By Prashant Jha
Jan 09, 2024
The new handbook involves shaping democratic verdicts when possible, including by turning a blind eye to democratic deficits if core interests are at stake
Three recent events offer a striking glimpse into India’s complex neighbourhood strategy. The core of this strategy — call it Plan A — rests on having a friendly regime in power in the vicinity, shaping politics in subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle, ways to influence a favourable outcome, and using this proximity to address security concerns, including limiting China’s ingress, and deepen economic, connectivity, commercial and people-to-people linkages.
Recent events in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Maldives, in different ways, represent an unstated strategy in action. (HT PHOTO)
If, largely due to domestic considerations and the rise of nationalism that often assumes an anti-Delhi tone, or Beijing’s direct intervention, an elected regime in the region adopts either a not-so-friendly or even a hostile attitude to India, Plan B rests on maintaining a working relationship with whatever regime is in power, incentivising the regime with the lure of cooperation, showing very clearly the power of the Indian market and economic costs for that country if political or security redlines are crossed, and waiting for the opportune time to nudge domestic political processes in a more friendly direction.
Both in Dhaka and Kathmandu, Delhi has official interlocutors it is relatively comfortable with. But this did not happen purely on its own. Sheikh Hasina has been in power for 15 years and this weekend, she was elected as prime minister for the fourth consecutive term with Awami League getting a comfortable majority. The election was controversial, primarily because Hasina launched a fierce crackdown on the opposition, refused to entertain any compromise on governing arrangements during elections, and the main opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), chose not to participate in the polls.
Concerns over democratic backsliding in Dhaka had reached a crescendo in western capitals, particularly Washington DC; segments of the substantial Bangladeshi diaspora in these countries lobbied hard with governments to crack down on Hasina; and the entire international human rights machinery hoped to avoid a repeat of the last two polls when Hasina, with Indian support, scored comfortable electoral wins.
Indeed, there was a minority counter-view even in Delhi which pointed to the perils of Awami’s approach, how it had enabled China’s growing ingress in Bangladesh and done quiet deals with Islamists, the need to review Delhi’s view on BNP, which, faced with an existential crisis, was willing to be more open that it had in the past in listening to India’s concerns, and the dangers of choking off democratic channels of dissent.
But Delhi stuck to its old calculus given the political comfort levels with Hasina. She may not be ideal but she was by far the better democratic option in Bangladeshi politics given that the alternative was Khaleda Zia’s outfit which had, in the Indian assessment, clearer and deeper political links with Islamist outfits and would be equally, if not more, authoritarian as it had been in its past stints.
As one official explained, “If Hasina fell, it means BNP was back. If BNP was back, it meant Jamaat was back. If Jamaat was back, it meant ISI was back. If ISI was back, it meant China’s security presence was even more intense. And if Dhaka had a government that was internally reliant on Islamists and externally reliant on Pakistan, it meant that our Northeast was even more fragile. It is a no-brainer that we would support Awami.”
Doing this however, meant keeping differences with the US manageable. India sought to persuade the US of its point of view — and it did find a sympathetic audience in parts of the administration, especially in the security corridor, that could see that fighting about Bangladesh wasn’t worth harming the relationship with India and there were perils of an extremist regime.
Delhi also facilitated conversations between Hasina and Joe Biden at G20 and it was perhaps due to India’s position that NSA Jake Sullivan met Hasina in Washington DC last year. But the State Department, the US embassy in Dhaka, the BNP-linked diaspora, and human rights groups kept up the pressure, with the US conveying to India its concerns about Hasina’s track record and the dangers of an election without credibility.
Hasina’s electoral win will come with questions of legitimacy, especially in the absence of a robust political battle, low voter turnout, and concerns over the lack of a level playing field. Governing, keeping her party together, channeling discontent that exists within Bangladeshi society through democratic channels, and maintaining the fine balance between Delhi and Beijing while improving ties with the West will be challenging. And make no mistake: Hasina’s political calculus is primarily domestic and her win is due to her domestic machinations.
