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You would think that with the tragic floods of Pakistan which has killed 1500 people, and many more to follow, that the Indian government would take the opportunity to show solidarity with the Pakistani people in their hour of need.
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But NO!.....strangely silent ....eerily silent.......nothing!
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The World has jumped in to help Pakistan with its flood problems. The world is helping because it is morally right. It is an act of humanity. Whilst other countries are helping because it makes strategic, symbolic, and political sense.
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The Pakistan military backed and armed by the USA, and China may be a problem for India, but this problem for India has nothing to do with the ordinary aam Admi of the Pakistani people..........Pashtun's and now South Punjabis, and eventually Sindhis.
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But the worthless Indian policy makers in the MEA are wholly inactive. Because that is what they are good at.
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The best strategy for India over failed state das Pakistan is to WIN OVER THE AFFECTION OF THE aam admi, in countering the disinterest of the elites of Pakistan in clearly pursuing a more India friendly policy, and the out right hostility of the Pakistani military.
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CLEARLY current slow policies of engaging Pakistan is failing. They fail over quite minor matters, just like that. Engaging the elite of Pakistan, though strongly suggested in previous blogs is a futile slow endeavor. However there is nothing to stop the Indian government building relations with the ordinary people which bears fruit in the years to come.
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Giving $100 million immediately for the flood victims of Pakistan with the Indian flag all over the tents, food and medicine would have had a far significant effect psychologically on the aam admi that would have moved India closer to the Pakistani people, over the few anti-India top brass of the Pakistani military trained in the West.
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But as with most opportunities/challenges IN INDIA, AND THE NEIGHBORHOOD, the Indian state has remained inactive and silent.
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As the article below quite clearly shows, Indian foreign policy lacks cohesion and priority. Because of this Indian foreign policy is fundamentally failing whilst appearing to succeed (Every Western leader tells India how important India is, and that they back India's right to a security council seat etc). In pursuing a Great Power status originally set by the USA, India must NEVER neglect her neighborhood. The neighborhood comes first.
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Home Alone in the Neighbourhood
ARATI R JERATH, TOI
INDIA was once the undisputed big power in the south Asian region, wielding substantial influence over its smaller neighbours. But, over the years, New Delhi's strategic and diplomatic clout in its own backyard has weakened.
(I would put that down to many factors, but not insignificantly to the legacy of Mrs Indira Gandhi from the 1970's when she became mesmerized by RAW, and the concept of covert ops in many countries in the region.......covert ops by themselves do not build strong nation to nation relations in the long term, but things like economic cooperation via FTA's, strong cultural exchange, soft power thingy's make good SOLID state to state relationships last beyond and the travails of time, and politics.........India has been slow to use her soft power muscle, but instead has relied on classic unimaginative diplomatic negotiations between civil servants, which by their very nature, and babu culture means that they can go on forever without actually achieving any results.
Bringing the neighborhood in closer requires a political decision, backed by a clear concerted strategy, using soft power only, and spending a lot of money....there is no other way)
In April this year, a high-pitched anti-India campaign by the Maoists in Nepal forced President Ram Baran Yadav's government to cancel a passport deal that had important security implications for us. The deal was a contract with India's government press to print four million machinereadable passports for Nepal to stop misuse and forgery by suspected terror agents. New Delhi was perturbed enough by the cancellation of the deal to lodge a formal protest with the Nepalese government through its ambassador in Kathmandu. The contract has now gone to a French firm, Oberthur Technologies.
(India obviously should have won that contract, but for the poor performance and maybe arrogance of the MEA officers in dealing with that contract)
Maldives turned not to India but to the United States and Sri Lanka for help when a political crisis this month plunged the Indian Ocean island nation into turmoil with angry street protests and a constitutional impasse that saw the entire cabinet resign. Where once upon a time India used to rush special envoys at the first sign of trouble, this time it was Sri Lanka's president, Mahinda Rajapakse, who played mediator along with the US ambassador to Colombo, Patricia Butenis, and US assistant secretary of state Robert Blake.
