Bangladesh: Modi government’s diplomacy debacle

From Frontline (3 September, 2024)

It is time India realised the limits to its coercive diplomacy and batted for South Asian regionalism instead of Indian exceptionalism.

Into his third term as Prime Minister, Narendra Modi continues to make much of his “Neighbourhood First” policy, but India’s public is not aware that it has been a debacle. The tendency of New Delhi commentators to hew close to the line set by North Block and South Block means India’s citizens do not get a correct reading of what is happening next door, nor the repeated faux pas of their government.

The collapse of Sheikh Hasina Wajed’s regime in Dhaka was a transformative moment for Bangladesh and represented an outright collapse of India’s interventionist strategy. Rather than trying to spin the narrative about the students’ movement that ousted Hasina—labelling it pro-West, anti-Hindu, Islamist—New Delhi should introspect on how it has handled relations with Bangladesh and with the larger region. An honest review would point towards a new start in all arenas, from the stand-alone India-Pakistan relationship, the China paranoia that clouds perspectives on its smaller neighbours, and the activation of South Asian cooperation including the SAARC organisation. On the whole, what we see is in-country bluster, overseas misadventures, and neighbourhood interference.

Hasina and her spiralling autocracy were spoon-fed and protected over three fraudulent elections by the Modi government, until her rule became so brittle that it fell with a crash. Her escape helicopter was at the ready, she having understood that it was all or nothing when you become a foreign lackey: complete command or exile.

Rather than be a scaremonger and point fingers, India should be looking inwards and seeking accountability for the Bangladesh embarrassment. The fraught situation was created by unwillingness to understand the host society in the rush to secure concessions on river waters, transit, infrastructure, business interests, and what not. Without India’s heavy hand, Bangladesh would have remained a messy but standing democracy, where leaders could join the parliamentary opposition rather than helicopter out.

India must realise the limits to its coercive diplomacy, remembering how the economic blockade of 2015 solidified anti-India suspicion in Nepal and how its “collaboration” with Hasina has now created deep-seated animus. Even as this is written, New Delhi, unable to read the pulse of cross-border societies, seeks to manufacture consent in Kathmandu to have its way with Nepal’s waters.

Prime Minister Modi must clean his spectacles and look at neighbours anew, with trust and transparency. New Delhi cannot plan its mega river-linking project involving massive reservoirs and canals within Nepal and Bhutan without consulting Kathmandu and Thimphu. It cannot demand rights as a lower riparian neighbour from Nepal and act as an obnoxious upper riparian one with Bangladesh. You cannot have a Home Minister call Bangladeshis “termites” and not face consequences.

If New Delhi’s leadership stopped bad-mouthing bordering countries and desisted from ordering interference in their internal affairs, it would realise that the “default setting” of the surrounding peoples is friendship towards India. But with ill-informed analysts, arrogant diplomats, and unaccountable spooks getting to define policy, things are bound to go awry. One corrective would be to ensure freedom of expression in India when it comes to discussion on external affairs.

Pakistan should not be ostracised

How can a policy be “Neighbourhood First” when Pakistan, the largest and most significant neighbour, is completely erased from the radar, the country’s utility for Modi limited to ultra-nationalist histrionics and electoral gain? No doubt Pakistan’s ruling establishment has played nasty with India over the years but by no stretch of imagination should it be ostracised.

To maintain a ready-made enemy, the Indian public is programmed into regarding the Pakistani state and Pakistan’s people as one and the same—that means 236 million Baloch, Punjabi, Pashtun, Sindhi, and others. Keeping Islamabad at arm’s length, New Delhi actually sets back its own society and economy—in terms of historicity, cross-border commerce, reduced military spending, and a win-win cooperation that would also spark an upswing across South Asia.

One would have expected the former Chief Minister of Gujarat to champion federalism, but Modi has presided over unprecedented centralisation. The philosophy of this anti-federalist turn is guided by Hindutva cartography, whose ultimate goal is not India nor Bharat, but Akhand Bharat. This much is evident in the mural that is up in the new Parliament building in New Delhi incorporating territory from outside present-day India. It remains in place despite protests from the neighbouring capitals.

Modi’s image in the neighbourhood

Seen from the outside, the weakening of Modi’s grip on the electorate, which started with the general election of 2024, will force him to mellow domestically. Will he also pull back on the policy of manipulation of internal affairs of smaller neighbours or seek to maintain his populist hold by turning more aggressive?

One way or another, South Asia as a whole is today more amenable to cooperation than a year ago, much of it predicated on independence from Indian coercion. Dhaka is no longer singing New Delhi’s tune; the governments in Malé and Kathmandu both now have government heads with the capacity to transparently debate Modi. Colombo’s civil society seems mellowed by the Indian economic bailout, but a step too far is sure to trigger a reaction. Modi landed in Thimphu in May to harangue the king and ruling class about China, but he did not make friends for sure.

With the military on the back foot in Islamabad, there will be more opportunities for South Asian rapprochement as politicians get to call the shots. Afghanistan under the Taliban is an outlier, but in every other way this is South Asia’s moment which must not be wasted, for the upliftment of one-fourth of the world’s people who live here. This demands that New Delhi play ball with the others. New Delhi analysts fail to appreciate how keenly India-watchers are following the country, and they see an India losing its shine and stature. New Delhi’s security analysts expended so much time and energy maintaining Pakistan as Enemy No. 1 that by the time they woke up to the northern adversary, it had created facts on the ground.

On the matter of military prowess, it is clear to everyone that India today comes a poor second to what it now considers its primary adversary, the People’s Republic of China. This has become evident in the continuing Ladakh standoff, where India has reportedly lost 2,000 sq km of patrolling territory.

