Mar 07, 2014
The two challenges for policymakers would be how to counter and insulate India from radical Islam and the rise of China. Both factors converge in Pakistan, making an otherwise containable entity dangerous.
The world ceases to exist for India six months before a parliamentary election. The next one, on April 7, with results on May 16, is particularly distracting as it is unlike the ones in 2004 or 2009.
The combat then was between known adversaries and in 2004, were it not for the collapse of his allies in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee may well have continued in power. The forthcoming election is different. The rise of a new left-of-centre challenger — the Aam Aadmi Party — the leadership transfer in Congress to Rahul Gandhi and the anointing of Narendra Modi, a charismatic though divisive leader, by the Bharatiya Janata Party make for an exciting, even volatile, contest. The world, however, does not stop for India, despite the fact that one-sixth of humanity lives here. The in-coming Indian government would have multiple choices to make in the neighbourhood and beyond.
The presidential elections in Afghanistan in May and in the largest Islamic nation Indonesia in July indicate the flux. With the advent of spring, militant Islamists will resurface with force in the region, from Afghanistan to Jammu and Kashmir, particularly as the US withdraws from the region, fully or largely. As the Taliban and their associates, like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, continue to employ terror with periodic offers to return to the negotiating table, the security situation degrades. The stand-off between Russia and the West over Ukraine is a new distraction that will benefit status quo challengers like the Islamists and a rising power like China.
The two major challenges for Indian policymakers would be how to counter and insulate India from radical Islam and the inevitable rise of China. Both these factors converge in Pakistan, making an otherwise containable entity dangerous. The additional challenges would be the rivalry between the Sunni and Shia alliances led by Saudi Arabia and Iran, respectively. Symbolising this was the presence of the crown prince of the former and the foreign minister of the latter almost simultaneously in New Delhi recently. Complicating this is the stand-off over Ukraine. For instance, Turkey, a Nato member, is stuck between its old Khanate of Crimea, which it lost in the war with Russia in 1768-74, and the Tartar population there, constituting 12 per cent of the population, which has abiding emotional ties to Turkey, and imploding Syria to its south. In both countries Russia is aligning with forces opposed to Turkish orientation.
These developments, which some dub Cold War II, are partly an outcome of perceived US reluctance to no longer play a lead role in defending the existing post-World War security order. It began with Barack Obama’s red lines in Syria turning out to be lines in sand and has been supplemented by actions and statements emanating from incumbents around President Obama. US under secretary for defence acquisitions Frank Kendall first pronounced that due to defence budget cuts the “Asian pivot” was undoable. Subsequently, he partially retracted, explaining that it can be undertaken despite economies. Whatever the truth, the signal to US allies in East Asia is of doubt at the centre of US thinking on what role US wishes to play to counter new instability. The Chinese, meanwhile, announced a 12.2 per cent increase in their defence budget, raising it to $131.58 billion. Fu Ying, a spokeswoman of the National People’s Congress, intoned that “based on our history and experience we believe that peace can only be maintained by strength”.
On the contrary, Indian strategic confusion was reflected in the resignation of a naval chief, the breaking of one more defence corruption scandal, as usual abroad first, and the Pavlovian response of defence minister A.K. Antony in banning some more foreign suppliers. Into this churning world will arrive the next government in mid-May. Ten years of the United Progressive Alliance government have left many openings that, like its economic reform agenda, are half-matured. This week the new US assistant secretary for South Asia, Nisha Biswal, is finally in India to pick up the threads of an imploding relationship that in the past received metaphorical eulogies from leaderships in India and the US. Obviously the two nations have a mismatch of mutual expectations.
The Devyani Khobragade issue simply brought it out in the open. A strategic relationship driven top-down has been allowed by both sides to collapse into agenda-driven action by part players.
Ms Biswal can do her rounds, but the answer will lie in who forms the next government. Mr Modi, being business friendly, would have an advantage over a Third Front conglomerate with open or tacit Communist Party of India-Marxist support or left-of-centre orientation of some Opposition parties cross-bred into Muslim appeasement. The rise of the Aam Aadmi Party reflects the unease of the common Indian with crony capitalism laced with pure kleptocracy masquerading as market liberalisation. Having been demonised, even Mr Modi would find it difficult to open the market wide and quick enough to draw cheers from the US business fraternity, which has been feeding the anti-US sentiments in the US Congress.
China is the other dilemma. The latest visit of their special representative, Yang Jiechi, resulted in some subtle wooing of India, with hints that China could invest as much as one-third of a trillion dollars in Indian infrastructure development. Is this to shut the door on Japan and draw India away from the US’ “Asian pivot”, or does China genuinely want to re-balance its relations with India?
With multiple inflexion points and choices confronting India, surprisingly there is hardly any public position taken by the principal political parties on these issues. As hope is never a policy, unconcern does not make a problem go away. India needs answers from potential leaders now, before it elects them.
The writer is a former secretary in the external affairs ministry. He tweets at @ambkcsingh
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