(Oh Christ all this time I've been writing that the only sure allies India has in South Asia are Bhutan and the Maldives........so that only leaves Bhutan then)
Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have no qualms about using China as an outside balancer to India's dominance in South Asia. Both buy arms from Beijing and are recipients of whopping sums of money from China for the development of infrastructure like ports, roads and airports in their countries. Bangladesh prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, candidly admitted during her New Delhi visit in January this year that there is an anti-India mindset in her country and she cannot change it.
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(This above paragraph ALONE represents the stupidity of the Indian MEA, and its foreign policy.
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Great nations like China, and the USA are generous and offer huge amounts of soft loans and aid, both militarily and economically.....since the early 1990's in China's case, and since the 1940's in the case of the USA---lend lease originally to the UK/Soviet Union......it was American trucks which exclusively carried logistics and soldiers of the Soviet war machine/Kuomintang China etc........then it went bigger into the Marshal Plan. As a result the USA was looked upon with great admiration by many nations especially from 1945....which has since been degraded through wars against many Third World nations. The beautiful American full of hope, inspiration and promise became the ugly American.....an allegory of all that is wrong with America now.
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NOW instead of complaining about the generosity of other nations towards neighbor countries, which OBVIOUSLY will be well received by poorer nations, INDIA HAS TO SERIOUSLY JOIN THAT GAME..........India has $280 billion FCR, and $1500 billion in offshore accounts held by Indians. The Indian government needs to tap into that vast wealth and in a measured way direct that to neighbor countries development in a way they don't forget.......Nehru/Mujib super highway between Calcutta and Dhaka for example.
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China since the early 1990's has provided Bangladesh with munitions/arms factories; power stations, bridges, factories and other such REAL strategic help through cheap loans/credits. In defense they have provided tanks, artillery, ships and jet fighters at cheap preferential rates. The military equipment from China within the Bangladesh military is 80/90%........now ALL China has to do is block the sending of top military cadets to the UK for training, and instead train them first in China. This will give China complete control over the Bangladesh military/security.
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OF COURSE countries like Bangladesh or Sri Lanka will look to China favorably, not because they are playing a devious game with India, but out of simple necessity. It would be a bit of a stretch to expect the Sri Lankan's and the Bangladeshis to say to the Chinese, "Hold on their old bean with your generous non-conditional help offer, because we are going to hold ourselves out until the Indian's come up with a better offer say in the next 30 years."
Yes India helped liberate Bangladesh 38 years ago, but this is 2010. Time moves on. A new basis of solid relationships have to be created.
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What has India provided to Bangladesh strategically since the 1990's........Fuck All. You give fuck all...you get fuck all.
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Diplomatic meets between netas/babus make good pictures, but does not in themselves amount to an effective foreign policy of seriously engaging neighbors.......there also has to be some masala and baksheesh)
Last year, Myanmar decided to divert to China gas that India had been eyeing. Although ONGC and GAIL helped to develop the gas fields, located in the resource-rich Arakan province of that country, and own equity in some blocks, India couldn't get its act together on transportation issues. Tired of New Delhi's shuffling, Myanmar offered the gas to China, which accepted it with alacrity and has already started constructing a pipeline from Arakan to feed its booming, energy-hungry western provinces of Yunan and Guizhou.
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(Tragi-comedy......what about the high quality gas from Bangladesh? Or is that impossible too. Strategically...can I use that word? Strategically it makes more sense to secure your energy supply from neighbor countries like Bangladesh, Myanmar, Iran etc......besides coal which India has ample amounts, gas and oil will still be a significant source of fuel and energy, beyond the much touted, but not yet seen commercially viable green energy.)
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Despite receiving a reconstruction and rehabilitation package worth over $800 million from India, Afghan president Hamid Karzai has decided to ignore New Delhi's objections and do business with Pakistan and the Taliban. He has received Pakistan's avowedly anti-India army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, twice in Kabul this year and also visited Islamabad to seek assistance in building bridges with the Taliban.
