by the central government to colonize them and their natural resources. It is reasonable to assume that the Chinese must be relieved by the relatively peaceful elections in Pakistan and its results, but like everybody else they will watch future developments with a mixture of hope and anxiety.

There was a period of time in the late 1960s and early 70s when India was almost as concerned
about Sino-Nepalese relations as the Sino-Pak axis. Indias relations with both China and Nepal nose-dived at more or less the same time. King Mahendra dismissed the Nepali Congress government in December 1960, an action that India saw as being both anti-Indian and antidemocratic. This was Chinas opportunity. It moved in with generous offers of aid, including the building of a road which would eventually connect Lhasa to Kathmandu. Clearly the initial Chinese objective was a strategic one; the economic benefits would be a welcome spin-off. King Mahendra was hailed by the Chinese as an outstanding statesman and praised for pursuing a policy of independence, peace and neutrality. A standard formula was evolved, to be repeated on every occasion: resolute support to Nepals just struggle against foreign interference and in defence of national independence and state sovereignty. And, in a not so subtle reminder

that Nepal need not be overawed by Indias size, it was occasionally mentioned that this resolute support came from (the then) 650, 000,000 Chinese people. Emboldened by its evolving relationship with China, Nepal persuaded India in 1969-70 to withdraw the Indian Military Liaison Group and Indian personnel from check posts along the Nepal-Tibet border. Apart from neutralizing the preferential presence which India had earlier enjoyed, Chinas main concern in building up its relations with Nepal was to ensure that no other external power could use Nepal as a base for destabilizing the situation in Tibet. Mahendra died in January 1972. His son and successor Birendra was, if anything, even keener to use the China card in dealing with India. Chinese aid came into new sectors. In what was perceived in Delhi as a brazen disregard of Indias security interests, Nepal even acquired arms from China.

However, the limits of Sino-Nepalese partnership gradually became apparent. The sheer facts of
geography dictate that China cannot replace Indias role in Nepals economic well-being. For China to even attempt to do so would be an overly expensive proposition and Nepals trade with Tibet remains a minute fraction of its trade with India. In any case, as Sino-Indian relations gradually improved in the 1980s, China became less inclined to make any extravagant investments in Nepal. Further, Chinese focus on its own modernization dictated new priorities. China had yet another reason to be more cautious. It was obvious that the movement for the restoration of democracy in Nepal enjoyed popular support and was not simply the result of some Indian machination. As in the case of the popular upsurge in East Pakistan in 1971, China would have been conscious of the fact that India was on the side of the great majority of the people while China was in danger of being perceived as allied to an unpopular ruler. In the old days any mention of Maoists in Nepal (or for that matter in India) would automatically, and rightly, have been associated with Chinas revolutionary foreign policy under Mao. In China today Maoism is obsolete and official policy steers clear from militancy abroad by self-proclaimed Maoists. But, of course, now that the Maoists in Nepal are part of the mainstream, the Chinese would have no problem in associating with them along with the rest of the ruling parties. What comes across from Chinas relations with both Pakistan and Nepal is that it deals with the government of the day. It makes no comments on the internal affairs of either, other than in general and diplomatic terms, consistent with its oft-reiterated and useful principle of noninterference in the internal affairs of another state. This same principle has stood it in particular good stead in interacting with changing political regimes in Bangladesh.

In contrast to Pakistan and Nepal, China does not share a land border with Bangladesh. Apart
from a small stretch of the border with Burma, Bangladesh is surrounded by India on its east, west and north, and on the south the Indian naval presence dominates the Bay of Bengal. However, the geo-strategic position of Bangladesh is characterized by three additional important facts which India has always to bear in mind: with a population of around 150 million, Bangladesh is not, by any means, a small country; second, a friendly Bangladesh is important for unhindered access to Northeast India through the narrow Siliguri corridor; and, finally, China is not a distant neighbour of Bangladesh, because between the north-west corner of Bangladesh and the southern most point of Tibets Chumbi valley lies this very Siliguri corridor. The transition of China from a country that strenuously opposed the birth of Bangladesh to its present status as perhaps its closest partner is a commentary alike on Beijings nimble-footed diplomacy and the perennial quest of some South Asian countries to seek a countervailing power against India. By the mid-1980s, China had cemented the relationship with numerous trade and cultural agreements and construction projects. More worrisome for India, it also became Bangladeshs primary supplier of military equipment and training. Various elements of military cooperation were put into the context of an umbrella defence agreement signed between the two countries during the last visit to Beijing of the then Prime Minister, Khaleda Zia. Further, as China looks at the possibilities of a naval presence in the Indian Ocean, the port of Chittagong where it is developing a container port facility and the long Bangladesh coastline along the Bay of Bengal offer enticing possibilities.

