|
|
|
|
India grapples with specter of
failing states
By Sultan Shahin
NEW DELHI - For the past five years or
more, India was almost exclusively obsessed with
facing threats from Pakistan. Also, it has been
busy promoting its emerging "big power status" and
lobbying for a permanent veto-wielding United
Nations Security Council seat. Playing its
"rightful role" in world affairs was the goal. Now
suddenly, it is seized with the nightmarish vision
of two potentially failing steps on its eastern
doorstep, one likely to be soon overrun by Maoists
with links to Indian radicals of the same hue, and
the other dominated by Islamic fundamentalists
with links to al-Qaeda and Pakistani extremists.
Indeed, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
is also predicting that Pakistan could be a failed
state by 2015.
India seems not to know how
to respond to events unfolding in Nepal and
Bangladesh. Right-wing opposition is pillorying
the government for what it calls its knee-jerk
reactions. But some good may come out of this as
New Delhi focuses its sights closer home. The
Ministry of External Affairs has, however,
promised to come out with its South Asian strategy
soon.
When Nepal's King Gyanendra seized
power on February 1, India reacted angrily,
according to its first impulses; democratic, as
democracy had been trampled on; and
super-powerish, as its specific advice to the king
not to go ahead with the widely suspected coup had
been ignored, thus challenging India's pre-eminent
status in the region.
Much sanctimonious
posturing and pretentious outrage ensued. A
regional summit meeting was postponed as a
democratic leader of India couldn't be seen
shaking hands with a constitutional monarch who
had assumed power, put political leaders under
house arrest, jailed journalists and suspended
civil liberties. A planned visit of the army chief
was also canceled.
Now the democratic
impulse has run its course, super-powerish rage
has subsided, and a sense of reality has set in.
New Delhi cannot afford to disengage with Nepal
and thus leave the door open for China and
Pakistan to step in and perhaps establish a
permanent military presence on India's
northeastern borders. Following in the footsteps
of China and Pakistan, therefore, India's Defense
Minister Pranab Mukherjee, too, has called the
developments an internal matter of Nepal. India
said last Wednesday its response to the recent
developments in Nepal would be dictated by the
clout of the Maoists agitating for the abolition
of the monarchy in the Himalayan kingdom.
A meeting of the Indo-Nepal joint security
group that was to be held later this month to work
out details of supplies that the Royal Nepal Army
(RNA) needs has now been called off. But speaking
in his capacity as a member of the Cabinet
Committee on Security, the defense minter said,
"We recognize that if the security situation [in
Nepal] deteriorates due to increased Maoist
influence, it will heighten our own internal
security threat. It is not an ordinary thing if
they [Maoists] increase their influence and
strength in the neighboring Himalayan kingdom. If
Maoist activity is not constrained, this may cause
problems to us." Mukherjee explained, "There is
extremist activity in a large number of our
states. Because of the porous border, there is a
threat perception that once they [Maoists] exert
more influence in Nepal, there will be an impact
here. Our policy will be keeping that in view."
Already, fearing a crackdown following the
assumption of all powers by Gyanendra, a number of
senior political leaders and activists have
slipped into India's bordering states,
Uttaranchal, West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand,
causing a lot of concern among security agencies.
Some cadres of the Communist Party of Nepal (CPN)
have reportedly sneaked into West Bengal, Bihar
and Jharkhand, where they could indulge in
extortion and get into clashes with other Maoist
groups.
According to a report submitted by
the intelligence agencies to the Home Ministry,
CPN cadres had slipped through the porous
India-Nepal border and could be now engaged in
extortion rackets in Jharkhand and Bihar. The
presence of CPN cadres has the potential to spark
bloody clashes with the Maoist Communist Center
(MCC) and the People's War Group (PWG), which
already operate in the two states and are engaged
in extortion rackets themselves. In fact, there
have already been some reports of clashes between
the CPN and the MCC, but none have turned too ugly
so far.
It seems India's military
relationship with Nepal is also not going to be
affected as a result of the monarch's coup.
Revealing that the Nepal army had sent a
communique to the Indian army seeking continuance
of friendly relations, Mukherjee said India had
responded "along the same lines". He continued,
"The missive did not specifically seek additional
arms and equipment to counter the Maoists and
India had stated that close bilateral military
ties should continue. We have a long-standing
relationship with the RNA. That relationship
stands.
"The RNA wanted reiteration of the
same policy," added the defense minister, number
two in India's government hierarchy. And, of
course, India has obliged. India recently supplied
helicopters, mine-proof vehicles, guns and
ammunition to the RNA to counter the Maoists. A
second tranche reportedly is in the offing, but
the minister did not specify whether it would go
through in the present circumstances or whether
specific requests for any military hardware had
been made.
