Indias Neighbourly Relations

INDIA’S NEIGHBOURLY RELATIONS

1. India is strategically situated in the Asian sub-continent. It has been trying to build good friendly relations with its neighbours. Sri Lanka and India were traditional friends, but ethnic clashes between the Tamils and the Sinhalese embittered our relations. Relations with Pakistan have remained strained. That country has been abetting violence in the Kashmir region. Bangladesh was created after India defeated Pakistan in the 1971 war. The sharing of the Ganga waters has been a point of discord between Bangladesh and India. The policy of Panchsheel was shattered when China invaded India in 1962. Areas belonging to India have been seized by China. China has been aiding Pakistan in its nuclear programme. Nepal and Bhutan have maintained good ties with India, though there were occasional misunderstandings. SAARC has been established to promote cooperation among the member-countries.

2. Since independence India has been trying to build good relations with its neighbouring countries. Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru advocated the policies of non-alignment and world peace. He worked towards making the world free from nuclear warheads. India’s foreign policy has been formulated to promote cooperation, international peace, support for freedom and opposition to apartheid and non-alignment with any nuclear power. Towards this endeavour, India has worked to build good friendly relations with its neighbours. Over the years, however, relations with some of the neighbours have become strained. The country lost all the national leaders, who were replaced by incorrigible politicians. Corruption ruled over public life and they did not make any concerted effort towards building bridges of friendship. The result is that the image of India in the international forum has been maligned to an immeasurable extent. The foreign policy of India has got reduced to holding festivals only in other countries in an attempt to save its face.

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SRI LANKA
3. Sri Lanka and India, for several years, remained traditional friends. With a large number of Tamils of Indian origin in Sri Lanka, the traditions of both the countries co-existed in perfect harmony. It was ironical that the country was later ripped apart by the ethnic clashes between the Tamilians and the Sinhalese. The activities of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka embittered the relations between the two countries. In an attempt to save themselves, many Tamilians migrated to India. India was suspected of sending trained militants to promote violence in the island nation. At the request of the Sri Lankan govt India sent the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to Sri Lanka. It resulted in an expenditure of Rs 1 crore daily from the national exchequer for two years and the country paid with the lives of more than a thousand soldiers. However, the Indian attempt to restore normalcy was a failure and was described as the “biggest foreign policy blunder since independence.” The relations between the two countries received a jolt when former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by an LTTE suicide bomber. Relations have, since then, improved. The relations received a fillip, when Sri Lankan President, Chandrika Kumaratunga visited India in Dec 1998. It strengthened the economic ties between the two countries and promoted regional economic co-operation in South Asia. India specified that it will play no part in resolving the ethnic crisis in that country.

PAKISTAN
4. The divide and rule policy of the British resulted in the partition of the country into India and Pakistan in 1947. Relations between the two countries have remained strained ever since. The same year, Pakistan attacked Kashmir and captured parts of the area. The Ceasefire Agreement which was reached through the mediation of the United Nations established the ceasefire Line. In 1965 and later in 1971, Pakistan attacked India but on both the occasions, it was defeated. The territorial gains made in gains made in these wars were bartered for empty promises of establishing peace and tranquility in the region, at the Tashkent Summit and by the Shimla Agreement. The Shimla Agreement bound the two countries not to resort to force for the settlement of the Kashmir dispute and termed the ceasefire line as the Line of Control (Loc).
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Distrust among the two countries persisted because Pakistan continued to amass weapons of mass destruction and nuclear warheads in its arsenal. Simultaneously, it sent armed militants to Punjab and Kashmir for abetting violence. The 76 km stretch of the Siachen glacier has also remained a subject of dispute between the two countries. Talks pursued by successive Prime Ministers which till date have yielded no result. The two countries gained the reputation of being nuclear power heads which has further aggravated the situation in the sub-continent. The bus diplomacy, undertaken by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, proved a failure because military skirmishes in the Siachen region and in some parts along the LoC increased. A big blow was received by India when Pakistan sent armed infiltrators across the LoC in Kargil, while the country was basking in the glory of the supposedly successful peace talks. Our Prime Ministers, from Pt. Nehru to Mr. Vajpayee lacked foresight and remained gullible. They trusted the double stand of Pakistan, which declared its good intentions towards resolving the issue and simultaneously waged clandestine wars. Kargil has exposed the short-sightedness and a lack of strategic vision of India towards its defence.

