Indian foreign policy analyst C Raja Mohan on Wednesday said that India cannot impose its political will on its neighbouring countries and should avoid taking positions on internal problems of the neighbours.
Raja Mohan, the head of strategic studies and distinguished fellow of Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, made the observation at a lecture session on ‘Political transition in India: What it means for South Asia and beyond’ at a city hotel.
Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies organised the lecture session in association with news portal Probe News.
Politicians, academics, security analysts and political scientists joined the programme and took part in the question and answer session
Replying to a volley of questions, Raja Mohan said ‘There are some issues with our neighbours, but India cannot impose its political will. It cannot say that I will deal with one type of regime and will not deal with another type of regime.’
He said, ‘There is no luxury of non-engagement with neighbours irrespective of the party in power in the neighbouring country.’
Asked whether India should tell Bangladesh what it should do, Raja Mohan said, ‘It is fundamentally wrong. You can only encourage or support someone, but you should avoid taking positions on the internal problems of the neighbour.’
Observing that resolving India’s problems with its neighbours a major challenge of the Narendra Modi’s government, Raja Mohan said that both India’s foreign and economic policies were going to change under the Modi government.
‘We are going to see substantive expansions of economic relations between India and China in the coming days. The challenge of the Modi government would be how it would keep security issues and boundary issues under reasonable control and how it would expand economic cooperation with China,’ he said.
As for India’s previous government’s failures to sign deals with Bangladesh, he said, the previous government lost the historic moment in clinching the agreements. ‘In September 2011, the Indian prime minister came here but of no avail due to its inability to manage the domestic politics.’
He said, ‘This government is very clear on this point. It has got the strength. It has got the political will to deal with the neighbours from far more productive approach as it has got the domestic strength to deliver on the agreement that would be.’
Raja Mohan said, ‘The previous government did a lot with a number of countries. But there was no political component to conduct the foreign policy. But this government is very different.’
‘I think there is willingness in New Delhi to take the risk to solve the outstanding problems for the first time in long time and which is positive,’ he said.
He noted that unlike the previous government, the BJP government would be more open to China for economic reasons and would engage more with China to leverage the Chinese money and technology.
‘India shouldn’t impose its will on neighbours’
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According to my thesis it is impossible for India not to interfere in its neighbors internal affairs as it requires policy conformity in neighboring countries simply to retain its own cohesion and stability as it is essentially an artificial country -
https://www.academia.edu/5690262/The_India_Doctrine_1947-2007_