But India has got its way too for now, and will be a prime beneficiary of the mandate in Dhaka. It will bank on Hasina to continue with her security approach that doesn’t allow anti-India groups to flourish on Bangladeshi soil and her economic approach that revives the lost chains of connectivity between regions where there must be smoother cross-border movement of goods, services, and people through legitimate channels. And both Hasina and Delhi will bank on the West eventually coming around despite token statements.
Now turn to Nepal where external affairs minister S Jaishankar made his first trip of 2024. It was a success on the bilateral front, with agreements and operationalisation of agreements on hydropower cooperation, connectivity, Indian assistance projects, and more.
But this too did not happen on its own. Just go back a year and the late 2022 elections had resulted in a coalition government between two communist formations led by Maoist leader Prachanda and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist or UML) leader K P Oli, who, during his recent terms in office, adopted a distinctly pro-China policy approach and encouraged the anti-Indian nationalism that is often the dominant strain of Nepal’s hill politics.
But Prachanda only went with Oli because his pre-poll partner, the Nepali Congress (NC)’s Sher Bahadur Deuba, backtracked on a promise to make him PM. Within a month, primarily because he felt more comfortable with the NC, but also because of a nudge from India and the US, Prachanda got back together with Deuba. The power structure now looked different. A veteran Congress politician, Ram Chandra Poudel, became the President, a ceremonial position in principle that has operational political power in practice. Prachanda, Deuba, and a third communist leader, Madhav Nepal, struck a power-sharing arrangement for the next five years to keep Oli out.
And unlike in Dhaka where both were at loggerheads, both Delhi and Washington DC worked together to support the new arrangement in Nepal which promised a balanced approach to ties with China and internal democratic checks and balances.
Just like in Dhaka, those who lost out, primarily Oli and his acolytes in civil society, decided to adopt an even more stringent anti-Indian posture. But the state-to-state relationship with Kathmandu has not just steadied but deepened on the three parameters that matter to India — security, connectivity, and economics — even as issues that haunt the relationship — particularly due to Nepal’s decision to unilaterally change its map and claim territory India controls and considers its own — are kept in cold storage for now.
Plan B: Working relationships with difficult regimes
India has been through a learning curve over the past decade as a result of three fundamental changes in neighbouring countries. One, there is a domestic surge in nationalism in these countries just like there is in India — and if Indian nationalism is based on enemies within and outside, the nationalists in smaller countries thrive on manufacturing the image of India as the enemy or the adversary whose influence has to be curtailed.
Two, there is the proliferation of social media and the rise of a younger generation that doesn’t share the same historical and political links with the Indian leadership and Indian society. This has resulted in the public sphere in these countries immediately articulating real and often perceived grievances with India and making it a political issue. The third and most critical change is China’s willingness and enhanced abilities in shaping the politics of these countries to turn it away from India.
When these trends first became visible, Delhi’s default response was to punish the political regimes that were internally ultra-nationalistic and externally pro-China. But this strategy had costs. India came across as unwilling to accept democratic mandates. It alienated the support base of these groups and fuelled even more ultra-nationalism of dominant groups (think Sinhala chauvinists in Sri Lanka or hill chauvinists in Nepal), and it gave China the appearance of being a benign actor.
But over the years, India has adopted a more patient approach in most cases. This rests on five pillars. Accept the democratic mandate in neighbouring capitals even if it is not to one’s liking, especially if security interests aren’t directly or immediately threatened and if the ability to shape the outcome is limited. Develop working relationships with neighbouring regimes and narrow down your core interests to specific redlines that must not be crossed. Show the benefits of cooperation and engagement. Make it clear that public hostility to India and unfriendly policies will result in denial of market access in various forms. And wait for China to fumble in messy democracies and make mistakes and become the target of nationalist outrage just as India has been for decades.
