Round The World
New Delhi, 8 October
2021
India’s
Strategic Allies
TIME TO
RATIONALISE
By Dr D.K.
Giri
(Prof.
International Relations, JIMMC)
The recent trend in
international politics is to build alliances for economic progress, territorial
security and technology transfer etc. India could not beat this trend. So, New
Delhi has given up its long standing policy of non-alignment and has entered
into multi-country engagements. But the choice and nature of such engagements
have suddenly come up for scrutiny after the mild ruckus over AUKUS. It is
certainly time for New Delhi to rethink and recalibrate its alliance-building
strategy.
To start with, the
latest alliance New Delhi has joined is Quad. This quadrilateral security
partnership was perceived to be a counterweight to Chinese aggression and
expansionist tendency. But perhaps, due to India’s initial reluctance to deeply
engage until 2020 when the Chinese threat became real, Quad was not growing as
expected by others, mainly the United States. Perhaps out of exasperation the
US forged a new alliance with Australia and the United Kingdom which is now
seen as parallel to Quad.
The logic of new
alliance leaving out two of members of Quad does not make great sense. Also,
France has expressed deep dissatisfaction as Australia took a trade deal away
from Paris to Washington. So, AUKUS is based on ‘betrayal’ raising the question
of loyalty.
Talking of the
alliances India is part of, a distinct and a sound strategy is not visible.
They seem to be fortuitous. Beginning at home, the SAARC was initiated by Zia-ur-Rahman,
then President of Bangladeshin 1979, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had anticipated
the risks in group diplomacy. However, the SAARC materialised but did not move
very far. In fact, now it is in limbo because of tensions between India and
Pakistan. SAARC was a multi-lateral agency but was run bilaterally. Given its
structure, any bilateral conflict can stall SAARC proceedings as all the
members have to agree for any decision to be taken.
New Delhi, realising
the inoperability of SAARC because of Pakistan being the elephant in the room,
tried to promote other groupings as substitute to SAARC. One of these is Bay of
Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation
(BIMSTEC). This is a group of seven South Asian and South-East Asian countries
which are dependent on Bay of Bengal: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri
Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand. Pakistan is out of it. The group has been acting
sporadically without gaining much momentum.
Another group
initiated by India is Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA). This was first set
up as the Indian-Ocean Rim Initiative in 1995 in Mauritius and formally
launched in 1997 as the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation. This
group also drags on without much progress.
India has opted out
of a powerful group like Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), as
it felt apprehensive of Chinese domination in the group and of unequal terms of
trade. At the same time, two of its Quad partners, Japan and Australia, are
members of this group. Indian strategic opinion is divided on India’s
withdrawal from this group after almost 20 years of serious negotiation. Interestingly,
India is a member of BRICS and SCO.
BRICS emerged out of
an observation made by an economist of Goldman Sachs that there are
similarities among fast growing economies such as China, Russia, India and
Brazil. The same economist recommended massive western investment in these
countries. China grabbed the opportunities and formed an inter-governmental
group of these countries with South Africa added as a representative of the
African continent. This is called BRICS.
China has set up a
bank and has tried to alter the international economic system by giving credits
to its members. BRICS has in the process undermined another group which has
several common interests called IBSA – India, Brazil and South Africa. All
three countries are candidates for permanent membership of the Security Council
and have common ideas on South-South Cooperation.
The other China-led
organisation is called SCO – Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which India has
become part of. It started off as a group consisting of China and some of the
former republics of the Soviet Union. India, Pakistan and Iran joined later and
made it quite diverse and difficult to take any decision. In the recent summit
of SCO on 17 September 2021, Afghanistan was on the table for discussion, as it
was in the BRICS summit a week before. But no decision could be taken because
of divergent approaches to Afghan situation.
New Delhi’s real
dilemma is to make the choice between American-led alliances and the groups run
by Russia and China. It is more than clear that America and China are in race
for super power status where Beijing has replaced Moscow as a rival to
Washington. After the messy withdrawal of United States from Afghanistan and
formation of AUKUS thereafter, the reliability of US as a steady partner has
come to be suspected.
But that is not the
disincentive for New Delhi to go with America. Rather, New Delhi has been
caught in its traditional obsession of balancing, non-aligning and being
neutral etc. It has leaned in the past on Soviet Union for its security and has
tied up its defence technologies with Russia. New Delhi finds it difficult to
disengage. It stays in association with China like BRICS etc. to keep Beijing
in good humour.
The foregoing
strategy has obviously not worked as China is nibbling at our borders and
Russia is going with China and Pakistan. So, the growing
Moscow-Beijing-Islamabad axis is not in the interest of India. On the other
hand, New Delhi is not going whole-hog with Americans. This dithering has to be
discarded. The alliances have to be rationalised. For instance, New Delhi
cannot opt out of RCEP and continue in BRICS and SCO; the former is a broader
forum with China as a big partner whereas the latter are run by China alone. So
the logic is not convincing.
In any alliance
building, there should be shared principles and common interests. With the
United States, democracy is a shared political value and China is the common
enemy. Hence, alliance has a purpose and chances of being viable. If collective
bargaining is a function of group diplomacy, building partnerships is a prudent
strategy. But it will not stand the test of time unless it is driven by a
common cause.
On regional
integration, the European Union has shown that pooling of sovereignties under
supranational organisations yield collective benefit. Although, EU has suffered
minor setbacks over six decades of its journey, including the latest, exit of
Britain, it is by far the best example of regional unity. So there is hope in
group formation in international politics. But it has to be done sagaciously.
New Delhi must rethink sooner than later. ---INFA
(Copyright, India
News & Feature Alliance)
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