Repairing India's diminished regional presence

ONLY the other day two well-known American South-Asia hands, both having served as top US envoys in the region, made a strong plea that Washington should now steer India's passage into the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec).

India, they believe, had overcome the problems that blocked its entry when the Apec was formed. India's economic policies were now forward-looking instead of looking inwards, as they did then, thus falling in line with the organisational goal of free and open trade movement. They cited the giant strides that Indian economy has made after adopting economic liberalisation. Like any expansion of international economic integration, Apec membership would involve some additional policy innovations by India and thus reinforce the strategic and economic interests with the US, the twosome believes.

Some months earlier one would perhaps have turned the floodlights on to pursue the suggestions made by the two Americans. A very kind thought one would have said.

Today's truth is that the Indian economy is in a sort of doldrums, with foreign investments hitting a low even as exports have dropped substantially. Worse, India's foreign policy, which had for decades stood the test of time, even through internal turbulence, including Indira Gandhi's Emergency, and major operations in the west and east of the country, is under severe internal strain.

Lack of imaginative initiative has shown up policy makers in poor light and the pace of developments in the region, with China virtually occupying the high diplomatic and economic ground, does not add to India's wonted pre-eminence as a regional power.

Much of India's diminished status was on evidence at the BRICS meeting in South Africa some days ago. India may have endorsed the proposal to set up a BRICS Bank, on the lines of the World Bank or the IMF, but understands that it may not have much of a say in its current straitened circumstances to acquire a major voice in the proposed bank.

China, with several hundred trillion dollars in its kitty, will obviously call the shots when it comes to the crunch; it would thus enlarge its burgeoning role in Africa further even as it continues to needle its neighbours in the south-east over its posturing on the "South China Sea" which it claims as its own.

Yes, and the Indian delegation which visited Vietnam recently did make some noises supportive of that country's claims to the sea, including its right to explore for oil in the region, but that must remain an expression of intent only. The Americans and the Japanese too are concerned about the Chinese claim to the sea and their calling it China's territorial waters.

There are many other irritants within the countries of the region, not least of these being India's own long festering border dispute with Beijing, which despite the odd friendly word, refuses to get away as witnessed by China's refusal to accept Arunachal Pradesh as an Indian state. In its present shaky state it would be silly to expect the UPA government to take corrective steps to restore the imbalances that have crept into the foreign policy arena.

In Afghanistan, where the Americans are set to pack up soon and go home leaving the country to Hamid Karzai and his possible allies from within the Taliban, India, which has committed heavily to the reconstruction of the country, may have to reassess its commitments running into hundreds of millions of dollars.

India-Pakistan relations have slid back into a limbo, bilateral relations having touched a new low in recent weeks. Pakistan is, meanwhile, engaged in its general election after the Asif Zardari dispensation completed an unprecedented five-year term. With an interim government in charge till the poll process is completed one can only hope and pray for peace to prevail in the land to permit a peaceful election to the national and provincial Assemblies.

Maldives, another friendly country a half hour's flight away from Thiruvananthapuram, is also due to have its elections; the deposed pro-India president and the incumbent are in the fray. The former president had sought asylum in the Indian High Commission premises before returning to his own place to try his luck; he was arrested and released a few days later. Meanwhile, his successor cancelled that country's largest single contract awarded to an Indian firm to build and run its biggest airport.

And there is big trouble raging as we go down the coast line to Sri Lanka, separated by a narrow waterway from the Indian mainland. The once friendly air between the two countries has been turned drastically foul during the past few weeks by the two major Dravidian parties of Tamil Nadu, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and All India Anna Dravidian Progress Federation (AIADMK). The parties have declared a virtual war on the Sinhala-led Sri Lankan government. The Tamil Nadu parties, with the AIADMK in power in that state, have unleashed a vicious campaign on behalf of the Tamil population of Sri Lanka, accusing the Rajapakse government in Colombo of having inflicted atrocities (genocide) on Lanka Tamils.

New Delhi, predictably, has turned a Nelson's eye to the Dravidian parties' vituperative campaign, with the Tamil Nadu state Assembly even unanimously passing a highly questionable resolution against Sri Lanka. Instead of urging the immediate implementation of various rehabilitation programmes for the Sri Lankan Tamils displaced as a consequence of the civil war imposed on the country by a Tamil terrorist outfi -- tthe V. Prabhakaran-led Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam -- the Chennai politicians are insistent that a separate Tamil Eelam (homeland) be formed in Sri Lanka.

It's also forgotten that among the ameliorative steps already indicated by Colombo and New Delhi is the Rs.1,000-crore Indian-financed rehabilitation package. The Chennai Tamils have not even spared the Sri Lankan cricket players participating in the Indian 20-20 cricket league. (One crore is equivalent to 10 million.)

The unprecedented fuss created by Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha of Tamil Nadu over the inclusion of Sri Lankan players in the IPL has caused the other jingoistic outfit, the Board of Control for Cricket in India, headed by fellow Tamilian cement baron, N. Srinivasan, to lend a disgraceful helping hand. Instead of reassigning all the IPL matches in Chennai to other states, the Board has chosen to bar Sri Lankan players from playing Chennai. But then you are reckoning without the fact that Srinivasan is also the franchise owner of the Chennai team. He dare not defy the DMK-AIADMK writ. The anti-Sri Lankan venom has poured out relentlessly through the media, the TV networks acting as cheer-leaders.

The Manmohan Singh government can continue to live in a make-believe world of its own making. It's on its last legs and yet unwilling to show strength of will or purpose to govern. The day may not be far when the Indian government will cease to be taken seriously by its neighbours, big or small.

To go by the recklessness with which responsible parties like the DMK and the AIADMK are toying with our relations with a friendly neighbouring foreign country one wonders whether the Tamil parties are questioning our long held belief that the conduct of foreign policy falls within the domain of the federal government and not of the states or their opposition parties.

The writer is a former Resident Editor of The Statesman, Delhi.

© The Statesman (India). All rights reserved. Reprinted by arrangement with Asia News Network.