Although Beijing has little to boast about regarding human rights and pluralism, it has made significant strides across almost the entire socio-economic and geopolitical spectrum, beyond the military. From the size of its economy and industrial production to the volume of peer-reviewed scientific papers, the strength of its merchant navy, its Human Development Index, and its diplomatic credibility, China has surged ahead in many areas.

Meanwhile, India’s own foreign presence through its embassies has been grievously impacted in the Modi era. There was once a time when confident and expansive ambassadors represented a working democracy and cited Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and the Panch Sheel. The entire foreign affairs edifice is now diverted to burnishing Modi’s international image and supporting the domestic political calculations of the BJP and the RSS. Ambassadors and High Commissioners are no longer able to make contact across the political horizon, subdued as they are by the directive to propagate the Hindutva-nationalist agenda. Their career may be on the line if they do not organise at least a pranayam session when International Yoga Day rolls around.

Western leaders fawning over Modi have contributed to his in-country image thus far, besides the proactive hugs he foists upon his hosts. If only the Indian populace realised that the West’s red carpet is not rolled out for India’s achievements in governance and the economy but primarily because of its large population as a market for goods and services, and its potential role as a buffer against a rising China.

In his address at the last SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) summit in Kathmandu in 2014, Modi said: “The bonds will grow. Through SAARC or outside it. Among us all or some of us.” His intention was clearly to energise groupings beyond SAARC and without Pakistan, such as BBIN and BIMSTEC. The SAARC Charter states that bilateral matters shall not be addressed within the organisation, and India violates this stricture by refusing to attend the slated summit in Islamabad.

If the goal of SAARC is to promote peace, economic growth, and social justice for the entire subcontinent, India would be the main per capita beneficiary as the largest country. For their part, the neighbours wish for democracy and growth in India because the region as a whole can only rise together. India’s going into a stall will impact the far corners.

It has long been the case that South Asian collaboration, through SAARC or otherwise, is held hostage by the New Delhi-Islamabad relationship. Years of diplomacy and “track-two” efforts suddenly collapse with one terrorist action emanating from Pakistan. But the Indian side must understand the need to compartmentalise—as with the difference between the Pakistani people and the state; India should distinguish between the political leaders of Pakistan and the “deep state” managed by military intelligence, not to forget the fundamentalist groupings.

To begin with, India should develop cross-border empathy and “think South Asian” for its own sake. But India’s monopoly over the crafting of foreign policy means that cross-border connectivity and bonding is not given a chance, be it Sindh-Rajasthan, Punjab-Punjab, or northeast-Bangladesh. If not for the fear of being trolled into oblivion, India’s economists would be proposing access to Pakistan’s vast market for Indian industry and services.

The moment New Delhi decides to turn over a new leaf and become an enthusiast for South Asian regionalism in lieu of Indian exceptionalism, we will all be able to plan for a collective future. The problems of the Anthropocene are already upon us in this massively populated and vulnerable region, with borders meaningless vis-a-vis the challenges we face: air pollution, water scarcity, sand mining, plastic waste, mass migration, species and habitat losses, dangerous vectors, and the search for social justice through local governance, economic growth, and equity.

It is absurd for New Delhi’s think-tankers to believe that India can go it alone. And India can hardly claim global leadership when its regional relationships are in disarray. The security analysts never refer to it, but South Asia contains two nuclear countries in an era of fake news and AI bots, when chaos can be generated from thin air. It is best to have interstate relationships in order, with fail-safe mechanisms suited to the times because the nuclear fallout for sure does not know national boundaries.

A flawed understanding of South Asian regionalism

Modi’s understanding of South Asian regionalism is as a cumulative of bilateral relationships, which defeats the purpose. His self-serving regional xenophobia hurts India more than others, as the largest, centrally located country, with the world’s largest concentration of the outright poor in the Ganga-Brahmaputra basin. A dose of humility that comes from thinking of the margins would benefit New Delhi as it drafts a new South Asia engagement policy.

Under Modi’s watch, India is no longer the exemplar of democracy and governance it was after Independence. The neighbours have watched the derailment of Indian democracy and governance as evident in the state’s silence in the face of attacks against its Muslim citizens. In the past few years, they have observed the mayhem wrought by the unwarranted demonetisation, the abrupt COVID lockdown, the Agniveer recruitment scheme, and the consequent fear of a weakened military, the coddling of billionaires, and the electoral bonds scam.

If India were to comport itself as a South Asian country rather than as a regional commissar, it would not go apoplectic when Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, or Sri Lanka decide to deal independently with China. The neighbours are no pushovers for Beijing, but India’s coercive diplomacy will definitely make more space for China.

India’s largest trading partner is now China, as it relies on Chinese supplies to run large parts of its economy. The China-India economic embrace is so tight that New Delhi would be better off worrying about this lock-hold rather than a “necklace of pearls” conspiracy being hatched between Beijing and next-door capitals.

It does seem that New Delhi, unable to seat itself at the global high table, wants to be the regional hegemon. We await the day when New Delhi begins to see that South Asian peace and collaboration will help its own economic rise, improve its global positioning, and benefit its peripheral regions from Rajasthan through to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and the north-eastern States. New Delhi may be smug in its insularity, but the foreign policy it is currently marshalling does not seem to be on behalf of all of India.

Kanak Mani Dixit is a writer and journalist as well as a civil rights and democracy activist. He is the Founding Editor of Himal Southasian magazine and an active campaigner for subcontinental regionalism