Island India in Indian Ocean?

India, which started under Nehru with a spirit of internationalism and an enthusiasm for cooperation and learning from others, began to emphasise a perverse inward-looking policy.

While non-proliferation concerns resulted in denying cooperation in some sensitive areas like nuclear energy, India chose self-denial in many others where there were no restrictions.

The ‘‘foreign hand’’ theory of the 1970s was extended to scientific collaborations and cooperation with the major powers was viewed with deep suspicion. Since then, political correctness has tended to overwhelm the need for greater external engagement in the scientific arena.

Meanwhile, the Indian foreign office, which leads cooperation with international organisations, has been trapped in debating abstract ideological principles with a focus on the false divide between North and South.

As a consequence, a functional approach to international cooperation in areas of science and technology became a major casualty. Communist China, since the early 1980s, has been far more open than India about international cooperation in science and technology.

India, which used to participate in many of the multilateral scientific collaborations in the region with the US in the past, did not become a part of the Pacific Tsunami warning system. But China that entered the international mainstream only in the late 1970s was quick to join.

While tsunamis are rare cyclones and earthquakes are more frequent, India will certainly need better national technical assets.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) now has widely acclaimed capabilities in building satellites of various kinds, including earth and ocean-observing satellites. But specific assets can only be created if there is demand, which should come from the government, scientific institutions and the military.

Military forces everywhere are among the biggest producers as well as consumers of weather-related information. But in India, the armed forces have yet to become the drivers of demands for either space-based assets or other information generating infrastructure.

The creation of a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the kind that exists in the US today is an important necessity to pull together the existing disparate national assets under one umbrella and rapidly build on them.

National assets are necessary but not sufficient in disaster management. Without international collaboration and regional cooperation, India will not be able to manage future disasters.

The tsunamis and cyclones forever remind us of the physical unity of the Indian Ocean region. While New Delhi often claims the Indian Ocean to be its own, it has done precious little to establish a framework for regional cooperation on disaster management.

With its large pool of scientific manpower, India is well positioned to absorb knowledge from more advanced societies on long-term research in oceanography, geophysics and atmospheric sciences. Given its relative strength vis-a-vis other developing countries, it is also in a position to share its own knowledge with others.

Expanded scientific cooperation in both directions and the creation of infrastructure for timely exchange of information is the key to better handling of disasters—from prediction to prior action and management of consequences.

India has a variety of fora to take the diplomatic lead on creating a regional approach to disaster management—at the forthcoming summit of the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC), the annual meetings of the ASEAN Regional Forum, the newly formed BIMSTEC that links south and South East Asia and the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IORARC).