India's renewed influence on neighbourhood

Tuesday 13th August 2019 16:09 EDT
 

In the first half of the 20th century, Indians abandoned servitude, found a leader in Mahatma Gandhi who gave voice to this new spirit, and by winning freedom in 1947 ended Europe’s colonial project. In the second half of the century, India met and defeated external forces hell-bent on sabotaging the country’s unity, but faltered on the economic front, thanks to the drag of pseudo-socialism. India has corrected its economic compass, consolidated its economic and political strength, and is ready to claim a legitimate place in the forefront of the 21st century.

India's foreign policy is currently focused on improving relations with neighboring countries in South Asia, engaging the extended neighborhood in Southeast Asia and the major global powers.
Even before independence, the Government of India maintained semi-autonomous diplomatic relations. After India gained independence it soon joined the Commonwealth of Nations and strongly supported independence movements in other colonies. During the Cold War, India adopted a foreign policy of not aligning itself with any major power bloc. However, India developed close ties with the Soviet Union and received extensive military support from it.

In Narendra Modi's second term as Prime Minister, India is readying to lay the foundations of New India’s rising role in world affairs. At the heart of Modi’s foreign policy is a humanitarian vision inspired by a fundamental tenet of Indian philosophy, that the world is one family. Nationalism and humanism constitute the fulcrum of Modi’s vision. Equally impressive is the manner in which India has maintained relations across binaries. Better relations with UAE and Saudi Arabia have not come at the cost of traditional relations with Iran. The International North South Transport Corridor, which envisions a ship, road, and railway route connecting India, Iran and Russia, along with the Chabahar port in Iran, have been two of India’s large scale projects in the region.

China, however, is using its economic strength to expand its relations with India’s neighbours such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar and has attempted to control India’s rise, while simultaneously supporting Pakistan’s development. Beijing has realized that maritime strength in the Indo-Pacific will provide it the strategic leverage necessary to become a regional hegemon.

The largest and most discussed has been China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which envisages a large road and railway network. The China-Pakistan-Economic Corridor or CPEC, gives China easy access to the Arabian Sea. In Sri Lanka, Beijing acquiring the strategically located Hambantota port in the country. These projects in Pakistan and Sri Lanka have given China, strategic access points in the oceans surrounding India, a key area of Indian influence.

Faced with these new foreign policy challenges, India has sought to reorient its priorities and relationships. Acting on its perceptions of China’s increasing footprint in South Asia, India has awakened, to the realization of the importance of establishing its own footprint in the larger subcontinent. New Delhi has gone from championing decolonization and non-alignment to a new found interest in ASEAN countries, Central Asia and its neighbours in the Bay of Bengal region. India has taken steps to increase its diplomatic engagement with Central Asia, as a part of it “extended neighborhood”, expanding relations in areas of economic, political and security cooperation as well as assisting Central Asian countries in areas of information technological, mining, construction and industrial production.

India has used different bilateral and multilateral strategies to pursue a regional leadership role in South Asia. With SAARC proving to be a “dysfunctional” grouping, India began to look for other multilateral regional/subregional organizations that are devoid of Pakistan. Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) fit the bill. India started trying to energize and develop BIMSTEC as almost a parallel to SAARC. BIMSTEC comprises seven states; five from South Asia - Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka - and two, Myanmar and Thailand, from Southeast Asia. While some analysts have interpreted India’s intensified engagement of BIMSTEC as aimed at isolating Pakistan, this could be much more. It should be seen that without a strong outreach to BIMSTEC member states, India’s attempts at achieving its “Act East” policy goals will lack momentum. There are strategic motivations as well behind India’s growing interest in BIMSTEC. China’s influence and presence in India’s neighborhood has grown enormously on account of BRI initiatives. Debt burdens have forced India’s neighbors to hand over assets to China. These factors are all set to fundamentally reconfigure the geopolitics of South Asia.


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