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India - a threat to SAARC and Asian peace
Sunday 29 May 2011
The shift of power from the West to the East will not end with creating two new big powers: India and China. The rise of new powers certainly spells the death of the old, familiar order. But it is also creating dynamics of the new order which has already shifted steadily to the next level of redesigning, restructuring and redrawing new power alignments in the East. The emerging shape of the East indicates that the old order never dies. It merely reincarnates in new shapes and forms. In fact the new order in the East has risen somewhat in the mould of the Cold War power blocs in Europe.
This is rather ominous. It means, among other things, that the next big - if not cataclysmic — clashes in the 21st century are likely to occur in the East and not in the West as seen in the 20th century. The ideological and self-aggrandizing power struggles that dominated the West in the last century have eased considerably and there are no visible war clouds gathering in the European horizon. Besides, regionalism fostered by the EU and NATO has virtually eliminated the threats of global wars rising in Europe.
The East, however, remains volatile with intra and inter-state violence erupting and threatening peace and stability in the region. There is, of course, relative calm in S. E. Asia after the growth of ASEAN as a regional bloc with a distinct identity of its own. ASEAN’s separatist movements, decreasing explosions of Islamic fundamentalists, and the occasional outbursts between Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar are minor episodes compared to the tensions and conflicts raging in the SAARC region with the two big nations - India and Pakistan - poised on both sides of their border ready to unleash their nuclear weapons, if both sides are pushed by each other to extremes.
Even as I write this the rattling of nuclear sabers is heard over Kashmir - the main issue that has stunted the growth of SAARC. Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani raised this issue for the umpteenth time when he told the gathering that included leaders from Kashmir and federal ministers.: “”India has been striving to suppress the voice of Kashmiris, who are fighting for their just right to self-determination for over half a century, through force and subjugation.”
Reporting this latest reaction PTI (6/2/2011) added: “He contended that the Indian leadership was ignoring UN resolutions under which the Kashmiris were promised a plebiscite to choose their future. He reiterated Pakistan’s moral, diplomatic and political support to the Kashmiris.”
It is India’s cynical and intransigent dismissal of UN resolutions on Kashmir, accompanied by ruthless suppression and persecution of Kashmiris, which remain as the biggest stumbling bloc to South Asian peace and progress. Kashmir issue is one of the first resolutions that were to top the list when UN was formed in 1948 and it remains unresolved to this day. India has always been a provocative, meddlesome and intervening “big brother” who has failed to win the trust or confidence of its siblings.
Interventions
Take the case of Sri Lanka. India is now pushing the Jaffna Tamils to demand more - a provocative act that is likely to keep the Sri Lankan pot boiling for some more time. Is this the act of a friendly neighbour or a bully?
It is India’s unwanted arrogance in dealing with its neighbours and its unwillingness to handle neighbourly relations with greater sensitivity that has destabilized the region and retarded the growth of SAARC. Besides, India’s self-serving interventions to impose its will on the neighbours have increased suspicions of India’s role as a trustworthy and consistent defender of the region’s security and peace.
India’s negative role has been central to the failure of SAARC to gather momentum and rise to the same level of other progressive regional blocs. And it is the failure of SAARC to develop as a cohesive and dynamic regional bloc that is threatening peace in the Indian Ocean region and the east. Though India pays lip service to multilateral SAARC and tolerates it mainly as an irritant that cannot be wished away, it has consistently relied heavily on its bilateral alliances with big powers to supplement and enhance its own strength as a means of asserting its status as a regional super power.
Of course, Pakistan too has played this game of aligning itself with big powers. But that has been, more or less, to counter India’s alliances with big powers and threats to its own security. India too does it for the same reason plus - and this is the worrying part — to wield the big stick, as the super cop policing the small neighbours stepping out of line with its internal and global alliances. So those who opt to engage India closely must also pay pooja to the big powers allied to India which, of course, can change from communist Soviet Union to capitalist USA.
These wild swings in Indian foreign policy have left its neighbours in the doldrums. It has led to serious consequences in Sri Lanka in particular. Sri Lanka, apart from Pakistan, has been a victim of India’s alliances with the super powers. For instance, when India was allied to the Soviet Union Sri Lanka was allied to the Western bloc and Sri Lanka was forced to pay heavily for it. Ironically, the roles have reversed now.
