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India talks down to its
neighbors
By Praful Bidwai
NEW DELHI - Last week, India spelt out its
emerging thinking and policy toward its neighbors
in the South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation (SAARC). In a public speech, Foreign
Secretary Shyam Saran - the chief of the Indian
diplomatic service - announced a more assertive
approach, to which economic cooperation, leading
to a South Asian common market, would be central.
The speech was meant to allay misgivings
caused by India's recent decision not to attend
the annual SAARC summit in view of the political
turmoil and disturbed security situation in
Bangladesh, and King Gyanendra's coup in Nepal.
However, Saran may have ended up rustling
more feathers than he bargained for. The neighbors
are likely to see his speech as a hubris-driven
attempt to declare India's pre-eminence in South
Asia and to talk down to them.
"The
excessive assertiveness Saran outlined won't go
down well with India's neighbors," Zoya Hasan,
professor of political science at Delhi's
Jawaharlal Nehru University, told IPS.
Saran's message to policy-makers in SAARC
was blunt: "India is today one of the most dynamic
and fastest growing economies of the world. It
constitutes not only a vast and growing market,
but also a competitive source of technologies and
knowledge-based services. Countries across the
globe are beginning to see India as an
indispensable economic partner."
India's
neighbors too should seek to share in India's
economic destiny and the prospect of prosperity,
added Saran. If they didn't, he warned, they will
lose out and SAARC would become a "limping shadow"
of its true potential.
Said Saran: "India
accepts that as the largest country in the region
and its strongest economy, it has greater
responsibility to encourage the SAARC process ...
It has already accepted the principle of
non-reciprocity. We are prepared to do more."
However, this will come at a price.
According to Saran, India's neighbors must
demonstrate sensitivity to its vital concerns,
which "relate to allowing the use of their
territories for cross-border terrorism and hostile
activity for example, by insurgent groups".
And then comes what many will see as a
scarcely veiled threat by the Indian foreign
secretary: "We need to create a positive and
constructive environment by avoiding hostile
propaganda and intemperate statements. India
cannot and will not ignore such conduct and will
take whatever steps are necessary to safeguard its
interests."
Aijaz Ahmad, an eminent
scholar, who currently holds the Khan Abdul
Ghaffar Khan Chair at Jamia-Millia Islamia
University in Delhi, argues that Saran's
assumption implies "that other SAARC members do
not have their own vital security concerns and
interests".
"Apart from the great
asymmetry of power between India and themselves,
they also have reason to fear that India could
arrogantly assert its hegemonic ambitions, as it
did in the late 1980s by sending troops to Sri
Lanka and Maldives, and imposing an economic
blockade on Nepal," he said.
SAARC groups
together India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh,
Bhutan, Nepal and the Maldives in a common South
Asian forum on trade and security.
Saran
was emphatic that economic issues must be at the
core of SAARC's rationale. Unlike, say, the
European Union or the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN), "the countries of South
Asia, while occupying the same geographical space,
do not have a shared security perception and,
hence, a common security doctrine".
But
the foreign secretary admitted that SAARC's record
wasn't inspiring and it had shied away from
undertaking even a single collaborative project in
its 20 years of existence.
"In fact, there
is deep resistance to doing anything
collaborative," he pointed out.
It is true
that SAARC has not taken up many collaborative
projects, nor registered rapid progress toward a
regional free-trade zone. But one reason for this
is the apprehension among India's neighbors of
being overwhelmed. Bangladesh and Nepal have
expressed reservations about accepting a
free-trade regime and demanded special treatment
as "least-developed" countries. Even Pakistan has
been cautious in moving toward a South Asian Free
Trade Area.
The neighbors' fears are not
baseless. In global forums, India expresses those
very fears often vis-a-vis the developed
countries. It resists the demand for free trade by
hedging it with conditions of fairness and equity
- as it successfully did at the World Trade
Organization ministerial meeting in Cancun in
2003. Even under its pro-neo-liberal Finance
Minister P Chidambaram, India urges developed
countries to review the current terms of
globalization "by making it more inclusive, more
just and more equitable".
Yet, within
SAARC, Indian behavior towards its economically
weaker neighbors is very similar to the Northern
states' conduct towards the South globally.
Saran tried to soothe fears that India
would impose its agendas upon its neighbors. He
reassured them that "it respects their
independence and sovereignty''. He also said that
"as a flourishing democracy, India would certainly
welcome more democracy ... but that too is
something that we may encourage and promote; it is
not something that we can impose."
Yet, he
also warned, India "regards as unhelpful the
display of narrow nationalism based on hostility
that often becomes a cover for failure to deliver
on promises made to their own peoples".
Saran reserved his special criticism for
Pakistan and Bangladesh by accusing them (without
names) of seeking "association with countries
outside the region or with regional or
international organizations, in a barely disguised
effort to counterbalance India".
He also
warned: "India would not like to see a SAARC in
which some of its members perceive it as a vehicle
primarily to countervail India or to seek to limit
its room for maneuver."
"If there
continues to be a resistance to [cross-border]
linkages within the region, even while seeking to
promote linkages outside the region, if the thrust
of initiatives of some of the members is seen to
be patently hostile to India or motivated by a
desire to contain India in some way, SAARC would
continue to lack substance and energy," added the
foreign secretary.
But scholar Ahmad
labels this as a case of double standards.
"India itself accords far greater
importance to ASEAN than it does to SAARC. It
regards the more developed ASEAN countries as
closer to itself than India's poorer neighbors.
India has also developed a 'strategic partnership'
with the US - partly to counter Pakistan."
Such inconsistency cannot enhance India's
stature in its neighborhood. India's
self-perception as one of the most competitive,
dynamic and fastest growing economies of the world
is not widely shared in the region. Some of
India's neighbors are happier to deal with, and
benefit from, that undisputed economic growth
story, China.
Saran's suggestion that
SAARC ought not to be used to countervail India
can be interpreted as a statement that India is
pre-eminent, it is more than equal to any of its
neighbors. Such language is not particularly
diplomatic. Nor is harping on India's rapid gross
domestic product growth - which has done little
for its poor people.
Saran himself stated:
"The challenge for our diplomacy lies in
convincing our neighbors that India is an
opportunity, not a threat, that far from being
besieged by India, they have a vast, productive
hinterland that would give their economies far
greater opportunities."
By that criterion,
his speech did not rise to the challenge.
(Inter Press
Service) |
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