Though strategic considerations have played a role in the evolution of Sino-Bangladesh

relations, unlike the relationship with Pakistan for long periods of time and with Nepal at one stage, it has not been publicly projected in an anti-Indian framework. Further, much of the SinoBangladesh relationship is of the normal inter-state kind, unrelated to whatever policy they may have pursued vis--vis India at any given time. The same applies to Sri Lankas relations with China. Way back in 1952, the intensely antiCommunist UNP government signed the famous rubber-for-rice agreement with China. The end of 1976 found China as Sri Lankas leading trade partner. It also provided Sri Lanka interest free loans to finance agro-based industries and a textile mill. It gifted five high-speed boats. As in the case of Bangladesh, China also became a major arms supplier to Sri Lanka. Though every now and then some Indian analyst expresses deep concern at the profound implications of these transfers for Indias security, in most cases Sri Lanka went to China or Pakistan or any other party only when India regretted its inability or unwillingness to be the supplier.

In dealing with its troubled neighbourhood India often faces dilemmas which China does not,
dilemmas that arise from the fact that India has an ethnic overlap with all its South Asian neighbours. This has been a particularly critical factor in determining the mode of reaction to the

internal strife in Sri Lanka. It is obvious that the self-restraint, which India has exercised in recent years while responding to pleas for help from Colombo in its conflict with Tamil Tigers, arises from the concern about likely reaction in Tamil Nadu. As in case of Bangladesh, China is involved in a commercial port project in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka hopes that Hambantota port, 240 kilometres south of Colombo, will become a major transshipment hub. Predictably, Chinas role in the Hambantota project has disturbed some security experts in India. However, there are others who do not share this concern. They point out that India already has a sizable presence in Trincomalee on Sri Lankas northeast coast. According to them, geographic proximity, ethnic links and close ties between India and Sri Lanka cannot be eroded by a few projects and agreements with other countries. The Hambantota port project is the latest in a series of steps that China has taken in recent years to consolidate its access to the Indian Ocean and to secure sea lanes through which its energy supplies are transported. It has adopted what analysts describe as a string of pearls strategy, building strategic relationships with countries along sea lanes from the Middle East to the South China Sea.

China as a significant actor in the Indian Ocean is a relatively new phenomenon. There was a
time when our major concern was the presence in the Indian Ocean not of China but of western navies led by the USA (recall Indian criticism of US presence in Diego Garcia). For a variety of reasons one hears little today about the problem posed by American presence in the Indian Ocean. This has given way to concerns with the increasingly vigorous manner in which China is now seeking to promote what it identifies as its interests in the Indian Ocean region: these pertain both to its aspirations as a rising power and concerns about energy security. This naturally requires careful monitoring, without assuming that all these moves are necessarily targeted at India. (Of course, in some cases Indian interests may be part of the collateral damage!) Take, for instance, the amount of resources China has expended on building a close relationship with the Middle East generally, and Iran in particular. It is doubtful whether in conceptualizing this geo-strategy, China primarily had India in mind. Clearly the objectives here are energy security, but also the larger balance of power game where the perceived adversary is not India but USA. It is when we come to South Asia that there are more obvious implications for India. In this context a mention must be made of Myanmar, though now usually considered a part of Southeast Asia. China regards Myanmar as an important neighbour for several reasons. The most convenient opening to the sea for the landlocked Southwest China is through Myanmar, which occupies an excellent strategic location for access to the Bay of Bengal on one side and the Malacca Straits on the other. It was the growing military dimension of Chinas relations with Myanmar that most attracted external concern. Reduced to a pariah status by the West and faced with a democratic challenge at home, the Myanmar military junta found in China the only willing source of military supplies

