Pakistan - vindication of India's strategic posture

For long, India's strategic posture towards Pakistan has been described variously as pusilanimous, unimaginative, "soft" - generally, effete. As the Pakistani nation state comes to a pass that uncannily represents MJ Akbar's delightful descriotion of "jelly state", that strategy needs to be evaluated in a newer, better light.

In short, what has been India's own strategic objectives vis a vis Pak? Maintenance of status quo on geography, maintenance of relative "peace" (in terms of no overt hostilities) and minimising cross border terror emanating from there. Measured against each of these objectives, India's stance has paid off big time.

1. Not only has there been absolutely no change in the ground scenario on the geogrophical issue of Kashmir, the level of world support for the "cause" is at its lowest in history. Not even an intifada style uprising last year, or the foolish Ekta Yatra related shenanigans this year could change this reality. The matter has simply vanished from the global political radar, and Pakistan too has been left to make only sporadic belaboured noises.

2. India's military postures, by design or by default (likely to be a combination of both) since Op Parakram has meant that Indo-Pak flashpoint hasnt hobbled investor interest in India. There are lots of other issues with the development paradigm today, but hostilities with Pakistan isnt one. That is a far cry from the '90s, when possibility of Indo-Pak war was a real and present "risk variable" in investor decision making matrices.

3. Cross border terrorism. Using data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal, casualties in India due to cross border terror attacks (in Kashmir and jihadi attacks in other parts of India) show a secular decline in the latter half of the last decade. This is including the data from the black swan Mumbai attacks in 2008. We have fresh challenges on home grown terror (especially of the Maoist kind), but a combination of border management and diplomacy (of the normal and coercive types) has meant that the capacities of the Pakistani state to indulge in cross border attacks on India have been dented. Or at least, diverted elsewhere.

As the US is finding out now, Pakistan is a strange challenge from a strategic perspective. Its an abnormal state born out of abnormal conditions, and therefore defy normal policy responses.

India has been only too aware of this. And our policy responses therefore have been trying to address the same issue. A chronically unstable Pakistan, at war with itself and therefore unable to carry out its own strategic agenda with vigour - that is the ideal state for India. Willy nilly, that is exactly what India has ended up achieving.

Mamata's Bangladesh caper

In the long run, of the many blots on the policy record of UPAII, the one that might end of leaving the deepest scars would be Manmohan Singh's botched Bangladesh visit. What could have been the take-off of a "New Deal" in India's relationship with its near abroad has been left stranded in the runway. More depressingly, the plane awaits clearance from an ATC (aka, Mamata Bannerjee) whose sense of the larger political balance would put BCCI to shame!

The template of India's new deal with Bangladesh had three broad elements:
1. A comprehensive border settlement agreement that dileneates the border and formalises it, finally.
2. A regional transit agreement giving India access to its North East via Bangladesh.
3. A new template of sharing of river waters.

While the promise of the first was kept good, the second became a casualty to Mamata's capers on the third.

The Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh has invested a great deal in the new deal with India. Not just in clamping down on the myriad North EAstern rebel groups operating out of Bangladesh, but also in terms of shifting the entire narrative of the relationship from a typical South Asian "India nasty big brother" syndrome to one of shared economic destinies, taking advantage of India's booming economy. In some ways reflecting the reality of new aspirations that is sweeping many parts of the muslim world, the Hasina government has made economic progress as the key cornerstone of the policy direction, and relationship with India is but a natural corollary.

In such a scenario, Mamata Bannerjee's spanner in the works acts as a huge setback to both Hasina as well as India's cause. It rekindles the old fears of arrogant indifference of India to the radical constituencies in Bangladesh. And prevents the big idea of regional cooperative structures to move ahead for India. Land transit through Bangladesh and access to Chittagong port for trade onwards with East Asia can change the economic destiny of India's North East. Strategically, it affords India a huge insurance against the narrow "chicken's neck" access through Siliguri today.

But for now, the template is stranded on the runway. For many years, India's Sri Lanka policy was hostage to Tamil Nadu regional politics. As a result, China and even Pakistan managed to get significant toe-holds in Sri Lanka, helping it materially in the fight against LTTE. One only wishes that India's Bangladesh policy does not fall at the altar of another mecurial regional heavyweight.

Maybe the PM needs to do more than using Shiv Menon as emissary. Pranab Mukherjee with some Dhakai sarees probably stand a better chance!