India’s Neighbourhood Policy - Modi’s BIMSTEC Rationale to Replace SAARC
By Didhiti Ghosh, Bureau Chief (Kolkata), IOP
Kolkata, June 16, 2019: Given the India-Pakistan bitter relations, India has been trying to isolate Pakistan not only at the world stage but also distancing itself from making any regional proximity with the latter. Even, in his recent swearing-in ceremony for commencing the second term as Indian Prime Minister, Modi had not invited Pakistan. Rather, he invited all the BIMSTEC countries as an indication of posing it as a substitute for the SAARC organization. Speculations are emerging about how India’s neighbourhood policy is going to have the effect of the Modi charisma and how it will serve as a better option than that of SAARC.
In a report published by Eurasia Review, Prof Sandeep Singh notes that in his first swearing-in ceremony with a thumping majority in 16th Lok Sabha elections (2014), Prime Minister Narendra Modi had invited all the SAARC leaders giving “Neighbourhood First” policy a top priority. With SAARC turning dysfunctional to regional connectivity and taking the Pakistan factor on a critical note, Modi moved to the BIMSTEC groupings when he invited all its members in the BRICS Summit (October 2016) at Goa. Again, the second Modi government had invited all the BIMSTEC leaders on 30th May 2019, the day of oath-taking. It clearly indicated that the Modi government’s foreign policy is likely to redefine its neighbourhood.
The BIMSTEC is commonly known as Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation which includes five SAARC members—Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan along with Myanmar and Thailand.
However, since 2011 particularly with the coming of the PM Narendra Modi regime (2014) in power, India has witnessed a dramatic change in its neighbourhood policy. An analysis by Sandeep Singh, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, School of Humanities and Physical Education at CT University, Ludhiana, notes the intensity of the situation.
India’s Neighbourhood Policy
In the words of Prof Singh, regional politics has become a buzzword in the current international settings as every country is trying to seek good neighbourly relations with its bordered/adjacent country. In the era of the Asian century, China and India, the two big Asian powers, have been striving for securing strategic/diplomatic relations with their neighbours hailing new economic designs and developing new economic blocs. The role of neighbours has always been a determining factor in India’s foreign policy as it is well said—“Better is a neighbour who is near than a brother far away.” However, a bad neighbour, on the other hand, is a misfortune.
India also has developed a SAARC-like regional bloc to bring economic prosperity in the region. But it could not succeed due to the Pakistan puzzle—an arch-rival neighbour of India. Therefore, the Modi Government has decided to close the SAARC chapter.
Prime Minister Modi’s charismatic personality and diplomatic moves have revived the regional structuralism which has become a backbone of India’s foreign policy. Given its geopolitical position and the large size of the population in Asia, its economic development programmes have not been limited to its immediate neighbourhood consisting South Asia, rather has been stretched out to include the extended neighbourhood from Central Asia and West Asia to East Asia. Since independence, India has been striving for developing regional structures and SAARC is the first example as such which came into existence in 1985.
China’s growing and assertive influence on India’s immediate neighbourhood and New Delhi’s growing energy and security requirements compelled the Modi government to take crucial decisions in the backdrop of regional integration, peace and economic cooperation. Thus, the “Neighbourhood First” policy has become a cornerstone of Modi’s diplomatic and strategic approach, notes the report.
Redefining India’s Neighbourhood Policy: SAARC Averse
Since the Modi government’s coming into power, India’s regional policy has undergone dramatic twists in its traditional diplomatic stress on the “Neighbourhood First” agenda. Many incidents of unintelligible diplomacy and growing tensions between neighbours have plagued SAARC with internal problems and bilateral issues. The structural failures of SAARC have made South Asia a less connected region, notes Singh.
Apart from the above, terrorist activities on the part of Pakistan providing safe havens to militant groups have remained a stumbling block for Indo-Pak peaceful dialogue. The terrorist attack on the Indian Territory of Uri—an Army Brigade headquarters resulted in the cancellation of the 2016-SAARC Summit in Islamabad by the Indian government. It was backed by all the SAARC members. Since then, no movement has been observed on resuming the next SAARC Summit.
Moreover, Pakistan’s counter-India alliance with China to outmanoeuvre New Delhi has caused China’s geo-economic and geopolitical installations in the region.
Additionally, other South Asian nations along with Pakistan have started raising the demand for China’s inclusion in the SAARC framework. However, it is argued that the dysfunctionality of the SAARC groupings in terms of mutual rivalries slow down their intra-regional geopolitical and economic coherence.
Apart from this, the SAARC organization has experienced a controversial legacy over time. This has been one of the main reasons that India failed to define its demarcation of boundaries with neighbouring countries. India’s big land size and “Big Brother” status has remained susceptible for South Asian neighbours. With her aspiration to seek a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, India has been characterized as Asian power and economics leader since the introduction of national economic reforms.
India’s neighbours have always remained sensitive to Indian foreign policies vis-à-vis SAARC grouping. Consequently, they have started stepping towards developing sub-regional establishments such as the South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation (SASEC), Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), Mekong–Ganga Cooperation (MGC), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BIMSTEC, apart from others. Meanwhile, Pakistan has moved towards West Asia.
The SAARC Motor Vehicle Agreement (MVA) could not reach its conclusion because of being opposed by Pakistan. Consequently, India moved forward to the Bhutan-Bangladesh-India-Nepal (BBIN) Agreement in 2015. The South Asian nations including India have also started developing synergies between several interrelated bilateral and multilateral economic integration initiatives. These factors also caused to keep intra-regional trade and transit activities at the lowest ebb and led the Modi government to redefine India’s foreign policy towards South Asian neighbours which shifted the emphasis from SAARC to BIMSTEC to put South Asia integration on the track.
Furthermore, the report notes that new India’s neighbourhood policy also reads like extra-regional affairs when it became a permanent member of the SCO. It is implied that to enhance its outreach to the extended neighbourhood, India needs direct route-connectivity and Pakistan remained a hurdle to India’s connectivity projects such as TAPI, IPI, APTTA, South Asia Satellite and other energy projects.
The same has also impacted SAARC’s functionality. Pakistan, by refusing India to give the status of “Most Favoured Nation” resisted the idea of the South Asia Free Trade Area (SAFTA) Agreement. This rage reached its climax when India pulled out the MFN status from Pakistan after the Pulwama attack this year. Therefore, it appears understandable in the context of other regional groupings such as BIMSTEC and ASEAN-Regional Comprehensive Partnership (RCEP) with which India is trying to develop multilateral cooperation. These groupings can have also similar bottlenecks when it comes to the question of Indian investments and financial potentials of neighbouring countries.