and training, as well as for building military installations. They have helped build new naval facilities (particularly the one at Hainggyi Island) and improved existing ones. The one at the Great Coco Island, reportedly, has been equipped with sophisticated surveillance equipment. Though the Myanmar government insists that they have not offered the Chinese any military facility on their soil, India has a legitimate concern about the use to which China could put these facilities. However, no purpose is served in exaggerating the security threat to India from the Sino-Myanmar military links. To assume that Myanmar could become some sort of a client state of China is to completely misread the situation and to underestimate the strength of Burmese nationalism. There is no doubt that Myanmar does not wish to be excessively dependent on China. Myanmar has responded warmly to the willingness demonstrated in recent years by Delhi to improve relations.

One rather obvious, but important point needs to be made. American power will be an
overwhelming presence in the overlapping India-China strategic space for many years to come and both Sino-Indian cooperation and competition will take place in an international setting whose structure will be profoundly influenced by this inescapable fact. India and China are two rapidly rising powers on the international stage. It is inevitable that there will be a certain degree of rivalry. Each of them brings to the neighbourhood their own specific strengths and needs. The challenge for the statesmen is to manage a mutually beneficial coexistence which also takes into account the legitimate aspirations of other countries. China shares land borders with five members of SAARC, looks over the Chickens Neck at a sixth, and has a long border with Myanmar, which must be regarded as part of Indias troubled neighbourhood. It has built friendly relations with all the countries in the region. Some elements of these relationships are of legitimate concern to India and may require it to take steps to protect her interests. But, by and large, the best and most effective mode to defend and promote Indian interests is to have good relations with both China and our smaller neighbours that would minimize the possibilities of Chinas relations with these countries constituting a threat to India.

India and China have a shared interest in the economic progress of these countries if our
neighbourhood has to cease being a troubled one. Take for instance, the so-called string of pearls the series of port facilities that China has helped to construct, and whose usage should indeed be carefully monitored to see whether they are being used by China for purposes undermining Indias security. However, there is no reason why these facilities Chittagong and Hambantota, in particular should not contribute to the economic development of our neighbours by helping promote international trade. These ports can conceivably be useful to Indian commercial traffic as well. To see each of them simply as posing a danger to India can be a bit paranoiac. If ever Sri Lanka were to make Hambantota available for a strike against India, it would be evidence of a catastrophic failure of Indian diplomacy.

India and China instead of perceiving each other as a threat in the Indian Ocean should work together, along with other naval powers, to ensure the safety of sea lanes so crucial to the economic well-being of all. Both India and China, quite rightly, have been applying their minds to the need for cooperation in building a new architecture for closer regional cooperation in Asia, to quote from the Joint Declaration signed by the Chinese President Hu Jintao and the Indian prime minister when the former visited India in November 2006.

In conclusion, a passage from the 2003 Admiral RD Katari Memorial Lecture delivered by the
then Minister of External Affairs Yashwant Sinha, bears quotation: The argument that the dominant theme of Chinas South Asia policy is to prevent the rise of a potential rival or competitor in the form of India is a defeatist argument. There are probably some in our neighbourhood who seek to play their "China connection" or "China card" to "counter" or even "contain" India. The bankruptcy of this approach is, however, becoming increasingly evident. China cannot objectively be a competitor for India in South Asia. Destinies of the countries of South Asia are interlinked by the overwhelming logic of history, geography and economics. I believe the current relationship between India and China is certainly beneficial for each other and for South Asia.

