India in global reckoning

It is time for stocktaking

by S.D. Muni

India can derive legitimate satisfaction in the enhanced interest in its growing strategic significance in Asia and the world, acknowledged by global powers. This acknowledgement came when four nuclear and UN Security Council veto-wielding powers came calling in a span of six weeks between November and December 2010. If British Prime Minister David Cameron’s visit in July is added, it would be all the P-5 powers in a span of less than six months. Part of New Delhi’s diplomatic traffic congestion was on account of accommodating unscheduled guests like China’s Wen Jiabao. Now it is time for a balanced and objective stocktaking on the imperatives and implications of these visits.

India’s recognition as a major strategic player in world affairs is primarily a fallout of the power shift from the West to Asia, driven by Asia’s phenomenal economic growth. India, therefore, is not alone in attracting global attention. China has been doing so for a much longer time and now fast growing countries like Vietnam are also in limelight. Since the “declining” West needs to engage with the rising Asian economies, they are generous in conceding strategic value to the Asian countries, sometimes more that what countries like India really command.

India’s additional advantage is that it is a democratic country. Mark US President Obama’s assertions that India is not the “rising” but “risen” power, and an “indispensable” strategic partner of the US. This echoes elements of exaggeration, particularly when viewed in the context of the US traditional approach to India and still lingering challenges of India’s economic performance and military modernisation. Tied to such flattering rhetoric is the demand, made by almost all the high-powered visitors to India, to open up its markets for the incoming goods and services, through lowering its tariff barriers and speeding up its economic reforms. Linked to the question of opening up of the Indian markets are also the issues of softening India’s Nuclear Liability Bill and opening wide its defence imports which are considered as the two most lucrative sectors of India’s market potential for the dwindling economies of the West as well as competing defence and nuclear exports of Russia. To what extent India will be able to accommodate such demands to nurse its strategic aspirations and yet protect its vital economic and foreign policy autonomy remains to be seen.

Even beyond and behind the exaggerated rhetoric, there is certainly a degree of sincerity in the international community’s recognition of India’s growing strategic significance. More so as a rising China disturbs the existing global balance of power and stirs anxieties and uncertainties all around. If the US and Europe have to keep China away from pushing their dominating presence and influence out of Asia, they need to balance China. India, for its stability, size, capabilities and growth potential, is the obvious candidate to be explored in this respect. That is why the US invited India to join it in a leadership role in the Indian Ocean and Pacific regions. It asked India to “not only look East” but also “engage with the East” and be more active in Africa, where China is fast making deep inroads.

India is, of course, engaged with East Asia, but what the US wants is to prepare India to invest more of its economic, military and diplomatic resources in the East Asian countries to limit the growing Chinese assertiveness. To wards that end, the West now seems willing to lure India with the promise of technology transfers and greater global decision making role. The coming months and years will only show how much of these promises will be delivered and how fast. With an eye on China’s growing influence in Central Asia, Russia has invited India to become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

Russian worries in relation to China also arise from the latter’s creeping expansion, even through illegal migration and inter-marriages in its remote and scarcely populated Far-east region. One wonders if it is desirable for India and it is willing and prepared to be launched in this role of balancing China at this stage. Is an all-out competition with China a viable and sustainable policy option for India at this juncture? Besides, India is also expected to follow the Western line on other issues of international concerns like Iran and nuclear non-proliferation.

Almost each of the visitors, from the US to France to the UK and Russia, tried to nudge India towards joining the Non-Proliferation Treaty. China is already signalling that it will add to India’s costs for being strategically promoted in Asia by the West.

A clear and most uncomfortable message from these visits for India is that the international community is a helpless and unreliable partner to blunt and moderate Pakistan’s terror agenda. China and the US refused to hold the Pakistani state responsible for Pakistan’s cross-border terrorism against India. Both of them seemed even interested in pushing India into talking to Pakistan on Pakistan’s terms. China, in fact, will not hesitate in backing up the Pakistani position on Kashmir as indicated through its involvement in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir and refusal to recognise the border with Kashmir as part of the Sino-Indian disputed border. The US and China naturally have their respective constraints and preferences towards Pakistan in refusing to understand India’s concerns.

Pakistan is blackmailing the US in Afghanistan and keeping China anxious in Xinjiang. China also sees great strategic value in Pakistan in protecting its interests in South and Central Asia as well as the Indian Ocean. British Prime Minister David Cameron and Russian President Medvedev did sing a song to Indian ears on Pakistan; the former by openly warning Pakistan on the “export of terrorism to India”, and the latter by asserting that India was within its rights to militarily retaliate against a state that sponsors terrorism. But neither the UK nor Russia is in a position to prevail over Pakistan to sober its unethical strategy against India. Should India then make a radical departure in its approach to Pakistan, and be prepared for sending an effective message to Islamabad and also to its proclaimed benefactors, that enough is enough.

In handling the high-power visits, India left no one in doubt that it was acutely conscious of its burgeoning market potential and will use this potential in the pursuance of its vital strategic interests. India neither needs to be lured by strategic promises nor be pressured by the undue demands of the international community. There are enough contradictions among the international community’s new bidders for association and partnership with India so as to play upon them to its own advantage. This is easier said than done as the challenge will unfold in the coming decade.

The writer is Visiting Research Professor, Institute of South Asian Studies, Singapore
source; the tribune