BANGLADESH
5. Bangladesh was created in Dec 1971 after Pakistan was defeated in its war with India. Lack of political grit has caused the relations between the two countries to deteriorate. The sharing of the Ganga waters has remained one of the core issues of conflict between the two countries. The commissioning of the Farakka Barrage in 1975 reduced the flow of the waters of the Ganga into Bangladesh considerably. According to the Indian silt deposition at the Calcutta port. Bangladesh took the issue to the United Nations General Assembly but an amicable agreement could not be reached. The influx of the Chakma refugees from Bangladesh has posed a threat to the inhabitants of the north east India. To check the influx, India decided to fence off the entire Bangladesh-Assam border which was opposed by Bangladesh. In an attempt to resolve the crisis, caused by the Farakka barrage, an agreement on water sharing was signed by the Prime Ministers of the two countries in December 1996.

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CHINA
6. Panchsheel or the five principles of peaceful co-existence, formulated by Pt.Nehru, were shattered during his lifetime when China invaded India in 1962. India was not prepared for a war and the obsolete weaponry could not defend India’s frontiers. China seized over 38,000 sq. km of Indian Territory and occupied it illegally. Kashmir has remained the core issue of misunderstanding between the two countries. 4,000 sq km of land, located to the west of the Karakoram Pass was illegally ceded to China by Pakistan. According to the US intelligence reports, China has been aiding Pakistan in developing its nuclear arsenal, after India’s first nuclear explosion in 1974. China has been promoting a sense of insecurity in the region by indulging in nuclear proliferation. In 1988, the visit of late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to China was seen as a breakthrough in normalizing the Sino-Indian relations. But China continued to help Pakistan in developing its nuclear programme. China also helped Pakistan in developing the Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) named Ghauri. In1998, when India conducted a series of nuclear explosions, Chinese criticism was blatant. The tests were conducted in the interest of the country’s defence. China already had nuclear stockpile and provided military assistance to Pakistan. Beijing was “infuriated” on India’s justification of the tests. Kargil has exposed the fact that our borders are badly manned. Rajiv Gandhi wanted the Indian troops to be withdrawn from the Siachen region, which if unfortunately had been carried out, would have let the region fall on to Sino-Pak hands. India has always maintained a diplomatic attitude towards its neighbours, which has made it prone to direct or indirect war at the borders. Restraint, shown by India, has made it the butt of other nations’ ridicule. For strengthening trade and cultural ties with China India has meekly accepted Chinese occupation of Indian Territory.

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NEPAL & BHUTAN
7. Nepal and Bhutan have had close cultural ties with India. India has helped both the countries in their development projects in the field of industry, telecommunications and education. The cross-border activities of smuggling of drugs and valuable have been a grave concern for both the countries and India. In 1990, a unified trade and transit treaty was signed to normalize relations between India and Nepal. In 1995, the two governments formulated a number of measures intended to improve bilateral cooperation, trade and water resource development.

8. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) has its inception in December 1985 for promoting technical, cultural and economic cooperation in South Asia. Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee’s bus trip to Lahore was seen as the ushering in of a new era in Indo-Pak relations. Though, the illusion was short-lived, the Secretaries and Ministers of the seven member countries of the SAARC felt that the entire threat in South Asia would be restored to tranquility. They met at the Sri Lankan hill station of Nuwara Eliya in Mar 1999 and discussed a wide range of topics like realizing the South Asian Free Trade Agreement or SAFTA. The members lauded the diplomatic efforts of India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir issue through bilateral talks. The SAARC meeting at Nuwara Eliya reiterated the need for a free trade area in the region. It is intended that by the year 2020, the SAARC countries would form a single economic union. The trade treaty between India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka is supposed to be implemented by 2008 while the other four countries would follow suit by 2010. SAFTA would promote the needs of the least developed nations. An attempt to improve ties among our neighbours has been undertaken. Along with maintaining good relations with our neighbours, India should also upgrade its arsenal and intelligence. India can not afford to be a loser every time.