The Bangladesh headache
New Delhi shows similar ambivalence and what
its critics term "cluelessness" in dealing with
the other potentially failing state, on its
eastern border, the Islamic Republic of
Bangladesh. The National Awami Party-led and
Islamic fundamentalist-supported government of
Prime Minister Khaleda Zia keeps thumbing its nose
at India, allowing Indian rebels from northeastern
states a sanctuary, though constantly denying
their presence, and allowing militants to make
assassination bids on secular leaders who campaign
for friendship with secular, democratic India.
Former prime minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed,
the only surviving daughter of the father of
Bangladesh liberation and former prime minister
Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, barely survived an
assassination attempt last August, and the widely
respected former finance minister in her
government, Shah A S Kibria, was killed in an
Islamist bomb attack on his political rally a
couple of weeks ago.
In its bid to work
out a coherent policy toward these neighbors, in
whose functioning as normal, secular democratic
states India has a great stake, impinging on its
own long-term security, the Congress-led United
Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh is at present focused on
two primary questions, sources in the government
told Asia Times Online.
One, should the
government adopt a carrot or/and stick policy, and
to what measure toward whom? Two, should New Delhi
try to solve these problems through a bilateral or
a multilateral approach involving the United
Nations, or world powers such as the United States
and the United Kingdom, and/or regional powers
like China and Pakistan?
In the context of
the first question, some sections in the
government have resurrected the love doctrine of
depending on carrots propounded and implemented
for some time by former prime minister Inder Kumar
Gujral. This is also known as the Gujral doctrine.
Gujral is a former congressman who led a
government in the mid-1990s very much similar to
the present UPA government in its orientation and
support structure, except that the Congress Party
then was supported from outside. He had started
implementing it as a foreign minister in an
earlier Deve Gowda-led government of what was then
a "third front" supported by the Congress Party.
The Gujral doctrine primarily stood for
India as a big power being magnanimous in its
dealings with smaller neighbors and not to expect
reciprocity from them every time it gave them a
concession. It was very successful in earning the
respect and affection of the smaller South Asian
neighbors that surround India. As President
General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan told this
correspondent at a luncheon table in Lahore a
couple of months ago, when a smaller country makes
a unilateral concession it is considered a
surrender to big-power politics, but when the same
gesture is shown by a big power, it is called
generosity and magnanimity. Clearly, there are
many takers for the Gujral doctrine in India's
complex neighborhood.
The one time India
was genuinely popular in the neighborhood, as the
Times of India wrote in one of its editorials some
time ago, was during the short stint of Gujral of
the socialist Janata Dal, who was sensitive to the
fears of smaller neighbors. The Gujral doctrine of
assisting neighbors without expecting them to
reciprocate was criticized by hawks in the
establishment for giving in to pressure from
India's smaller neighbors, but obviously it proved
the more successful policy. The newspaper reminded
its readers that India had a reasonably good
relationship with all its neighbors before the
Hindu fundamentalist Bhartiya Janata Party-led
coalition government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee took
office in 1998.
The Vajpayee government
theorized that India would be better able to
project its big-power status on the world scene if
it succeeded in making its neighbors fear India's
military power, and thus respect its dictates. But
the near-contempt with which even the smallest and
weakest of its neighbors treat India makes it
clear that the sticks-only policy failed. Most
distressingly for many observers, these neighbors,
like Nepal and Bangladesh, are on the verge of
becoming failed states and are almost wholly
dependent on India for their survival. They are
called "India-locked" due to their multiple
dependencies on India for a variety of
geopolitical reasons. And yet they neither love
nor fear India.
Hawkish supporters of the
Hindu fundamentalist doctrine explain the failure
of this policy by complaining that Vajpayee did
not implement it fully. For instance, India never
bombed insurgents and civilian areas where they
may be hiding in Kashmir or the northeast from the
air in the manner of the US in Iraq or Russia in
Chechnya or Israel with the Palestinians. How then
could India expect to be feared by its insurgents
and neighbors, they ask.
Right-wing
columnist Swapan Dasgupta, for instance, comments,
"King Gyanendra's faith in his own leadership may
well be misplaced, but the South Asian experience
suggests that non-ethnic insurgencies are rarely
settled by following democratic niceties. The
Naxalites [Maoists] in West Bengal, the
Khalistanis in Punjab and the JVP [People's
Liberation Front] in Sri Lanka were defeated by
meticulous military operations that violated every
clause of the human-rights charter. Saving
democracy entailed putting democracy on the
back-burner."
Mainstream India is,
however, wiser by experience. Even half a million
soldiers have not been able to pacify Kashmiri
insurgency, despite cross-border infiltration
having come to a virtual halt for nearly a year
and a half. Neither has the US been successful in
Iraq, nor the Russians in Chechnya, nor the
Israelis in Palestine, despite the unrestricted
use of brute force for years. With three-fourths
of Nepal already under Maoist control, and vast
masses of people on their side, the Nepalese king,
with his 80,000 soldiers, who were primarily
palace guards, though recently equipped with
modern weapons by India and the US, hardly stand a
chance of success in the near future.
