India needs to come out of shell

[1]

By Satish Kumar [2]

Rs 995

The focus of Indian strategic experts and commentators is usually on the country’s immediate neighbourhood, especially on Pakistan and China. That there is a larger world and equally critical geopolitical equations that lie beyond India’s periphery tend to be underplayed and occupy much less talk time.

It is, therefore, refreshing to find that Prof. Satish Kumar’s latest (year 2011) national security review, despite retaining a South Asian focus, does attempt to look further afield at issues that have a direct bearing on India’s fortunes.
India’s relative power, both economic and military, has been steadily rising despite periodic hiccups and domestic despondency.
This inevitably thrusts it into a position of greater responsibility in Asia and to some extent in the global arena. Yet within India this realisation has been slow to dawn.
“Surprisingly, while there is much commentary about India’s trajectory towards becoming a regional if not a global power, there is little focus in India itself whether India’s priorities will or should change and how it will exercise such power as it develops to meet the challenges of global governance”, points out former diplomat Arundhati Ghosh in her paper on “Emerging India and Global Governance”.
Of particular interest are papers on India’s relations with Africa and the United States as well as essays on West Asia, cyber warfare, energy security, self-reliance in high-technology and defence modernisation.
Most of these papers are written by experts who have long dabbled in the issues concerned such as Anil Kakodkar, S. Nihal Singh, Rahul Bedi, Jaithirth Rao and others.
Among the papers definitely worth a read is one on India’s engagement with the enlarged Asean. It is well known that despite the enormous importance of eastern Asia to India’s long-term fortunes, New Delhi has been somewhat tardy in ramping up relations with Asean, the most important Asian organisation today.
One comment on Indo-Asean relations quoted in the paper echoes a common complaint: “As the world’s largest democracy, India needs to come out of its shell. Asean-India ties have moved in a snail-paced manner. In comparison, the China-Asean relations have grown in leaps and bounds.”
Baladas Ghoshal, the author of this paper, however, suggests that India might just get to play a more significant role in Asean in the years to come largely because of the consternation caused by China’s increasing assertiveness, especially in the South China Sea.
Ghoshal observes a significant shift in the geopolitics of eastern Asia now that the United States has made it clear that it will make a comeback in Asia and will not allow China an unfettered run in the region.
The new emerging strategic doctrine of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region conforms to India’s own ideas.
Ghoshal also points to India’s rising military role in the region. Apart from the stalled so-called Quadrilateral Initiative involving India, Japan, Singapore and Australia, India is today helping Vietnam’s Navy, and developing military co-operation with Indonesia and Malaysia. Clearly, Asean is destined to become more important for India in the years to come and much more research and debate needs to be carried out in this area.
Another interesting exercise included in this year’s review is an assessment of the state of India’s relations with key countries and the potential of each of these relationships.
Prof. Kumar, along with a team of strategic and economic experts, has evaluated the past, present and future of our relations with six key countries: the United States, Russia, France, the UK, Germany and Japan. India’s political, defence and economic cooperation with each of these countries have been studied.
The analysis concludes that Russia remains India’s foremost strategic partner followed by the US. Not only does Russia remain India’s topmost source of armament but it is also our foremost political supporter at the international level. The authors of this study observe that the US’ “strategic partnership usually acquires a higher profile because of its image as a global superpower. But the US has been very lackadaisical in providing political and diplomatic support to India on vital issues. Even its defence cooperation with India has been subject to lots of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’”.
France is third on the list while the UK, Germany and Japan are at the bottom.
The potential of better relations with Japan and Germany are high as economic and perhaps defence cooperation has reached a takeoff point. The conclusions are not startling but serve to explain much about our foreign relations.
As India’s geopolitical importance grows, the imperative to study and monitor salient events within the country and in its periphery grows more pressing.
Prof. Satish Kumar’s continuing efforts to record events and trends relevant to national security cannot but become integral to the larger need to elevate awareness of strategic issues and grow a culture that is quick to take stock of the dangers and opportunities around us.