Looking East: The Gateway to South East Asia
March 23, 2012 by Team SAISA
Filed under foreign policy
It is no body’s case that South Asia and primarily India is landlocked in all directions from Gujarat to Arunachal Pradesh because of the geographical tyranny posed by Pakistan and China, both having complex border disputes with India. The only land opening available to India is to its East through Bangladesh and Myanmar.
This opening, also referred to as India’s gateway to South East Asia, has come in for frequent discussions as Indian Foreign Policy and its delivery models have forever been playing catch up with the Chinese model which as it is has a 30 years lead over India. Given Indian Foreign Policy’s lethargy over engaging the crucial countries of Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar this gateway is very slow in opening up.
The tyranny of geography mandates India to work closely with these four countries from a position of equanimity by offering proactive unilateral initiatives to permit free trade and transit to their advantage. Simplistically put, this would enable all these countries access to each others markets and extend their reach towards the South East Asian countries. However the statistical records reflect poorly in India reaching out to all these countries. It has thus lost strategic space in these countries to China.
Nepal is increasingly seen to be moving into the Chinese orbit with Prime Minister Wen Jiabao visiting Nepal early this year whilst no Indian Prime Minister has chosen to visit Nepal for the last ten years. The $250 million line of credit and 80,000 tonnes of food grain supply to Nepal during Prime Minister Bhattarai’s visit to India last year failed to generate pro India sentiment in Nepal based on continuing hostility of the Maoists. As per an IDSA comment, a new controversy seems to have emerged in Nepal with regard to Bhattarai signing Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (BIPPA) during his New Delhi visit. Bhattarai’s move has been opposed since he heads a transitional government and the country is still to have a constitution. This has widened the rift within the UCPN-Maoist. The revision of 1950 treaty of Friendship is also on the anvil while the Maoist government is actively considering proposals to disband the Indian Gurkha regiments. This exposes serious chinks in India’s foreign policy vis-a-vis Nepal where the Chinese are making steady and rapid progress through various initiatives such as the Lhasa – Kathmandu friendship highway and a score of other infrastructure projects. That Mandarin is now the preferred language in Nepal speaks for Nepal cozying up to China. The container port coming up at Shigatse in Tibet is an obvious move by China to fraternise Nepal. Water woes still continue between the two countries and the trade and transit agenda is suffering by the day.
Bangladesh, a country known for military coups and governments hostile towards India, finally got a pro India government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. However, Indian foreign policy weighing under the coalition politics has thus far failed to capitalise on the positive sentiment. The falling apart of the Teesta water accord did more singular damage to the bilateral relations than many other initiatives as it made the Sheikh Hasina government lose credibility within Bangladesh’s political landscape. Expecting a trade and transit corridor after failing to yield on water, (Farakka, Teesta and Tipaimukh) is a tough ask. Nevertheless, the Bangladesh government successfully overcame all opposition and had agreed in principle to provide transit facilities to India. The two countries were set to sign an agreement to this effect in September 2011. However, India’s turnaround on the Teesta agreement prompted Bangladesh to hold back on the transit issue. Of special interest to note here is the fact that despite its apparent pro India stance, the Sheikh Hasina government, which is running short on time, is banking heavily on China to promote trade and transit, especially the Chittagong port. India has everything to lose by being rigid.
Myanmar has been discussed at length by South Asian Idea (here, here and here) to highlight lack of delivery on part of India. Combined with Bangladesh, Myanmar offers to be the Indian gateway to South East Asia. However the result sheet of Indian initiatives in Myanmar reflect poorly purely because India has failed to deliver on various counts of infrastructure development – the most glamorous being the Kaladan Multi-modal Transit Transport Project intended to facilitate trade between India’s Mizoram State and other countries. The project includes dredging the Kaladan River to enable cargo vessels to navigate the river from Sittwe in Burma to Mizoram State in India, and it involves the construction of a river port at Paletwa. It also includes construction of a highway between Paletwa and Mizoram State. However due to poor delivery model the project is under severe criticism from political parties in Myanmar. They fear that the project would increase the salinity levels of their paddy and bean fields. As per Chin National Party chairman Zam Ciin Paul the project will help India access South East Asia while hurting Myanmar significantly. The key is controlling saline water from entering the agricultural fields – something India has not been able to assure Myanmar about. Meanwhile China is overcoming its Malacca Dilemma by constructing the deep-sea port at Kyauk Phu and connecting it to Kunming in Yunan province through a network of rail, road and oil pipelines. The Ledo Road, offered first to India, has been completed in record time by China. Thus the centrality of Myanmar’s geographic, cultural and historic positioning between India and China must drive India’s foreign policy.