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(The Taliban is a problem which India must come to terms with. The Taliban is backed by the Pakistan military through the ISI, which in turn is backed by the USA......as a "controlled opposition". So we may surmise that the Taliban puppets whilst having some popularity with some Pashtuns have powerful backers in Pakistan and the USA.
THE USA created the Taliban through the services of the ISI........the USA covertly likes the Taliban as the USA engages the Taliban in a fake punch and Judy "war" which allows the USA military to harvest the enormous amounts of Afghan Heroin money...$50---$80 billion annual profits from the Afghan Heroin business. The Taliban acts as the justification for the USA to maintain itself in Afghanistan as "Controlled Opposition".
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So long as the USA is in Afghanistan, harvesting the Afghan heroin and using the "Controlled Opposition" of the Taliban, India's real interests aren't going to get a lookin in that country. In the wider sense then for India the problem is ultimately the USA......using and creating the Taliban from 1994, AND funding, training, arming the Pakistan military since the 1950's.
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The problem in Afghanistan and Pakistan is the USA for India ultimately.)
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All of these developments point to the fact that over the years, India's ability to win friends and influence people in its neighbourhood has taken a massive hit. Call it benign neglect. Or put it down to thrills from the first flush of romance with the United States and the tantalising prospect of joining the international high table. Despite a rapidly growing economy, a flourishing democracy, the unrivalled soft power of its popular culture and an army that boasts of being the third largest in the world, India's geopolitical influence across south Asia falls sadly short of expectations. As a rising China, with an economy poised to become the world's largest by 2025, casts its giant shadow over Asia and as Beijing eagerly fills the gaps New Delhi has unthinkingly left in its backyard, the question being asked in strategic and diplomatic circles is this: is India dealing itself out in south Asia?
"Yes," is the emphatic response from Observer Research Foundation analyst Sameer Saran. "Clearly, we are. We should be creating more robust integration with our neighbourhood. But are we devoting enough time to this? I don't believe we are." Says a retired senior diplomat who wished to remain unidentified, "The concepts are all there and they are bandied around regularly. It's important for our security and economic growth that we manage our periphery. But to do this, we need to be continuously engaged with our neighbours. The trouble is we keep taking our eyes off the ball."
Today, with the exception of Bhutan, India cannot count a single all-weather friend in the region. From tiny Maldives in the west to Bangladesh and Myanmar in the east to Sri Lanka in the south, national interest need not converge with Indian interests and a little bit of China on the side adds heft to smaller nations when dealing with big brother India. As for Pakistan and China, former national security advisor Brajesh Mishra believes that both are jointly following a containment policy designed to keep India embroiled in tensions with all its neighbours.
"China's presence has grown all around us. It shows the paucity of India's influence in her neighbourhood," Mishra says.
Analysts are perplexed and concerned by the apparent disinterest of successive governments in developing and nurturing an intense engagement with the neighbourhood, especially the south Asian nations that comprise SAARC. Consider these facts: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has not paid a bilateral visit to a single SAARC country during his six years in office. Nor did his predecessor Atal Behari Vajpayee, save for one famous trip to Lahore when the India-Pakistan bus link opened in February 1999.
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(As I have maintained Man Mohan Singh is an International Banker appointed ex-Babu whose job is to implement THEIR program into India, with a nicey smile. So now India has 55 $ billionaires and 840 million starving Indians living day to day on 20 rupees. It is sheer astonishing that this so called non-elected "leader" has never visited a neighbor country. Just shocking......but has visited Washington many times)
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A secret note prepared by the external affairs ministry four years ago lists countries in order of strategic importance to India. The US tops the list, followed by the United Kingdom, France, Japan and Russia, in that order. Surprisingly, China, a budding superpower and a neighbour with which we share a disputed border, ranks sixth, while Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka round off the top ten. Despite Bhutan being India's closest ally in the immediate neighbourhood, the ministry put it way down on the list along with countries like Belgium and Australia. Bewildering?
