Neighbourhood outreach critical for India

Anita Inder Singh
Founding professor, Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, New Delhi

Talks with Russia and the US and its presence at the recent meeting of the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation may reflect India’s aspiration to play a wider international role, but ties with neighbours, especially Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, are among the most important components of India’s foreign policy and can offer clues about its chances of leading its South Asian neighbourhood and the Indo-Pacific region.

That is not the same as dominating its neighbourhood. So India, an aspiring power, should bear in mind the difference between domination — which smaller or weaker neighbouring countries dislike — and leadership, which they may be prepared to accept, if they think the ‘leader’ will play fair and offer them more than its rivals.

Weaker neighbours will also note that the great power requires progress, technological innovation and education for progress to be sustainable. China has learnt that lesson. On that basis, it aims to advance development and create world-class armed forces by 2049.

Great Britain, the US, South Korea and Japan are also examples of countries that educated their citizens with a view to forging progress and enhancing their regional and global status. In contrast, economist Amartya Sen has noted that India is the exception in that; it wants to become a global economic power without educating all its people. India hopes to be fully developed by 2047 to mark its centenary of Independence, but that goal may be unachievable without the spread of education.

China’s economic clout is also evident from its role, together with the IMF and World Bank, as one of the world’s largest lenders. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have approached all three for loans to help stabilise their diminishing foreign exchange reserves. At another level, the term “Indo-Pacific” suggests India’s outstanding presence in the region, but China is a strong contestant for influence and power even in its immediate South Asian neighbourhood. Economics provides part of the answer. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), inaugurated in 2013, has enabled it to strengthen its economic and strategic ties with the South Asian countries. Except for Bhutan and India, all South Asian countries are on board the BRI.

In 2021, China’s GDP per capita was around $12,400 and India’s is $2,277. That leaves it behind Bangladesh (GDP per capita is $2,503), which achieved independence just over 50 years ago.

Significantly, a humiliating economic blockade by India in 2015 pushed Nepal to join the BRI in 2016. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh followed suit, all wanting to reduce dependence on India and diversifying their economic options. South Asian neighbours wish to expand their rail, road and maritime connectivity and enhance their security. They do not perceive India as being less dominating than China. And China offers them more investment.

On another plane, India has offended Dhaka by labelling immigrants from Bangladesh as “termites”, or accused them of pushing their way into India because they are poverty-stricken. That’s rich, coming from New Delhi, given that Bangladesh has a higher per capita GDP than India. The better news is that India has extended credit for connectivity. For instance, Sri Lanka has received credit and investments from India as part of India’s maritime strategy in the Indian Ocean. India has certainly offered Nepal important projects. In August, Nepal handed over two hydroelectric projects, quit by China, to India.

As much as 98 per cent of Nepal’s transit trade takes place through India and 65 per cent of Nepal’s total trade is with India. However, India’s new military recruitment plan — Agnipath — could adversely impact India’s ties with its Himalayan neighbour. That military relationship has had its great moments. Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, who led India to victory against Pakistan in the war which resulted in the creation of Bangladesh in 1971, had served with the 8th Gorkha Rifles.

China has also cultivated its relationship with Nepal and has invested in a railway to connect Kathmandu with Tibet. Additionally, China has granted landlocked Nepal access to some of its seaports.

New Delhi cannot win over its neighbours merely by asserting civilisational links. The big question is how much importance India has given to friendly South Asian countries. According to the World Bank, South Asia is one of the least economically integrated regions in the world and intra-regional trade is well below 5 per cent of the area’s international trade.

In contrast, the ASEAN member states carry out more than half of their trade with each other. Most of them are economically ahead of India. They are not afraid to trade with their aggressive neighbour — China — and have joined it in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. By staying out and alleging that the partnership would be dominated by China, India advertised its economic weakness.

Like India, China asserts the importance of historical ties with South Asia. For instance, on August 7, Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina met China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Dhaka. Wang lost no time in highlighting the “profound historical and social foundation and solid public support”, underlying the relationship and stressing that the two countries had “always” trusted and respected each other.

In fact, the question, which frequently arises, is why the cultural and civilisational ties that New Delhi so often lauds have not led to stronger economic ties with its neighbours? Some answers may be found in India’s inability to establish itself as their friend of first or last resort. Realising that they can never be dominant South Asian powers, India’s weaker neighbours fear China, but it gives them more than New Delhi.

Meanwhile, India’s domestic religious polarisation has sparked concern in friendly South Asian states. A politically and socially harmonious India could set an example to its neighbours; a divided and high-handed one raises concerns about their own security.

That is a reason why India’s friends play their China card against New Delhi. Domestic peace and progress are essential to counter China in South Asia. So, India must establish that it can create and consolidate economic, human and strategic security, maintain social harmony and bestow more largesse on them than China.