There is a fascinating chapter in Thant Mint-U’s book “Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia – Where China Meets India”, on the dreams they weave in Kunming, where they see a future for Yunnan’s wealth and prosperity in terms of India’s economy, which the road and rail links through Myanmar can facilitate. MK Bhadrakumar argues that Delhi, on the other hand, needs a leap of faith to have a counterpart dream for India’s impoverished north-eastern States in terms of Yunnan. The spirit of ‘competition’ can be self-defeating. Yet, Yunnan needs to be compared with India’s neglected north-eastern States.
Myanmar, which is now opening up to the world, is awaiting Indian engagement in rebuilding its economic, political and social sectors. Geography also offers India the best tools to assist Myanmar take positive steps towards its transition to democracy. The onus is on India to take the next proactive unilateral initiatives to widen the scope of its involvement to open this gateway. This would require strategic road maps shunning myopic policies to invest heavily in connecting India to South East Asia.
The track record of Indian foreign policy in tackling with the Eastern neighbours is at best short-sighted and mired with domestic political considerations rather than having a long-term perspective. Time is running short as India dithers and China moves at a canter to occupy the strategic space vacated or not occupied by India. The returns of exploiting the gateway to South East Asia can not be bargained politically.The government has to build domestic consensus and speed up its international initiatives for the larger strategic, economic and political good.
Driving from Kolkata to Singapore via Imphal and Mandalay on a six lane highway should not be tough to imagine.
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Quality, well reasoned article. Hard hitting. We must start with infrastructural and cultural connectivity. Progress will follow. Huge progress. A fallout will be better integration with the whole North East. That is our pure, internal gain.
Myanmar is pure gold for India and can make India a dominant SE player next only to China.
Moreover in East, we don’t face the problem of Medieval anti-Indian Arab/Muslim Imperialism as we have in the North-West.We suffered all invasions from the North-West only.If we could have raised a China-like Great Wall in our North-West, history would have been different.
The best course for us, with going looking East, is also to go non-Arab too.Whole non-Arab Asia which is far bigger than the Arab World, is basically Hindu Asia.It is full of Indian culture and traditions.Hindu India is the HEART and SOUL of this huge region.In fact, Hindu word has come into being because of the Arab word, and not due to the Muslim word.It was Arab invasion of Sindh in 712 AD, that filled this word with the modern meanings and connotations it has gained.Hindu is the word for great historic RESISTANCE against the Arab/Muslim Imperialism since the birth of Islam in the 7th century in the desert of Arabia.
If we look straight and go further deep,we find that ours (ie Hindu India) is
the great country where Foundation of Islam lies.We have to draw a line between Islam the Universal and Arab Islam (which is “for the Arab, by the Arab, of the Arab”).The whole Arab Islam episode was an Arab Mahabharat from which IMPERIALISM rose and spread.If we perceive Islam as a tree, the roots of this tree are in Hindu India (ie Vaidic Islam/Sanskrit Islam/Sanatan Islam or Old Islam whatever one may like to call it).We could not meet the challenge of foreign invaders and lost. But the wonder is that in spite of total military/political collapse, we survived. This is our inner strength, and that why the Hindu word is so much important.If this word were not there, we would have met the same fate which Iran and Egypt met-100% islamized.The word non-Arab with reference to the Hindu word is therefore important. All non-Arab Asians are Hindu for this reason.They may be belonging to any faith then. If they are not Arab, they are Hindu.