Right now India has aligned itself with America as one of the indispensable partners in America’s global strategy. Despite its Gandhi-Nehruvian rhetoric of non-aligned idealism India was fully committed to the superpower bloc of USSR at the height of the Cold War. In the post-Cold War period India has incrementally gravitated towards America partly due to an ideological shift, with its emphasis on economic liberalism, and partly due to the rise of China in the east.
India has also ousted Pakistan as America’s regional partner and emerged not only as a big investor in the American economy, both in human resources and capital, but also as a recipient of American aid and political favours. It’s a two-way traffic where one contributes concretely and substantially to the other’s political interests and economic growth.
Added to this is the common objective of both to contain China. Both need each other and it is not surprising to find America elevating India as its “global strategic partner”. This new partnership was clearly defined by US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert O. Blake, Jr., in his testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. He said (April 5, 2011 ):
“The global strategic partnership with India will remain among our top foreign policy priorities. As the President (Barack Obama) told the Indian Parliament last November, “with India assuming its rightful place in the world, we have an historic opportunity to make the relationship between our two countries a defining partnership of the century ahead.”
This spells out in broad outline the contours of the new power bloc in Asia. It also means that India’s first obligation will be to America before even peeping at the issues concerning its neighbours. The impact on the neighbouring SAARC nations is going to be the same as when India was allied to the Soviet bloc: disastrous. India’s new role has even overshadowed globalization as the most disruptive politico-economic force in the east.
This Indo-American alliance has sown the seeds of new threats to regional peace and stability. Without being overtly aggressive, or gnashing of teeth publicly, the flexing of muscles by the emerging big powers of the east is quite noticeable. The new global alignment, where India has willingly gone into a “global strategic partnership” with America, is a clear signs of the next power struggles that will not only draw the parameters of future international relations but also create new conflict zones which are likely to destabilize the region.
South Asia and the East are plagued with ill-conceived borders drawn for the convenience of the colonial masters. The three big players in the region - India, Pakistan and China - are also the big contenders engaged in redrawing the new map of Asia - an exercise fraught with possibilities of future conflicts. American interests are also in preserving or destroying the cartography of Asia. For instance, it is bent on protecting the status quo in Taiwan while trying to break up China and India too, if it serves her greater interests. These competing interests cast a long shadow over the east.
Apart from the increased pressures that are bound to spring out of the new Indo-American partnership and impact heavily on the SAARC neighbours the “global strategic partnership” is impregnated with serious consequences to global and regional peace. The next world war - if it ever comes - will not be in Europe but in Asia and India will not only be involved in it but, most probably, will be the cause of it. A closer look at India’s foreign policy and its power alignments points in this direction.
India is showing all signs of being a willing partner bordering on being the newest client state of USA in Asia. Pakistan, particularly after the assassination of unarmed Bin Laden, is becoming less relevant to America’s strategic interests in Asia. The current trend indicates that India will replace Pakistan as America’s primary base. When America goes to bed with India the world must hire the best gynecologists to abort the birth of another menacing Frankenstein.
Every force comes with its own gravediggers and the Indo-American alliance is forcing the Indian neighbours into the arms of the Chinese. India may have gained America but is this going ensure or enhance its alliances with its neighbours? Will this not force the neighobours to keep India at a safe distance? Besides, India must seriously ponder over the critical issue of which big thug in the area can survive in a hostile neighbourhood?
India’s strength is in dominating the Indian Ocean but most of the coastlines are governed by its neighbours. India will be vulnerable if any one of the coastlines goes over to the other side. So isn’t India strength in cohabiting peacefully with its neighbours? America, of course, has all to gain in turning India into its most valuable strategic base in the Indian Ocean. But what is in it for India when the Yankees come marching in without cheer leaders in the neighborhood lining up the streets to greet them?
Finally, does this mark the end of the Gandhi-Nehruvian idealism of giving moral leadership to a world plagued by big power politics? Or was non-alignment just another sanctimonious ploy of an evil Satan quoting the Bible?
