A Storm Brewing?

Political trouble and instability continue to brew on all sides of the Indian border. The latest news of turmoil comes from Pakistan and Bangladesh, after Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Nepal and Burma have all been subject to domestic, often war-like conflicts and clashes in the last few years.

Terrorists struck at a symbol close to the heart of any person in the sub-continent in Lahore earlier this week. Meanwhile, Bangladesh had already been reeling from a rebellion of the Bangladesh Rifles who protect and guard the country's borders. Their attempted mutiny left not just the populous country vulnerable, it also left one side of the border with India unsecured and insufficiently unmanned. In the duration of a week, India has received multiple warnings of the fragile political nature of states on its periphery. And in the duration of that very week, the lack of deliberation regarding India's role in the sub-continent or its foreign policy in general has been exposed.

When civil war engulfed Sri Lanka, freedom was curbed in Burma or Maobadis took over power in Nepal, what was India's collective response? A series of extremely delayed gestures of concern, which by their timing immediately put the many smaller, less powerful states around India on the front foot and severely undermining its geographic and economic might.

The Ministry of External Affairs (at whose helm is a gentleman who wears many a hat for the current administration, thus displaying his amazing multi-tasking abilities at running the country), the Opposition and not even the group that calls itself the country's watch dog - the media, seem to miss a coherent, practical, evolutionary foreign policy agenda. Nuclear deal done, a deep slumber seems to have set in. Meanwhile, India's neighborhood continues to burn.

What we need to fear is not perhaps a full blown armed conflict in the short run. Our neighbours are too weak to unleash that. The real threat is the ability of disruptive forces in the region to destabilize India's domestic security and society. Refugees entering India from porous borders along Nepal and Bangladesh add not just another mouth to feed but another person to protect, another child to put in to school and another job to create in a country with an already dismal Human Development Index count. The spillover effect of human rights abuses on Tamils in Sri Lanka has caused a furore in the southern state of Tamil Nadu and threatens to hold captive political alliances and negotiations in India's upcoming general elections. All of these will add up to make India a state bleeding at too many points to remain focused on its own development.

The External Affairs Ministry along with the elite Indian Foreign Services needs to sit down and chart out an agenda for India's role in South Asia at the earliest. Individual Prime Ministers have dealt with our neighbours as per their political exigencies. If India truly aspires to be a superpower, it must start gaining some respect and clout in its own backyard before trying to make its mark on global affairs. Otherwise, the storm brewing will creep closer and closer to India's borders and make us take two steps backward for each foot forward.