Overcoming trust deficit

P RA N A Y S HA R MA

THE ancient scholar and strategist, Kautilya in his Arthashastra, based his mandala theory on the principle that every neighbouring state should be regarded as an enemy and the enemys enemy as a friend. Going strictly by his advice, trouble in the neighbours land should be seen as good news. If one applies that yardstick to India and its neighbourhood, perhaps, there would be no dearth of such good news. India is both a continental and maritime nation with a territory of over three million square kilometres. It has a land frontier of 15,000 kms and a coastline of 7,500 kms. It shares land and maritime boundaries with at least nine countries Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. If one keeps aside China, Maldives, and Bhutan where there is relative peace and calm six countries in Indias immediate neighbourhood have been on the boil for the past many years. Recently, Benazir Bhuttos assassination and the ensuing violence in Pakistan might have led many commentators to describe it as the most dangerous place in the world. But Pakistan is hardly a case in isolation. All around India there are countries where regular violence has become the norm rather than an aberration. In Afghanistan, the Hamid Karzai government is engaged in a bloody war with Islamic fundamentalist groups owing allegiance to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The decades long ethnic violence in Sri Lanka shows no signs of ending as the Tamil Tigers, demanding a separate state, are in a violent struggle with the Sinhalese army. The Maoists in Nepal have ended their nine-year long insurgency to join an interim government. But violent clashes continue between rival political groups, and they are likely to increase as the country gears up to face the April elections. On the eastern side, Bangladesh continues to face turbulence as the army-backed caretaker government tries to fight the Islamic fundamentalist groups on one hand and deal with a growing demand for restoring democracy on the other. The bloody crackdown on Buddhist monks by the army generals in Myanmar late last year was yet another reminder of the juntas capability for violence and its strong resistance to open any space for dissenting voices in the country. India, thus, is saddled with countries in a neighbourhood seen as one of the most volatile regions in the world. There are fears that if the current trend continues, some of these countries could turn into failed states. Such a prospect is neither good for India nor for the others in the region. But how does India respond to these developments and the challenges they have thrown up? Could it come up with some urgent measures to change the course of events and ensure peace and stability in its neighbourhood?

If India wants to maintain stability, peace and progress in its own country, it would have to act,
both individually as well as collectively, to improve the situation in the turbulent region. Technological change in a globalized world with its stress on inter-connectivity has now brought

countries much closer to each other than ever before. National boundaries no longer enjoy the sanctity they once had. Development in one country has its impact and creates multiple ripples in countries in the farthest corners of the world. No country has the luxury any longer to live in isolation. Globalization has provided the opportunity and benefits to enrich and improve the lives of people. But it has also thrown up new challenges for nations to deal with. Be it the emergence of sub-nationalism, ethnic exclusivity or religious fundamentalism, inter-connectivity has ensured that no country can remain immune to such developments in any part of the world. Many of these problems are also present in good measure in the Indian neighbourhood.

Keeping in mind both the opportunities as well as the challenges thrown up by a globalized
world, relations between countries in general, and management of the neighbourhood in particular, has become one of the most daunting tasks for practitioners of foreign policy. During a speech on the neighbourhood in 2005 in New Delhi, Indias Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran said: Frontiers with neighbours are where domestic concerns intersect with external relationships. This is where domestic and foreign policies become inextricable and demand sensitive handling. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that in defining ones vital national and security interests, a countrys neighbourhood enjoys a place of unquestioned primacy. There are two other important reasons why management of the neighbourhood becomes vitally important for India. First, Indias economy has been growing for the past two decades at over six per cent. Last year it has shown a growth of nine per cent plus. Studies conducted by reputed agencies and institutions in different parts of the world predict India emerging as the third largest economy in the world over the next 10-15 years. To maintain this level of growth for the next decade or so, India would have to ensure political stability within the country and an environment of peace and calm in the neighbourhood. The second has to do with Indias long cherished desire to play a much bigger role in world affairs that goes far beyond South Asia. From the time India emerged on the world scene as an independent country in August 1947, it saw itself as a leader of the developing world. Being one of the first countries to come out of the colonial yoke, it had encouraged other countries in Asia and Africa to become independent. In the early 1950s when the United States offered India a permanent seat on the UN Security Council in place of China, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had politely declined the offer. But with new ground realities emerging at the end of the Cold War, India has shown interest in finding a place at the highest decision-making table in the world. For the past several years its leaders, diplomats and officials have been actively engaged in mobilizing support around the globe to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

