Burying the Indira doctrine

By C. Raja Mohan

AS IT draws closer to the United States, India must prepare to deal with the inevitable political consequences in the Subcontinent of its romance with America. India's smaller neighbours are likely to grow increasingly uneasy that the new Indo-U.S. bonhomie might just overwhelm them. For decades now, the deep distrust between New Delhi and Washington had seemed to be an immutable feature of strategic life in the Subcontinent. The political wariness between New Delhi and Washington was quite welcome among India's neighbours. The U.S. was perceived in most other capitals in the Subcontinent as a useful counterweight to the perceived temptations in New Delhi to exercise hegemony over the region.

India, of course, had proclaimed that U.S. meddling in its backyard was unacceptable. Although it could not really stop Washington from doing so, New Delhi did its level best to limit American influence in the Subcontinent. It was called the Indira doctrine after Indira Gandhi, who as Prime Minister aligned India with the Soviet Union and sought to keep U.S. and China out of the region.

The smaller nations of the Subcontinent were quite happy to have, shall we say, the local hegemon squabbling with the global hegemon. From their perspective nothing could be better for a power balance in the region. But now they cannot but be apprehensive about the incipient rapprochement between New Delhi and Washington. They fear that the warming Indo-U.S. ties may severely constrain the political space for the smaller countries in South Asia.

Instead of ignoring these fears as irrational, the Indian security establishment must find ways to allay them. In any case, India's neighbours, and Pakistan certainly, will urge Washington not to get too close to India and undermine what they see as the traditional regional balance. And the argument may find an echo in some quarters in Washington. India must assess the possible political responses in the Subcontinent to the new warmth between New Delhi and Washington, as well as devise a range of policies that will reduce apprehensions in its neighbourhood that there might be less of a check on India's hegemonic aspirations in the region following an Indo-U.S. rapprochement.

One likely response from our neighbours would be to deepen strategic engagement with China. At a time when Sino-U.S. tensions are on the rise and Indo-U.S. relations are on the mend, turning to China seems an obvious geopolitical response. Some commentators in Pakistan have already hinted at this during the recent visit of the Chinese Premier, Mr. Zhu Rongji to Islamabad. But the speculation of a prospective polarisation in the region with India and the U.S. on one side and China on the other, does not stand close scrutiny. No one in the region, not even India or Pakistan, has either the luxury or desire to choose between the U.S. and China.

India's own strategy is to simultaneously improve its relations with both Washington and Beijing. This is not necessarily an impossible task. At the end of the Cold War, India's relations with the U.S. and China were way below potential and the scope for improvement with both remains enormous. Much as India would think twice before joining a U.S.-led containment ring against China, Beijing too would be loath to designate India as an adversary and attempt to build a South Asian coalition against New Delhi. As two large neighbours with a deep historical burden of mistrust, it makes sense for India and China to insulate their bilateral relationship from the larger global power play, and focus on solving their many bilateral problems.

Pakistan has even less of an option of choosing between Beijing and Washington, two of its long-standing political partners. Although China will always be held up in Pakistan as an all- weather friend, the establishment in Islamabad knows the enduring importance of at least a working relationship with the U.S. India's other neighbours too will value their ties to Beijing; but they cannot and will not try and distance themselves from the U.S.

Sensible Indian diplomacy in the region could easily reassure China, Pakistan and the smaller neighbours in the Subcontinent that the aim of its new partnership with the U.S. is not to seek hegemony but to promote regional stability and prosperity. What would be the elements of such a regional policy?

First, an emphasis on the primacy of rapid economic development through regional integration. In the past, the autarchic economic policies of all the South Asian nations limited the potential for regional integration. But now as they cope with the pressures to globalise, there is a sense of urgency everywhere in the region, expect perhaps in Pakistan, on the importance of working with the integrative forces.

Second, India needs to shed much of its own past paranoia about U.S. policy in the Subcontinent. An India that is building a new cooperative relationship with the U.S. should be less prone to constantly looking over its shoulder about the activities of other major powers. In short, the time has come for India to give a decent burial to the Indira doctrine and take the initiative to work with the forces of globalisation and the U.S. to promote regional economic integration.

Third, while India will continue to have differences with China over many political and strategic issues, they can work together to promote regional economic cooperation within and across the Subcontinent. Instead of dragging its feet on the Kunming initiative, in which China has called for regional cooperation among the Yunan province in South Western China, India's northeast, Bangladesh and Myanmar, New Delhi should join Beijing in promoting economic integration across the India, China and South East Asia. Unlike the paranoic Indira doctrine, a politically confident and globalising India can move forward on the premise that both the U.S. and China could be partners in creating a single integrated market for the Subcontinent. The smaller nations of the Subcontinent, except Pakistan, are already crying out for one to improve their own economic prospects.

Fourth, India needs to modernise its political relations with the smaller neighbours to dispel the deep anxieties about Indian hegemony. And in the new scheme of things there can be no place for such instruments as the obsolete Indo-Nepal treaty, which the other side feels is unequal. India should take the lead to scrap the treaty with Nepal as well as find ways to resolve the long- standing boundary dispute with Bangladesh.

Fifth, India should shed the Indira doctrine's obsession with bilateralism and reciprocity in solving problems with its neighbours. Instead, at least with neighbours other than Pakistan, India can openly pursue a strategy of positive unilateralism in which New Delhi takes the lead and goes more than half way in trying to find solutions to long- standing problems. This was initiated by Mr. Inder Kumar Gujral as Prime Minister, but needs a fresh political impetus now.

Finally to reduce misperceptions about an incipient alliance between India and the U.S., the two nations need to proclaim a set of common political objectives and work to realise them in an open and transparent way. At the top of a common Indo-U.S. political agenda in the region will be the mutual commitment to oppose the forces of extremism and terrorism and support those in favour of political moderation, social modernisation and economic prosperity. This converging of viewpoints was already visible in their approaches to the conflicts in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

In building a new partnership in the region, India and the U.S. have no reason to look for any particular set of adversaries. Once they identify and pursue a widely acceptable agenda for political and economic action in the Subcontinent, the enemies will present themselves.

India's smaller neighbours are likely to grow increasingly uneasy that the new bonhomie with the U.S. might just overwhelm them... The Indian security establishment must find ways to overcome these fears.

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