By H.L.D. Mahindapala
Sunday 29 May 2011
The shift of power from the West to the East will not end with creating two new big powers: India and China. The rise of new powers certainly spells the death of the old, familiar order. But it is also creating dynamics of the new order which has already shifted steadily to the next level of redesigning, restructuring and redrawing new power alignments in the East. The emerging shape of the East indicates that the old order never dies. It merely reincarnates in new shapes and forms. In fact the new order in the East has risen somewhat in the mould of the Cold War power blocs in Europe.
This is rather ominous. It means, among other things, that the next big - if not cataclysmic — clashes in the 21st century are likely to occur in the East and not in the West as seen in the 20th century. The ideological and self-aggrandizing power struggles that dominated the West in the last century have eased considerably and there are no visible war clouds gathering in the European horizon. Besides, regionalism fostered by the EU and NATO has virtually eliminated the threats of global wars rising in Europe.
The East, however, remains volatile with intra and inter-state violence erupting and threatening peace and stability in the region. There is, of course, relative calm in S. E. Asia after the growth of ASEAN as a regional bloc with a distinct identity of its own. ASEAN’s separatist movements, decreasing explosions of Islamic fundamentalists, and the occasional outbursts between Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar are minor episodes compared to the tensions and conflicts raging in the SAARC region with the two big nations - India and Pakistan - poised on both sides of their border ready to unleash their nuclear weapons, if both sides are pushed by each other to extremes.
Even as I write this the rattling of nuclear sabers is heard over Kashmir - the main issue that has stunted the growth of SAARC. Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani raised this issue for the umpteenth time when he told the gathering that included leaders from Kashmir and federal ministers.: “”India has been striving to suppress the voice of Kashmiris, who are fighting for their just right to self-determination for over half a century, through force and subjugation.”
Reporting this latest reaction PTI (6/2/2011) added: “He contended that the Indian leadership was ignoring UN resolutions under which the Kashmiris were promised a plebiscite to choose their future. He reiterated Pakistan’s moral, diplomatic and political support to the Kashmiris.”
It is India’s cynical and intransigent dismissal of UN resolutions on Kashmir, accompanied by ruthless suppression and persecution of Kashmiris, which remain as the biggest stumbling bloc to South Asian peace and progress. Kashmir issue is one of the first resolutions that were to top the list when UN was formed in 1948 and it remains unresolved to this day. India has always been a provocative, meddlesome and intervening “big brother” who has failed to win the trust or confidence of its siblings.
Interventions
Take the case of Sri Lanka. India is now pushing the Jaffna Tamils to demand more - a provocative act that is likely to keep the Sri Lankan pot boiling for some more time. Is this the act of a friendly neighbour or a bully?
It is India’s unwanted arrogance in dealing with its neighbours and its unwillingness to handle neighbourly relations with greater sensitivity that has destabilized the region and retarded the growth of SAARC. Besides, India’s self-serving interventions to impose its will on the neighbours have increased suspicions of India’s role as a trustworthy and consistent defender of the region’s security and peace.
India’s negative role has been central to the failure of SAARC to gather momentum and rise to the same level of other progressive regional blocs. And it is the failure of SAARC to develop as a cohesive and dynamic regional bloc that is threatening peace in the Indian Ocean region and the east. Though India pays lip service to multilateral SAARC and tolerates it mainly as an irritant that cannot be wished away, it has consistently relied heavily on its bilateral alliances with big powers to supplement and enhance its own strength as a means of asserting its status as a regional super power.
Of course, Pakistan too has played this game of aligning itself with big powers. But that has been, more or less, to counter India’s alliances with big powers and threats to its own security. India too does it for the same reason plus - and this is the worrying part — to wield the big stick, as the super cop policing the small neighbours stepping out of line with its internal and global alliances. So those who opt to engage India closely must also pay pooja to the big powers allied to India which, of course, can change from communist Soviet Union to capitalist USA.
These wild swings in Indian foreign policy have left its neighbours in the doldrums. It has led to serious consequences in Sri Lanka in particular. Sri Lanka, apart from Pakistan, has been a victim of India’s alliances with the super powers. For instance, when India was allied to the Soviet Union Sri Lanka was allied to the Western bloc and Sri Lanka was forced to pay heavily for it. Ironically, the roles have reversed now.
