Engaging the Neighbour

Context: For India, the choice is not between intervention and non-intervention within the subcontinent.
It is about managing the dynamic interaction between the domestic politics of India and its neighbours

Arguments against interventions in the neighbourhood:

• Tension between the shared cultural identities: smaller nations in the subcontinent want to define a contemporary identity independent of India.
• Bitter legacy of partition: leave the domestic political dynamics of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan tied together and complicate their interaction as separate sovereign entities.
• Legacy of past hegemony: India’s relations with its smaller neighbours are also burdened by the legacy of India’s past hegemony and the emerging challenges to it.
• Adverse consequences include:
  • Big powers tend to underestimate the costs of intervention in their neighbourhood and overestimate the prospects for success.
  • Democracy and good governance can never be an outsider’s gifts to a nation: They must come out of the organic evolution of each society.

Arguments in favour of Interventions in the neighbourhood: As a part of International Life.

• Sovereignty as ‘organized hypocrisy’: which necessitates interventions, and it also means that the concept of national sovereignty was never absolute.
  • The ability to secure one’s sovereignty depends on a state’s comprehensive national power.
• Preventing interventions invites interventions by others: E.g.
  • While Nepal has long resented India’s interventions and saw China as a benign neighbour, but has soon realized its imperatives for interventions.
• Pressure for intervention comes from within: E.g. the conflict between Sinhala majority and Tamil minority in Sri Lanka produces Chennai’s political pressure on India to intervene in Sri Lanka.
• Interventions may come from outside: E.g. In Nepal, elite competition sees different factions trying to mobilize external powers to gain the advantage over their domestic rivals.
• Due to the political geography of South Asia: Only very few problems can be isolated within the territories of nations. 

Way Forward: The question is not about choosing between intervention and non-intervention. It is about carefully managing the interaction between domestic politics and neighbours.

• Intervention should be based on political judgement: about specific situations.
• Intervention shall be an exception: rather than the rule in India’s regional diplomacy.
• Use soft power tactics: E.g. encourages (rather than force) Sri Lanka and Nepal to respect the rights of Tamils and Madhesis. 
• Principles guiding India’s engagement shall be based on the twin realities:

1. 1. Subcontinent is an integrated geopolitical space with a shared civilizational heritage.
   2. The reality of multiple contemporary sovereignties within South Asia. 

Conclusion: In sum, India’s relation with neighbours shall be on the basis of mutual trust, mutual interest, mutual respect and mutual sensitivity.