Many countries are not averse to the idea of India finding a place in the Security Council,
seeing it as a deserving candidate at the high-table. There is now a growing acceptance, both among Indian policy planners and New Delhis friends in the outside world, that India needs to manage its neighbourhood better. If it wants to play a wider and more significant role at the

world stage, it will have to instil confidence in the international community about its ability to deal with major challenges. Better management of its neighbourhood, therefore, becomes crucial in Indias quest for a role at the international stage. But how does one define Indias neighbourhood? One could be in the context of South Asia. The other, and perhaps better way, would be to include its extended neighbourhood, the entire region where India has a strategic interest. India is located at the base of continental Asia and the top of the Indian Ocean. This puts it in a vantage position with the countries of West, Central, continental and South East Asia and the littoral states of the Indian Ocean stretching from East Africa to Indonesia. In recent years this entire region has been the hotbed of fundamentalist and terrorist activity and gone through long spells of political instability. In the past decade or so, it has witnessed a series of acts of terrorism stretching through major cities in North and East Africa, the Gulf, and South East Asia. The unrelenting violence in Iraq and Afghanistan has only contributed further to the volatility of the region. Criminal gangs involved in gunrunning, trafficking in humans, drugs and piracy have made some of the vital sea lanes in the region more vulnerable.

Being an energy hungry nation, India has vital interests in the Gulf and the Central Asian region
which are some of its most important sources for oil and natural gas. The Gulf is also an important trading partner for India and home to over 3.5 million Indians who work there. It also has major stakes in South East Asia. Apart from the ethnic and cultural ties that it has with most countries in the region, South East Asia has, over the years, become one of the most dynamic partners in Indias economic growth. The security and stability of the Indian Ocean is vital for India. It needs to keep the Straits of Malacca, one of the busiest sea routes in the region, and other important sea ports and sea lanes in the Persian Gulf and Bab-el-Mandab, free from trouble. However, improving the situation in its immediate neighbourhood is also crucial for India. South Asia has traditionally been considered by India as its area of influence although serious doubts have been expressed over the extent of influence India has over its neighbours. Many have also questioned whether India has a neighbourhood policy that is comprehensive, effective and sustainable. A section of the Indian establishment is in favour of looking at South Asia as a single entity. This is based on the fact that the seven nations share the same geographical space, a common history and have deep-rooted cultural, ethnic, religious and linguistic ties. But few deny that the problems of the region are also deep-rooted, many with roots in imperial history. Many are a spill-over of decisions taken by the colonial rulers, particularly the one to partition the subcontinent by redrawing artificial boundaries. Immense trauma was felt over the loss of millions of human lives as well as the traditional communication and commercial links. A large number of people in the subcontinent not only lost their family members and loved ones overnight, but also their land, business, and livelihood.

When an independent India emerged in 1947, relations with its immediate neighbours were
based on these developments. A part of the problem arose and to a large extent still does over the gap that exists between Indias self-image and its perception by neighbours. India always regarded itself as a leader of the developing world or as the first among equals. The others saw India as a country that took itself too seriously but was condescending towards the needs, interests and aspirations of its neighbours. Jawaharlal Nehrus attempt to introduce Chinese leader Zhuo-en-Lai before the gathering at the Africa-Asian Summit in Bandung in 1955 is well known. Many have interpreted the incident as a turning point in Sino-Indian relations that ended the bonhomie and finally led to a war between the two countries over the boundary dispute, in 1962. But Indias attitude towards its South Asian neighbours has perhaps been a little more dismissive. India always saw itself as the natural heir of the British Empire in the subcontinent. Having ended up with the largest share of the British pie only strengthened that attitude as most of the neighbours were seen as nothing more than vassal states. Jawaharlal Nehru, who played a major role in formulating Indias foreign policy in the initial days, could build up a personal rapport with many world leaders, but had very few friends in the neighbourhood. It is important to note that he (Nehru) did not find much in common with leaders in the immediate neighbourhood Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka or Indonesia. The only South East Asian leader with whom he had a personal equation was Thakin Nu of Burma, the late J.N. Dixit, Indias former foreign secretary and national security advisor observers in his book, Across Borders.