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(VERY! looks like a late adolescent studying International relations at Nehru University looked at the map of the world, the night before his paper submission date, who then after looking at the map on the wall just jotted down on an adhoc basis what he thought were the most important countries in the entire Dunyia from a post-Colonial Anglocentric Macauley's "Brown sahib" point of view, WITHOUT thinking about their real impact and importance to India in the immediate to long term.
Hello undergrad......International strategic relations for your country isn't merely about engaging countries you happen to like in a rather collie way........visiting and gawping at NY/London/Paris doing the duty free shopping, BUT as important if not more its about engaging countries which you don't like.
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Sad and rather basic for mighty India.
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Here's my list:
1.PAKISTAN: rather obvious since India has fought 4 wars against them, and is a constant source of much trouble, and percieved trouble as a failed state neighbor. It is currently run and directed by the USA, and this influence given history and actual events is not good for India. India must work to neutralize American power in Pakistan, and bring Pakistan into India's fold. That is not an easy challenge, but it must be grasped first and foremost by the Indian establishment. Then you think about SAARC, then spending several billion $ on the country.....and then FTA's.
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2. USA: The country is at present the lone superpower, still and therefore needs to be watched.
Trade between the two countries is $40 billion and rising fast, on a mutually balanced basis. There are 2 million Indians in the USA who are aggressively pushing for greater Indo-USA ties for understandable reasons. India potentially can gain enormous benefits from the USA, if the USA seriously begins to invest in India in the manner of China, Europe and South Korea, which were all done not through sheer chance of course, but government initiatives. In the USA Trade is not purely a free economic activity CLEARLY, it is also a political tool most starkly expressed in the way the USA imposes sanctions against Cuba still after 50 odd years rather pedantically, and more recently Iran rather feverishly based on false information and assumptions courtesy of Israel.(reliving old desert fairy tales like Purim.......absolutely NO evidence it took place, but these creatures have worked themselves up around it; the non-existent nuclear program in Iran is thus the alibi to relive Purim in the 21st century for these creatures)
Obama is an unknown quantity for India, groomed by the neo-liberal wing of Wall street and ushered into power through American intelligence since the late 1970's. It is encouraging that he is visiting India after 23 months of his inauguration, since it could have been worse, as in the case of Bill Clinton who came at the very end of his second term, posed a lot, said all those neo-liberal things and left without doing anything seriously important for India that would matter. Now if Obama comes and clearly elevates Indian trade with the USA significantly, where it matters, offers MFN status, FTA which allow trade between the two nations to reach $200 billion by 2015 then India can be content, and relieved. On the other hand if Obama does a "Bill Clinton" 2000 then India should become grimly serious about the USA as the backers of the Pakistan military, and the Taliban via the ISI. India should never accept promises of a "Great Power" status from an actual Empire, at war in several theaters. It is insulting and absurd.
On a darker note the USA as an Empire with 800 bases around the world and the sole superpower needs to be watched by India with attentive attention and concern. 63 years ago India came out of British colonialism which shall we say was not that beneficial for the Indian sub-continent, resulting in the loss of 30 million Indians dead, enormous Capital flight to London, de-industrialisation, a sharp decline in living standards especially between 1820---1920....the land of adject poverty was a cliche that did not exist before the British arrived, quite the opposite. India was the center of the unofficial global gold reserve. India must watch with concern the building up of the Pakistani military machine with American arms, and funds out of the books yet again (a % of the supplies that go to the forces in Afghanistan via Pakistan are taken by the Pakistan military with full American approval as it bypasses Congress and media attention.....so....for example lets say $80 billion worth of supplies go to the American/NATO forces in Afghanistan via Pakistan annually......the Americans give the Zardari crooks a transit fee of maybe $500 million, BUT of real concern to India should be the "fell off the back of the lorry" military hardware Pakistan gets.......what is ones guess? $4 billion annually or $8 billion annually....unofficial aid which does not benefit Pakistan the country, but enriches the Pakistan military and its current bloated self. Which in turn encourages the Pakistan military to fight its wars in FATA, and when that ends the military will look to India again, sure in the knowledge that they are backed by the USA, and China)
The solution of the Pakistan problems lies through the USA, either through friendly initiatives or unfriendly ones.