Academic Pratap Bhanu Mehta takes a more
balanced approach. His diagnosis and lament: "A
great power ought to be loved or feared, or both.
We do not offer carrots that are attractive enough
for our neighbors to love us; our stick is not
strong enough for them to fear us. We yet again
helplessly watch Nepal drift by. We do not appear
to have the military capabilities to transplant
democracy or bring the Maoists to heel. Nor do we
have other forms of soft power to greatly
influence the outcome. We once again are left to
pick up the pieces."
On the question of
whether to take a bilateral or a multilateral
approach, almost the entire media and a good chunk
of intelligentsia advise the government to take a
multilateral approach, and globalize the conflict
in Nepal, as well as the growing Islamist threat
in Bangladesh. India has, however, traditionally
disliked the idea of international intervention in
the South Asian region, which it considers its own
turf. Inviting others would be an admission of
failure on its part, it is felt by large sections
in the bureaucracy. It was only with reluctance
and rather a sense of helplessness that Delhi
recently acknowledged US forces as having a role
to play in providing relief in tsunami-hit Sri
Lanka.
There is strong resistance in the
government to thinking about South Asian security
in multilateral terms. Taking the Kashmir dispute
to the UN has not been a good experience for
India. Until today, Kashmiri secessionists and
their backers in Pakistan waved UN resolutions of
1948 in front of Indian eyes to prove their
points, even though Musharraf seems to have
realized their irrelevance in the present context.
So go-it-alone would be the preferred policy for
many in the government.
India's
largest-circulation newspaper, The Times of India,
is the most unequivocal in advising a multilateral
approach. In a comment typical of editorials in
other mainstream newspapers it says, "It is time
for New Delhi to shed its customary ambiguity and
address the problem head-on. But first we must get
over our go-it-alone mindset. In today's
globalizing world, no one should consider
geography crucial to its strategic influence. So,
it would be in India's interest to
internationalize the Nepal crisis and try to win
over as many nations as possible to our point of
view. It is imperative that India take the issue
up at the UN and lobby to work out a consensus on
the best way to restore democracy in Nepal. As we
have seen, Beijing, Islamabad and Dhaka have been
trying to fish in troubled waters by insisting
that the king's abolition of democracy is an
internal matter for Nepal. Bangladesh, ever eager
to put India down, has added its voice to this
chorus. If we were to bring up the issue at the
UN, China, Pakistan and Bangladesh would be hard
put to explain why they support a move inimical to
democracy. It would also expose their own
undemocratic systems of government as being the
reason for their energetic espousal of King
Gyanendra's action."
While resistance from
foreign-policy mandarins is palpable, the Times of
India's comment seems to represent a cross-section
of public opinion in India, which is disgusted at
the royal coup, particularly because this king is
not as popular as the previous ones, except in
Hindu fundamentalist circles that have come out in
his support and are demanding that India go out of
the way to support him.
The paper
continues, giving voice to what can be expected to
be general opinion in the country: "Our focus
should be on getting King Gyanendra to revert to
his position as a constitutional monarch since New
Delhi accepts that the two pillars of governance
in Nepal are the monarchy and the political
parties. India should help enable the Nepalese
people to voice their opinion on what sort of
political system they would like, and whether the
monarchy has a valid role to play in it.
Meanwhile, we should put pressure on the king by
cutting off the arms supplies which we have so
generously provided in the past. But under no
circumstances should New Delhi be seen to do
anything detrimental to the people of this
desperately poor nation. Any verdict we are able
to secure in the UN cannot be dismissed lightly by
an already isolated king. This will ensure a
speedy, and hopefully lasting, solution to the
Kathmandu crisis."
At the moment of
writing, however, it is not at all clear as to
what approach the government will take. Its
traditional ambiguity continues to dominate the
debate, in the absence of a strong and decisive
leader like former prime minister Indira Gandhi,
who is missed in such moments of crisis. Manmohan
Singh is still an unknown entity, though many are
drawing comparisons with him and Gujral, hailing
as both do from the mystical land of Punjab.
Wishful thinking though it may be, some are hoping
that this soft-spoken scholar-politician will
follow India's first prime minister and
pre-eminent leader of his Congress Party
Jawaharlal Nehru's multilateral approach, and his
fellow Punjabi intellectual-politician Gujral's
love-thy-neighbor doctrine. His moves in the next
few days will be watched with great interest and
some trepidation.
Sultan Shahin
is a New Delhi-based writer.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us for information
on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
All material on this
website is copyright and may not be republished in any form without written
permission.
© Copyright 1999 - 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd.
|
|
Head
Office: Rm 202, Hau Fook Mansion, No. 8 Hau Fook St., Kowloon, Hong
Kong
Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
|
Asian Sex Gazette South Asian Sex News
|
|
|
