Strategic challenges

Salman HAIDAR

For many years now, ever since the 1998 Pokhran tests, India’s broader strategic interests have tended to be identified with the country’s military nuclear programme; indeed, the two sometimes appear virtually synonymous and the nuclear issue has more or less overshadowed all others when it comes to strategic priorities.

Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh

Such a vision owes much to an able and articulate ‘strategic community’, or group of experts active in the media, think tanks, and university departments, that has tirelessly discussed and analysed the ramifications of Pokhran and charted a challenging course for the country’s nuclear future.

Indeed, there can be no denying the salience of the nuclear issue, for India’s dramatic entry in 1998 into the group of nuclear-armed countries opened up a whole new range of foreign policy challenges which cannot but command prime attention.

India has had to cope with a fresh set of international sanctions triggered by the tests, and has had to develop appropriate ways of handling nuclear weaponry in a manner that does not disturb national and international expectations.

By dint of continuous effort at home and abroad, these challenges have largely been met. The apprehensions expressed internationally after the tests of 1998 have been allayed, the latest milestone being the all-important one of waivers from the NSG.

Nuclear technologies

With this, India will have access to nuclear technologies and supplies that were hitherto unavailable. This will permit substantial acceleration in the country’s civilian nuclear power programme.

The favourable result at the NSG has been achieved through exacting and protracted diplomatic effort which in its later stages became greatly complicated by the lack of political consensus at home.

Despite all the difficulties, which time and again seemed to be taking the final negotiations towards disaster, the official team achieved their objectives and brought home the agreement they were seeking.

Their success merits full recognition, and it may well be that what they attained may come to be regarded as the most significant legacy of Dr Manmohan Singh’s government.

The deal being concluded, one can now hope to be freed from its mesmeric effect, for there are many other matters that have tended to be crowded out by the all-absorbing nuclear drama.

Yet in the world’s eyes it is not the tests of 1998 or the fluctuating spectacle of the India-US nuclear deal that are the touchstone of India’s regional and global prominence so much as the many years of sustained high growth and its consequences.

As India has freed itself from the developmental shackles that had kept it confined, it has become much more consequential in regional and global affairs and has emerged as a sought-after partner.

A case in point is the new trade pact between India and ASEAN that was concluded in Singapore the other day. This opens the way to substantially liberalized trade and investment between the two sides and comes as a reminder of the country’s growing strategic involvement in this nearby region.

The story of India and ASEAN has been unfolding slowly over the last decade, ever since Singapore’s leader of the time, Mr. Goh Chok Tong, took a fresh look at India, seen then as a laggard behind the ‘Asian tigers’, and began a process of closer cooperation.

Incidentally, it was at that time that an effective ‘de-hyphenation’ first took place, for, contrary to prevailing practice, ASEAN developed dialogue relations with India without simultaneously extending the same option to Pakistan.

Some of the themes of that time are to be discerned in the latest agreement, such as expanded trade access for both sides ~ more of a routine matter for ASEAN than for India ~ and enlarged investment in India by ASEAN, again something that requires more flexibility from India than it has been prone to show in the past.

This agreement will lead to something like an expanded area of free trade which will tie the two much closer together.

The strategic implications are not to be ignored, for as trade and investment grow, the eastward trend in India’s global policies will become more accentuated. How this relates to the enlarged relationship with the USA that has been driving the nuclear deal will have to be examined.

And behind it looms the question of China, whose economic ties with ASEAN are well developed and continue to grow. Thus there are big issues on its eastern flank that press upon India and need careful assessment.

Nearer home, too, there could be significant consequences of this latest evolution of the ‘Look East’ policy.

While India-ASEAN ties are moving ahead, no comparable movement is to be seen in the affairs of SAARC. Tedious and unproductive negotiations on trade matters continue, and if there has been progress in South Asia ~ like the India-Sri Lanka FTA ~ it has taken place outside the confining limits of the regional organisation.

The future relevance of SAARC to India in trade and economic matters may well be overshadowed by the much freer exchange being developed with ASEAN.

So there could be a risk of South Asia’s regional body becoming no more than a husk, retaining the accoutrements of a major organisation but little of the substance.

Its members need to see what they can do to lift SAARC out of the trough where it has fallen.

Bigger issues

As its international role enlarges, India can ill afford to be enmeshed in parochial controversy which diverts attention from bigger issues.

For much the same reason, nearly three decades ago when China embarked on its dizzy upward course it decided it must put to rest the many territorial and other disputes that complicated its relations with practically all its neighbours, and it moved rapidly in that direction.

A determined effort on india’s part to rise above the regional problems that have held it back would be no less desirable.

A couple of years ago, we were close to making a real advance in our dealings with Pakistan but for reasons that are not quite clear, we failed to get there. Yet the chance will surely come again and must be taken, for it is part of our emergence into a bigger league of international entities.

These are only some of the many issues that demand attention and require to be fitted into a coherent framework. It is a demanding task simultaneously to develop strategies for issues like the assured supply of natural resources, or combating terrorist threats, or defence strategies for the neighbouring lands and seas, and others besides.

There is no shortage of fresh challenges as the country continues to grow and expand, and to meet them effectively requires continuous re-assessment and re-ordering of current practices and priorities.

One single issue, however important, should not dominate our concerns, otherwise we may find ourselves coming up short in many other matters that equally affect our essential interests.

The writer is India’s former Foreign Secretary