This tradition has been followed by most Indian leaders who succeeded Nehru. The inability to
build personal friendships with any of the leaders in the region also led to Indias isolation among its neighbours. Seldom has there been an occasion when Indias neighbours have rallied behind it in support. Bhutan is perhaps the only exception as it is totally dependent on India, both for its security and for its economy. The cold-war that followed the partition of the subcontinent and lasted nearly four and half decades, further contributed to the suspicion and hostilities between India and its other neighbours. Pakistan might be an extreme case in pursuing a hostile relationship with India for most part of the last 60 years. But relations between New Delhi and the leadership in the other capitals of South Asia have seldom been cordial. Despite occasional spells of bonhomie they have, for the most part, been marked by longer periods of hostility, distrust, or measured indifference. Indias intervention in East Pakistan in 1971 that led to the creation of Bangladesh, though hailed by most Indians was seen by neighbours with trepidation if not as an act of Indian imperialism. Since it was followed up by actions that led to the annexation of Sikkim and a nuclear test, nervousness among the smaller neighbours grew further. Prolonged hostilities between India and Pakistan and twin nuclear tests by the two countries in May 1998 further strengthened fear among the neighbours. Many of them now apprehend being caught in the middle should an India-Pakistan confrontation degenerating into a nuclear war.

There is a growing opinion that Indias Pakistan-centric policy has perhaps been one of the
major drawbacks in its ability to come up with a more meaningful neighbourhood policy. Pakistan has undoubtedly been one of the most difficult neighbours for India. The two countries have fought four wars in the last 60 years. But they have failed to settle any of their outstanding disputes, including the one over Jammu and Kashmir. In the past four years there has been some improvement in their ties with a ceasefire in place along the border and some level of contact between different sections of people in the two countries. But none would say that these steps have helped to end the hostile relationship. Pakistan has so far shown an ability not only to hog most of Indias time and energy but also to scuttle any proposal that India has made for better coordination among the neighbours to bring them closer. Many of the neighbours wonder whether they too should start leveraging their nuisance value to ensure Indias attention. De-linking Pakistan from the other neighbours has not worked either, as a serious trust deficit exists between India and other neighbours. India has been more comfortable in dealing with its neighbours at the bilateral rather than the regional level. There have been a number of occasions in the past when India has been generous to its neighbours by granting them freer access to its markets and technological and knowledge pool. But most often this has come with implicit conditionalities and an attitude that the neighbours find unacceptable. In terms of its geographical size, population, market, economy, GDP, and knowledge and technological base, India is far larger than the combined resources of other South Asian countries. But it has not succeeded in taking any initiative that could inspire hope and confidence among these countries of a shared destiny for co-progress and prosperity. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was set up more than 20 years back to encourage closer economic and technological cooperation among the neighbours. But mutual suspicion and hostilities have prevented it from emerging as an effective economic bloc or as a free market to attract large-scale investment from both within and outside the region.

India maintains that it does not want to interfere in the internal matters of a neighbouring
country. But there have been occasions in the past when it has done so. Unfortunately, none of its actions be it the armed initiative for the creation of Bangladesh, to decision to send peacekeepers in Sri Lanka, or its intervention in Maldives to put down the coup against President Gayoom in the 1980s have helped in shoring up Indias stock among the neighbours. It is interesting to note that while most neighbours see India as a regional bully, the foreign policy establishment in New Delhi feels that the propensity of the neighbouring countries for mischief making against it stems from their perception of India as a weak state. Irrespective of where the blame lies, the fact remains that Indias policy to deal with the neighbours in a meaningful way has so far remained unsuccessful.