Take Maldives. In the past decade, India had to first deal with a hostile regime led by Abdulla Yameen. It was able to leverage domestic discontent and carve out an electoral coalition to replace Yameen in the last election to ensure a more friendly setup in Male. Plan A worked well with Ibraham Mohamed Solih for the last five years as he adopted an India-first policy. Here too, unlike Dhaka, India and the US were on the same page, with the Americans even deciding to open an embassy in Male.
But with the recent elections, equations changed once again with Mohamed Muizzu taking charge. He made his foreign policy orientation clear – relative distance from India, greater Islamist solidarity, more emphasis on Maldives’ political autonomy, and deeper links with China.
But Delhi didn’t react rashly. It went to its Plan B. It welcomed the election results. It kept discussions on Maldives’ push to remove Indian military personnel from the islands private recognising the local nationalism at play. On the sidelines of COP28, Modi met Muizzu. And the Indian message to Male was clear — we are not out to subvert you but don’t hurt our interests either. It did something similar with KP Oli in Nepal between 2018 and 2020 and developed a far more cordial relationship with him than is publicly known, even supporting him in internal political battles against Prachanda, before Oli pushed the issue of the disputed border onto the centre stage and local political realities in Kathmandu changed.
But in both the case of Maldives under Muizzu and Nepal in the past under Oli, India used the one big tool that makes it so attractive to neighbours, even if neighbouring political elites are loath to admit it in public and prepare their home audiences for it. And that tool is of market access. In the case of Nepal, India made it clear that it won’t buy hydropower from Chinese-built projects, it won’t give air route clearances to make Chinese-built airports viable, and it won’t encourage infrastructure projects driven by dreams of “trilateral China-Nepal-India” cooperation which are driven by Beijing’s aim of using Kathmandu to access the Indian market in the Hindi heartland.
And now, even though official Delhi was clearly adopting the strategy of patience, with the outbreak of the rather bizarre Lakshadweep vs Maldives social media battle, it does appear that Delhi is making it clear to Male that it can choose to adopt whatever foreign policy approach it wishes, but there will be costs. Crossing lines, including directly attacking Modi, will result in an environment where Indian tourists, a key source of earnings and revenues, will think hard before picking the islands of Maldives as their next holiday destination.
This strategy runs the risk of alienating public opinion in these countries further against India. But it isn’t as blunt a tool as a blockade; indeed, if that is a coercive approach, the denial of market access is a sovereign choice. And within that, there is a conscious attempt instead to ensure that, at the popular level, India doesn’t take actions that hurt citizens directly but shows to political elites that their foreign policy and internal political choices will have consequences in terms of the relationship with India and India too will have to respond to domestic public opinion – and it is up to the citizens and leaders in the neighbourhood to make informed choices accordingly.
The Modi-Ajit Doval-S Jaishankar approach to the region has delivered mixed results. It has enhanced India’s presence, improved project implementation and delivery, led to unprecedented connectivity, and created leverage for India in new ways. It has also resulted in more substantive bilateral cooperation, taking the focus away from Delhi’s role in domestic politics.
At the same time, structural changes in these states and a more difficult geopolitical environment have increased challenges, and India’s involvement in domestic politics of these countries, while both a part of a historic continuum and necessary in dealing with immediate crises, continue to lead to unintended consequences.
But the experience in Maldives, Nepal, and Bangladesh shows that India is constantly adapting. The new handbook involves shaping democratic verdicts when possible, including by turning a blind eye to democratic deficits if core interests are at stake; respecting electoral verdicts, even unfavourable ones, when necessary; working with external partners especially the US where interests converge but also adopting an independent line when interests diverge without affecting overall strategic ties with DC; influencing politics in smaller states in discreet ways that don’t inflame public opinion; building leverage through deeper economic and infra connections and keeping up channels of communication with different segments of society; and deploying a carrot and stick policy to deliver on core security and economic goals for the Indian state.