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3. Russia: Sacred bonds can exist between nations without government initiatives. The Iranian race developed in Russia over thousands upon thousands of years. There are Iranians in "Slavic" Russia as there are Iranians in India....150--200 million perhaps.
Since 1945 the Soviet Union became very close to India diplomatically. The Soviet Union was India's best ally. India's strategic base built up in the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's were purely the result of help from one country primarily, the USSR. Without this help India would be nothing today. Post 1991 Russia still matters to India strategically. Russia's Jewish leadership is doing its best to steer the country towards the West, which means less attention for the East. To be sure Russian tourists don't flood India now. To be sure since the heydays of the Soviet Union the relationship between the two is a little bit more business like, and in some cases abusively commercial (aircraft carrier deal)......BUT RUSSIA WILL ALWAYS BE AN IMPORTANT COUNTRY FOR India.
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4. China:
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5. Bangladesh:
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6. Nepal:
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7. Iran/Afghanistan/Central Asia:
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8. Myanmar:
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9. ASEAN:
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10. UK:
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It's inexplicable, certainly. Just as India's Pakistan's policy is, with its diminishing returns. This is the one neighbour in which every prime minister since Independence has invested personal time and energy. And ironically, it has proved to be our most troublesome, with sections of the Pakistani establishment pursuing a policy that is downright hostile. "Somehow, we always seem to forget that the first task should be to secure our neighbourhood. This is an imperative if we want to play a global role," says Mishra.
Analysts believe that India's neighbourhood conundrum is largely self-created, thanks to our fatal fascination for the West, particularly the United States. While they acknowledge that it was necessary to mend fences with Washington to remain relevant in the new world order that emerged with the end of the Cold War, they feel that policy-makers in New Delhi lost sight of priorities in the chase for a seat at the high table. The last five years were a turning point, as the Manmohan Singh government locked up all its capital in pushing the Indo-US nuclear deal through.
"In our excitement at being feted by Western powers and joining the G-20, the East Asia Summit and so on, we've ended up ignoring our traditional constituencies. We seem to see our neighbours as pesky countries rather than important strategic partners in our growth trajectory," said a former diplomat who did not want his name disclosed.
A senior official in the Prime Minister's Office downplayed warning notes about the hiatus that has crept into relations with neighbouring countries. He also pooh-poohed the China factor in south Asia, pointing out that Beijing is very cautious about its activities in India's neighbourhood. For instance, although it built the Gwadar port in Pakistan, a Singapore company is running the facility, he said, adding that the US put pressure on Pakistan to take the port out of the Chinese ambit. "So, you see, there are natural balancers in every country," he insisted.
Explaining the dip in engagement levels, he said that virtually all the neighbouring countries have been in political turmoil for the past several years, making it difficult for India to build longterm assets in the region. While Nepal is still in crisis, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have stabilised and the Manmohan Singh government is trying to repair ties with both by loosening its purse strings. Economic assistance to the two countries has been stepped up several times. Rajpakse returned to Colombo after a state visit to India in June with an assistance package amounting to $1 billion.
But the elephant moves slowly. Although India-friendly Sheikh Hasina's victory in the Bangladesh elections last year presents New Delhi with just the opportunity it needs, signs of strain are already there. A recent article in a leading Bangladesh newspaper carried a report that blamed India for non-implementation of trade agreements concluded during Hasina's January visit to India. In a goodwill gesture to Hasina, India had conceded a long-standing demand from Dhaka on the removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers on Bangladeshi goods. The newspaper report said that bureaucrats on both sides were holding things up.
"It's unfortunate," says former diplomat G Parthasarathi. "If India doesn't deliver to Bangladesh in the next five years, it will weaken Hasina and the price will be paid by us. I don't know why we can't be more generous with our neighbours. China sees all its neighbouring countries as an extension of its market and places no restrictions on the movement of goods. We demand reciprocity with every neighbour instead of adopting a larger philosophical approach like China."
