What exactly is India’s “national interest” in our neighbourhood? Is it in our long-term interest to flex our muscles, browbeat our neighbours and create a zone of India’s dominance in our backyard? Even if this were desirable, is this feasible? Or, is this foreign policy counter-productive, leaving us in an unenviable position where we are neither feared nor loved?
A recent visit to Nepal prompted me to ask this question. Normally, foreign policy is the domain of experts and diplomats, as it should be. Besides, the unwritten code of Indian public life dictates that differences over external relations are not aired in public. This may have created an unhealthy situation where lack of public scrutiny of foreign-policy decisions may not serve public interests. At least in some cases, diplomacy is too serious a business to be left to diplomats. When it comes to framing our neighbourhood policy, we must not let go of the common sense that we deploy in dealing with our neighbours in the colonies and villages that we reside in.
This is especially relevant at the present juncture when we are in a particularly tight spot vis-a-vis our neighbours. K P Oli, with a track record of India baiting, is back as the Prime Minister of Nepal. Recently, he bypassed the established convention of Nepalese PMs visiting India first and announced his first official visit to China. Mohammed Yunus in Bangladesh is no India baiter, but it is hard to disentangle the anti-Hasina revolt that brought him to power from the anti-India sentiment that has gained ground in recent years. The new government’s latest demand for extradition of Sheikh Hasina is bound to put the Modi government in a spot. In Maldives, the main plank of Mohamed Muizzu’s successful election campaign was his promise to oust Indian forces from the island. The Sri Lankan President Anura Dissanayake, whose left-wing coalition National People’s Power secured a two-thirds majority, did not campaign on an anti-India platform but his party’s dislike for Indian intervention is no secret and goes back to civil-war days. Bhutan has not seen any regime change, but the King has leaned a wee bit towards China, away from India. Even if we keep China and Pakistan aside, where we do not expect very friendly regimes, the current set of regimes in the rest of the neighbouring countries is about as hostile as it can get. And we are unable to deal with these regimes by muscle flexing. Maldives, Sri Lanka, Nepal and even Bhutan have all learnt the art of using China for counter-balancing. We cannot browbeat our neighbours.
To be fair, the Modi government cannot be solely blamed for the entire mess. There is an element of coincidence in many of these not-so-friendly regimes coming together at the same time. Many of the policies that led to the present situation started much before the Modi government. Some of these have become the DNA of Indian diplomacy in South Asia. And there is no denying that playing the anti-India card is a rewarding game for many leaders in our neighbourhood. Even so, if we live in a neighbourhood where every single neighbour is unhappy with us, it may not be a bad idea to ask: Did we do something wrong? And if we own the biggest house, we might take the onus of resuming a decent relationship, even if we did not break it. That’s not woolly dovishness. It’s prudence.
Take Nepal, the one country in this region we cannot possibly have a cultural or historical basis to quarrel with. But complaints about the Indian government’s “big brother” attitude cut across its political spectrum. These are not just some vague allegations about the distant past. Nepali opinion makers and leaders have not forgotten India’s vacillation during Nepal’s democratic transition — first declaring the Maoist rebels as “terrorists”, then supporting them and insisting that they be part of the transition and finally sending an ex-prince as emissary when Nepal was getting rid of its monarchy. Much of the current unease is about developments since 2014, after PM Modi received a historic and truly public welcome in Nepal following his victory. Every Nepali believes that the Modi government put severe conditions on what it wanted in Nepal’s new constitution. And that the “blockade” of 2015 was a punishment to Nepal for not heeding the Indian government’s diktats. The Indian government denies that it imposed any blockade; the official version is that it was a bandh organised by the Madhesi movement within Nepal. But there are few takers for this in Kathmandu. Neutral observers agree that the jamming of the Indo-Nepal land border could not have happened without covert support from India. For a land-locked country, the memory of the blockade is a wound to its psyche. Whatever the exact details, the onus of healing is on us.
After the promulgation of the new constitution as well, the Indian embassy is seen as a major player in Nepal’s domestic politics. It has its favourite parties — the Nepali Congress now has an official relationship with the BJP in India — and its favourite leaders. And of course it has its favourite Indian businessmen to promote in Nepal. Of late, the RSS is believed to be backing its counterpart in Nepal, the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh. Indian intervention has had the salutary effect of forcing the hill elites to listen to the voice of the hitherto marginalised Madhesi communities. Other than that, it is unclear as to which larger interest the Indian intervention serves.
It is not clear if the Indian leadership is directly invested in shaping some of these interventions. An astute observer of Nepali politics explained the shift thus: “Earlier, the Nepali leaders were speaking directly to Indian leaders. Later, the Indian diplomats and civil society leaders became their principal interlocutors. Now, we have reached a point where Nepali leaders are made to engage with Indian intelligence operatives and wheeler-dealers.” I heard of many political nobodies in India who wield unbelievable clout in Nepal. Kathmandu is full of stories about conspiracies hatched by Indian agencies like RAW. Most of these are hard to believe. But this widespread perception is a reality in itself. More often than not, it is the worst of both worlds: We cannot claim a moral high ground, nor have we achieved much success in these operations.
“Neighbourhood first” is the charming label of the Modi government’s South Asia policy. The official description doesn’t help you understand what exactly comes “first”. The government’s priorities make you wonder if it is about putting first the concerns of our neighbours or about asserting our global power claims first in our neighbourhood. Would it not be better if we follow a policy of “neighbourliness first” — good old precepts of being decent neighbours? Such a policy would involve respect for sovereignty of each country, non-interference in its internal affairs, not allowing one’s space to be used for activity hostile to another and peaceful settlement of any dispute. To these general principles, former PM Inder Kumar Gujral had added another in the case of neighbours like Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Maldives: India should not ask for reciprocity but accommodate what it can in good faith and trust.
One can imagine how foreign-policy hawks would balk at this “naive” suggestion. But we must ask — what exactly have our too-clever-by-half policies in our neighbourhood achieved for India’s national interest? Whose interest is national interest anyway?
The writer is member, Swaraj India and national convenor of Bharat Jodo Abhiyaan. Views are personal