A fundamental reason could be an absence of meaningful debate on this crucial issue among the
Indian political parties. It is ironic that the need for an effective policy that would strengthen and improve relations with neighbours has never seriously figured in our political discourse barring a national security debate when India went to war with either China or Pakistan. There have also been isolated incidents, like in 1971 during the creation of Bangladesh or the Sri Lankan crisis in the late 1980s that forced Indian peacekeepers to the island, or more recently during street demonstrations against the monarch in Nepal, when it came into national focus in India. But despite the growing coalitional nature of Indian politics, there has been no major debate within the otherwise vibrant Indian political circles for a comprehensive neighbourhood policy. While India struggles to find the right peg to deal with its neighbours, the other big power of the region, China, has moved to deepen ties with the South Asian nations. Pakistan has all along had strong and deep relations with China. But over the years other countries in South Asia have also started reaching out to China as part of their attempt to counterbalance Indias political, economic and military clout in the region. It has provided them with a viable option. Trade between China and other countries in the neighbourhood like Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh, has shown a steady growth. Though the balance is tilted in favour of China, it has managed to gain the trust and confidence of the neighbours with investments in key sectors like infrastructure, energy and defence. It has also started outsourcing garment manufacturing to some of neighbouring countries to deliberately play down its competitiveness in sectors which are crucial for them.

The growing Chinese influence in its neighbourhood continues to make India nervous. But in a
globalized economy, it finds it difficult to put up barriers and discourage the neighbours from trading with China. The fact that Indias trade with China has also shown phenomenal growth in the last few years has muted New Delhis criticism. Indias reluctance to allow China a free run in South Asia is based both on history and contemporary ground reality. The scars of defeat of the Indian Army at the hands of the Chinese still run deep. A series of attempts taken by China in recent years to develop and strengthen sea ports in and around India has raised deep suspicion in New Delhi. There is a growing feeling in the Indian establishment that these steps are being taken by China to encircle India. But India has also been moving into areas that China considers its area of influence. It has deepened ties with the South East Asian nations. An improvement in its ties with the United States and joint naval exercises with the American, Japanese, and Australian navies in the Indian Ocean, has been viewed with suspicion in China. The Chinese also have a feeling of being encircled by countries inimical to its interests. The management of Indias immediate neighbourhood, therefore, would have to be seen in the context of New Delhis growing ties with other world powers. As it takes more responsibility in ensuring the security and safety of a region beyond South Asia, its relations with many key players like the US, European Union, Russia, Japan and Australia would grow.

But it would also have to take steps to reinterpret its relations with China. If China continues to be suspicious of Indias intentions in its neighbourhood, it could encourage mischief in Indias backyard. On the other hand, if the two countries manage to evolve their relations into a partnership, it would benefit both. The two countries have been working closely on some key issues like global warming, WTO and energy security. But would India be prepared to work jointly with China in managing South Asia?

Some argue that an absence of democracy in Indias neighbourhood has been an important
reasons for the trouble and political instability. There has also been a growing view that Indias future lies in building strong ties with the major democratic powers in the world. They want India to actively promote democracy in the region to ensure a more peaceful and stable neighbourhood. Democracy is the worst of all governments, except for all the others, Winston Churchill had once famously said. Though interpreted in the past as a comment in favour of democracy, there are many who highlight the skepticism shown by Churchill for democracy as an effective institution. A raging debate continues in the West and other parts of the world on the effectiveness and efficacy of the model of western liberal democracy. The case for free voting is not that it guarantees rights but that it enables the people (in theor y) to get rid of unpopular governments, argues Eric Hobsbawm, a leading historian of our times. The model of democracy might have worked well for India in the last 60 years; it may continue to do so for an even longer period of time. But in and around India there are countries which have followed different models of governance and managed to maintain both peace and stability. To give two examples, Chinas system has been very different from that followed by India. But there is little to suggest that it has not worked well for its people. Since its emergence in 1949, China has become a key international player with the second largest economy in the world. The other is Iran, which had its Islamic Revolution in 1979. But despite hostile American and western propaganda and attempts to isolate it both economically and politically, it has survived for nearly 30 years and managed to maintain both stability and peace within its geographical territory.

A democratic India must ensure that the maximum number of its people have a stake in the
system and get a share of the political and economic pie. Similarly, it must move to make its markets more accessible to its neighbours and make them stakeholders in Indias progress. But at the same time, it would need to be both pragmatic about the changed scenario and confident about its own strength and future role. It can no longer treat South Asia as an exclusive zone, isolating it from wider interaction with the world. It needs to create space for other major players in the world to work together for peace, stability and progress of the neighbourhood and the region as a whole.