Saran puts this niggardly attitude down to an inability to shake off old mindsets. "We worked in poverty mode for so long that we haven't come out of it yet, although our economy is growing at 8-9 per cent every year. We need to realise that not only has the world changed, so have we," he says.
Mishra warns, however, that economics alone cannot give India the clout it should have as an emerging power. It is equally important to develop military muscle. "We must be able to defend our borders by building up our military strength. There is an impression that India can be taken for granted because it's a soft state. We've neglected our military for too long," he says. He acknowledged that the Vajpayee government was as much to blame as the Manmohan Singh government for going slow on the much-touted fighter aircraft deal under which the Indian Air Force is slated to acquire 126 war planes as part of its modernisation plans.
While agreeing with Mishra, Parthasarathi laments that emotions get in the way of India's dealings with its neighbours. "We make a mistake when we ask them to love us. No big country can have a comfortable relationship with smaller neighbours. We will have to learn to be realistic and ignore anti-India sentiments around us. Our neighbours should respect us. We need to create long-term assets everywhere to give them a stake in maintaining good ties with us, everywhere, that is, except Pakistan. That needs to be put in a different basket," he declares.
PLAYING CATCH-UP
Since last year, India has tried to correct the imbalance in its neighbourhood diplomacy by welcoming almost all the heads of south Asian governments. And in an uncharacteristic show of generosity, it has also loosened its purse strings by offering unprecedented assistance packages
SRI LANKA
Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse returned home from his June visit to India with promises of approximately $1 billion in credit lines for various projects. This almost equals China's $1.2 billion worth of loans to Sri Lanka for development projects across the island nation. Most of the Indian-aided projects are in Tamilpopulated northern Sri Lanka. They include: Construction of 50,000 houses in the northern and eastern provinces for Tamil refugees displaced during the war against the LTTE Reconstruction of at least four railway lines Construction of a new signalling and telecommunication network Rehabilitation of Palaly airport and Kankesanthurai harbour Renovation of the Duraiappah stadium Construction of a cultural centre in Jaffna Construction of a coal-fired power plant in Trincomalee.
BANGLADESH
A range of assistance measures were announced during Bangladesh president Sheikh Hasina's Delhi visit in January this year. They include: A $1 billion credit line for infrastructure development such as construction and upgradation of railway lines and supply of BG locomotives, passenger coaches and buses Removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers and port restrictions on Bangladeshi goods and reduction of items on India's negative list Supply of 250 MW of electricity from India.
MYANMAR
While India's assistance to Myanmar does not in any way match China's , the country's military leader, General Than Shwe, found New Delhi more responsive when he visited in July this year. The agreements include: Assistance totalling around $200 million for construction of roads, electricity transmission lines and a microwave link as well as procurement of railway and agriculture equipment from India New impetus to stalled power projects on the Chindwin river basin in Myanmar Numerous HRD projects such as setting up centres for English language training, entrepreneurship development and industrial training Restoration of the historic Ananda temple in Bagan by the Archeological Survey of India.
NEPAL
With the political crisis in Nepal continuing amid Maoist allegations of Indian interference, New Delhi has been reluctant to be generous with Kathmandu despite hosting Nepalese president Ram Baran Yadav in February this year. It did, however, promise $250 million in credit for the following: Setting up a railway link Building a polytechnic institute Construction of a new convention hall near the India-Nepal border Supply of 80,000 tonnes of food grains.
AFGHANISTAN
Although there were no announcements of assistance during Afghan president Hamid Karzai's April visit to New Delhi, India has pledged over $800 million in reconstruction and rehabilitation projects. The projects are almost in every part of Afghanistan and include the following: Construction of a new parliament building in Kabul Construction of transmission lines to bring power from neighbouring countries to Kabul Construction of roads Supply of high protein biscuits for school feeding programmes Reconstruction of a dam project in Herat province Building a national TV network Skill development and training programmes in a variety of sectors including civil services and medical missions in at least five cities.