We need to look not only East, but also in the direction of non-Arab too, where lies our real strength and historical moorings.From Iran to Indonesia and Mongolia to Australia including all the “stans’ of central Asia and the Buddhist Far-East of China/Japan/Korea, is the Great Hindu World.We have to concentrate on this. It was a great blunder to abandon the Hindu word which has so much historical meaning and strength.We have mixed the Hindu word with ‘Hindu-dharmmi” and that is the problem.I am not at all a Hindu-dharmmi in the conventional sense of the term,but I just cannot leave or abandon this great word which denotes RESISTANCE against the Medieval Arab/Muslim Imperialism which has caused my nation so much suffering and resulted in the unholy partition of Punjab and Bengal.Non-Arab Asia is the ultimate destination for India and we need, not NAM but ONAA under Indian auspices.If there can be OIC, there can be ONAA also to counter and balance it.OHC matching the designs of OIC which always works against India under Pakistani machinations.ONAA/ or OHC means the same thing.Those who have objections to or reservations with the Hindu word, there is the NON-ARAB word option.I am sure no non-Arab would call himself an Arab.Thanking Marx we can say-Non-Arabs of the world- Unite !
The King pins of India’s ‘Look East’ policy appear to be Bangladesh and Myanmar. In Bangladesh the ‘friendly to India’ Haseena rule must be a transient phenomenon, if we remember (and we must not ignore overriding facts!!)that Haseena literally escaped being slaughtered with her father and his entire family by Bangladeshis as she was out of the country. Her father’s friendship with India was authoritatively stated to be one of the principal reasons (the other being rampant corruption), for the horrible killing (the corpses of the ‘Bangla bandhu’ and family rotted for several days before people wishing to bury them were allowed to do so). So Bangladesh looks certain to remain lukewarm to India, at best, in view of several strains of contention and dispute between India and Bangladesh.
The Chinese, who must now be brought into the picture, have been consumate practioners of the art of leading from behind. They have succeeded in making use of Americans to act as their global dupes, as they have scaled the heights global economic and military significance. They appear to have transferred this ‘political technology’ to the Generals in Pakistan. The responsibility for wrongs goes to the American created democratic government in Pakistan but Defense,Foriegn policy even foreign trade policy is dictated by the Military. The fruits of leading from behind are only too obvious. Now Gen. Kayani and Gen. Pasha both appear in the lists of the hundred most powerful men in 2011, published by Forbes and Time magazines. Gen. Pasha is the only head of an Intelligence Agency to make the grade when the head of CIA and other outfits are nowhere to be seen!! The Pakistani Generals are truly basking in the glory of real power — without the burden of responsibility!!
I suspect that the Generals in Myanmar are now serving as apprentices of this discipline. In reality,therefore, their hearts are even more China oriented than is commonly suspected. In actual fact the Myanmar Generals are likely to show a 100% tilt to China when the chips are down. I feel confident in saying this from the fact that despite Indian investment in Myanmar’s gas company to the extent that India had a member on its Board of Directors, the contract for gas supply was surprisingly awarded to China despite maximum Indian pressure.
The moral of the foregoing is that the eggs in the basket of ‘Look East’ policy of India can hardly be counted before they are hatched!!
I’ve got a piece in Christian Science Monitor on India, China and the battle for South Asia.
China is certainly flexing its muscle. Earlier, it sought to restrict exports of rare earth minerals to Japan, made overtures to a secession movement in southern Sudan, and wrestled with the G20 over its currency and trade imbalance.
Nowhere has China been more assertive than in South Asia. In a strategy it calls the “string of pearls,” China is building ports and infrastructure in Bangladesh and Pakistan; digging up minerals in Pakistan and Afghanistan; and refining hydropower in Nepal and Afghanistan.
According to the International Monetary Fund, China’s trade with India’s neighbors totaled $16 billion in 2008, growing at 14 percent annually. India’s regional trade was barely holding steady at $11 billion.
Yet China’s success in the Subcontinent reflects India’s own foreign policy blunders.
If India doesn’t improve its own regional relationships, it will not only lose South Asia to China, but it will be prevented from exercising power elsewhere.
Myanmar and Bangladesh are on China’s radar and India would do well to put its money where its mouth is.