India not alone in failure to ensure friendly neighbours

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It is generally believed that India has not handled its neighbourhood well and that this failure has diminished its capacity to play a more prominent international role. Yes, India’s soft image, its perceived internal disarray, its inability to guard its borders, its inclination to shun hard decisions, its readiness to make concessions out of a pronounced sense of vulnerability, historical pressures on it by Western powers and the conflict with China, have given room to its neighbours to disregard its interests and sensitivities with little cost.

However, even if India did not suffer from these debilities — which have made its situation worse than it need be — it would be fallacious to think that big countries can order the security environment around them as they wish. Small countries that neighbour large ones can be the source of big problems. The US is plagued by problems created by its small neighbours like Cuba and Venezuela. Mexico, not too small a country, is the source of big headaches for the US on account of illegal immigration and drugs flow, for example. China has big problems with Vietnam and other countries across the South China sea. Its relations with Japan are tense. Russia has acute problems with Georgia. Its relations with Ukraine are problematic. Russia now has to deal delicately with several neighbours that were once part of the Soviet Union but are now independent states. US, China and Russia have enough political, military and economic clout to be able to force their smaller neighbours to do their bidding but are unable to do so in practice.
India is therefore not unique in not being unable to ensure a friendly neighbourhood. Any large country instils a degree of fear amongst smaller neighbours of loss of independence and economic and cultural domination. The international system, based on the equality of nations and respect for their sovereignty, gives protection to smaller countries. In today’s more integrated world, the broad rules governing the global system are difficult to infringe with impunity. Unilateral action by any country invites a countervailing reaction by others.
Small countries will want to compensate for their relative vulnerability by looking for support from bigger countries within the region and without, exploiting to their advantage power play between countries. No Monroe kind of doctrine can be enunciated today to keep external powers out from a big country’s periphery. The smaller countries on Russia’s western borders are strong votaries of US and Nato; on its eastern borders US and China have been drawn in to balance Russia’s weight. The US has treaty relations with Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Most Asean countries have traditionally looked to the US for security, in the past against a Chinese communist threat and today against the unpredictable consequences of China’s rise. Russia has been fishing in the troubled waters of Venezuela.
Any hand wringing in India, because most of our neighbours are recalcitrant, is fairly pointless. We cannot handle our domestic politics the way we wish and enforce always the will of the Centre on the states. We are faced with internal insurgencies. In external relations, we have even less leverage to ensure that our writ runs and our interests remain uppermost in the minds of policy makers in neighbouring countries.
We can keep our ears to the ground in neighbouring countries at the diplomatic and intelligence levels, closely track developments that could harm our interests, cultivate actual and potential leaders, build mutually beneficial trade and investment linkages, offer economic aid, provide military assistance to create support in security lobbies and use our soft power at the cultural level to bolster our influence, but all this may not produce the results we seek. Our own powerful partners no doubt do all this vis a vis us, but how much have they been able to control our decisions? It is very difficult to have one’s way unless the neighbouring country is willing to pursue positive policies out of its own self-interest. This is best illustrated by Bhutan’s policy of treating India as its principal partner and Nepal deliberately playing China against India.
This does not, of course, mean that India’s mix of policies towards its neighbours has been the most optimal. Indeed, there is no ideal mix of self-assertion and concessions that would produce good neighbourly relations.
Maldives is strategically important for us because of its location close to India’s landmass, across the sea lanes of communication in the Indian Ocean.
It is one of the “pearls” in the Chinese string of pearls strategy. China’s presence there would outflank India in the south, along with its presence in Sri Lanka. President Hu Jintao’s visit there a couple of years ago was not without strategic intent. Maldives, as an Islamic country, has been vulnerable to currents of Wahhabi ideology purveyed through Pakistan. Failing proper surveillance any one of the widely dispersed islands of the archipelago could become a base for terrorist activity by jihadi organisations or piracy, putting at risk India’s security and its shipping. Besides adding to India’s security headaches, instability in the Maldives can disturb the functioning of Saarc. India is providing maritime security assistance to the Maldives, a task that has assumed even more importance after signs of deepening political fractures in the country with external linkages.
For some time trouble between President Nasheed’s government and the coterie around the former President has been brewing, laced with demands from Islamist lobbies. India, which had intervened against a coup attempt in the Maldives in 1988, is obliged, in a sense, to be seen supporting political legitimacy in Maldives.
Mr Nasheed’s ouster had therefore to be legal and constitutional for India to endorse it, which it did. Quick support to the new government was possibly considered necessary to avoid uncertainty and discourage street violence by supporters of the ousted President.
It is well that India has remained seized of the developing situation and has shown flexibility in dealing with it as its latest intervention in favour of early elections shows.

The writer is a former foreign secretary