Right now India has aligned itself with America as one of the indispensable partners in America’s global strategy. Despite its Gandhi-Nehruvian rhetoric of non-aligned idealism India was fully committed to the superpower bloc of USSR at the height of the Cold War. In the post-Cold War period India has incrementally gravitated towards America partly due to an ideological shift, with its emphasis on economic liberalism, and partly due to the rise of China in the east.
India has also ousted Pakistan as America’s regional partner and emerged not only as a big investor in the American economy, both in human resources and capital, but also as a recipient of American aid and political favours. It’s a two-way traffic where one contributes concretely and substantially to the other’s political interests and economic growth.
Added to this is the common objective of both to contain China. Both need each other and it is not surprising to find America elevating India as its “global strategic partner”. This new partnership was clearly defined by US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert O. Blake, Jr., in his testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. He said (April 5, 2011 ):
“The global strategic partnership with India will remain among our top foreign policy priorities. As the President (Barack Obama) told the Indian Parliament last November, “with India assuming its rightful place in the world, we have an historic opportunity to make the relationship between our two countries a defining partnership of the century ahead.”
This spells out in broad outline the contours of the new power bloc in Asia. It also means that India’s first obligation will be to America before even peeping at the issues concerning its neighbours. The impact on the neighbouring SAARC nations is going to be the same as when India was allied to the Soviet bloc: disastrous. India’s new role has even overshadowed globalization as the most disruptive politico-economic force in the east.
This Indo-American alliance has sown the seeds of new threats to regional peace and stability. Without being overtly aggressive, or gnashing of teeth publicly, the flexing of muscles by the emerging big powers of the east is quite noticeable. The new global alignment, where India has willingly gone into a “global strategic partnership” with America, is a clear signs of the next power struggles that will not only draw the parameters of future international relations but also create new conflict zones which are likely to destabilize the region.
South Asia and the East are plagued with ill-conceived borders drawn for the convenience of the colonial masters. The three big players in the region - India, Pakistan and China - are also the big contenders engaged in redrawing the new map of Asia - an exercise fraught with possibilities of future conflicts. American interests are also in preserving or destroying the cartography of Asia. For instance, it is bent on protecting the status quo in Taiwan while trying to break up China and India too, if it serves her greater interests. These competing interests cast a long shadow over the east.
Apart from the increased pressures that are bound to spring out of the new Indo-American partnership and impact heavily on the SAARC neighbours the “global strategic partnership” is impregnated with serious consequences to global and regional peace. The next world war - if it ever comes - will not be in Europe but in Asia and India will not only be involved in it but, most probably, will be the cause of it. A closer look at India’s foreign policy and its power alignments points in this direction.
India is showing all signs of being a willing partner bordering on being the newest client state of USA in Asia. Pakistan, particularly after the assassination of unarmed Bin Laden, is becoming less relevant to America’s strategic interests in Asia. The current trend indicates that India will replace Pakistan as America’s primary base. When America goes to bed with India the world must hire the best gynecologists to abort the birth of another menacing Frankenstein.
Every force comes with its own gravediggers and the Indo-American alliance is forcing the Indian neighbours into the arms of the Chinese. India may have gained America but is this going ensure or enhance its alliances with its neighbours? Will this not force the neighobours to keep India at a safe distance? Besides, India must seriously ponder over the critical issue of which big thug in the area can survive in a hostile neighbourhood?
India’s strength is in dominating the Indian Ocean but most of the coastlines are governed by its neighbours. India will be vulnerable if any one of the coastlines goes over to the other side. So isn’t India strength in cohabiting peacefully with its neighbours? America, of course, has all to gain in turning India into its most valuable strategic base in the Indian Ocean. But what is in it for India when the Yankees come marching in without cheer leaders in the neighborhood lining up the streets to greet them?
Finally, does this mark the end of the Gandhi-Nehruvian idealism of giving moral leadership to a world plagued by big power politics? Or was non-alignment just another sanctimonious ploy of an evil Satan quoting the Bible?
By H.L.D. Mahindapala
