BRICS and the Art of Stonewalling

At the recently concluded BRICS Summit in Goa, China once again came to the rescue of its all weather ally Pakistan and stonewalled any attempts to name Pakistan based terrorist outfits JeM (Jaish E Mohammad) or LeT (Lashkar E Taiba) in the Goa Declaration, instead agreeing only to a watery reference of "relentless pursuit against terrorist groups so designated by the UN Security Council".  

However, India forcefully put forward its views on state sponsored terror with Prime Minister Narendra Modi describing it as the "mother ship of terrorism". Emphasizing that the growing arc of terrorism today threatens Middle East, West Asia, Europe and South Asia, India submitted that "the most serious direct threat to our eco-prosperity is terrorism". Slamming Pakistan even further, PM Modi said that the country not only shelters terrorists, but that it also nurtures the mindset of terrorism. 

These comments are in line with the strategy of isolating Pakistan diplomatically on international forums, adopted by the Indian government after the Uri terrorist attack. The gains from this strategy may not fructify overnight, as many in the mainstream media, habituated to a 'breaking news' culture, seem to think. The fact that BRICS grouping's main focus is on Investment, Trade, Energy and Infrastructure is not lost on anyone. By forcefully putting forth its views on cross border terrorism, India has sent out a clear signal that development cannot be delinked from security and that at least for the Indian government, development and security go hand in hand and are not mutually exclusive.

BIMSTEC to the Rescue

Displaying his unconventional style of conducting Foreign Policy, PM Modi extended an invite to six countries - Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand, which are a part of Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation or the BIMSTEC grouping. While the Thai premier was unable to attend because of the recent demise of the Thai Monarch, all the other countries were represented by their leaders who welcomed the invite.

Not only did the BIMSTEC countries actively participate in the summit, they also endorsed India's stand on terrorism. In complete contrast to the Goa Declaration, the BIMSTEC Leaders' Retreat Outcome Document 2016 noted:

Recognizing that terrorism continues to remain the single most significant threat to peace and stability in our region, we reiterate our strong commitment to combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, and stress that there can be no justification for acts of terror on any grounds whatsoever. We condemn in the strongest terms the recent barbaric terror attacks in the region.We strongly believe that our fight against terrorism should not only seek to disrupt and eliminate terrorists, terror organizations and networks, but should also identify, hold accountable and take strong measures against States who encourage, support and finance terrorism, provide sanctuary to terrorists and terror groups, and falsely extol their virtues. There should be no glorification of terrorists as martyrs. We recognize the need for urgent measures to counter and prevent the spread of terrorism, violent extremism and radicalization. We express our determination to take concrete measures to step up cooperation and coordination among our law enforcement, intelligence and security organizations.

The language employed in the above mentioned document is forceful and checks all the right boxes for India. What was not so soothing, however, was the ambivalent stand taken by Russia.

The Tight Rope to Moscow

Considering the stiff opposition by China, and keeping in mind the national interest of Russia in the face of EU-US Sanctions, President Vladimir Putin did not stress too much on India's position on cross-border terrorism, but did not exclude it from his remarks either. At the end of his remarks in the restricted meeting with PM Modi, he said that "one of our priority issues is combating terrorism together".

The Indian Prime Minister sought to rekindle the warmth of time tested friendship that India enjoys with Russia by remarking that an old friend is better than two new ones. The joint statement released at the end of the meeting between the two leaders noted:

India and Russia recognize the threat posed by terrorism, and believe that the full implementation of the relevant UNSC resolutions, the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy without application of any double standards or selectivity will be instrumental in countering this challenge.....They stressed the need to deny safe havens to terrorists and the importance of countering the spread of terrorist ideology as well as radicalisation leading to terrorism, stopping recruitment, preventing travel of terrorists and foreign terrorist fighters, strengthening border management and having effective legal assistance and extradition arrangements. Furthermore, stressing the need to have a strong international legal regime built on the principle of ‘zero tolerance for direct or indirect support of terrorism’, both sides called upon the international community to make sincere efforts towards the earliest conclusion of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT).

It is clear that India understands the need to balance the growth of its bilateral relations with the United States with the deft handling of relations with its old friends like Russia, because Moscow and Washington have many antagonistic positions on issues of global concern. The agreement to buy the S-400 ‘Triumf’ air defence systems from Russia, worth over $5 billion, and to collaborate in making four state of art frigates besides setting up a joint production facility for making Kamov helicopters, is an attempt to walk the tight rope of seasoned diplomacy.

Conclusion

Zhou Enlai famously said that all diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means. Although China's stonewalling of India's continued efforts to isolate Pakistan diplomatically on every international forum might not be a call for a diplomatic war, but it certainly is a thorn in the flesh for the bilateral relations between both the countries. The Indian government will be well advised to play its cards cautiously while dealing with Beijing, as there is more to gain through trade and cooperation rather than by annoying an increasingly assertive neighbor. Though China might continue to protect Pakistan from severe international backlash, India must continue its newfound strategy to isolate Islamabad, as it is an improvement upon the previous policy of passivity in the face of terror and is bound to yield substantial gains, sooner rather than later.     

Uri Attack: Hard Choices before India

In yet another example of cowardly proxy warfare promoted by the Pakistani Army and the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate, four heavily armed militants infiltrated the Army Headquarters in Northern Kashmir's Uri Sector in the Baramulla District and killed 17 soldiers, in one of the worst attacks on the army in 26 years. The Indian Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) Lt Gen Ranbir Singh said: 

"All four killed were foreign terrorists and had some items with them which had Pakistani markings. Initial reports indicate that the slain terrorists belong to Jaish-e-Mohammed Tanzeem (militant group). Four AK-47 rifles and four under-barrel grenade launchers along with a large number of other war-like stores were recovered from them."

"Days of Strategic Restraint Over" 

The government and the ruling party both issued strong statements, with BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav asserting that the days of strategic restraint were over. He said:

"We feel that the time for strategic restraint is over. India needs to tackle this menace with a firm hand and we need to take proactive measures. That is why Prime Minister has said that perpetrators behind the attack shall not go unpunished. Terrorism is the policy instrument of cowards and in this case the footprint of involvement of our neighbour is all over there. They have been using terrorism as a state policy in the most cowardly manner to attack, maim and kill people, soldiers as well as civilians, in our territory."

The Prime Minister too condemned the attack and in a series of tweets asserted that the perpetrators of the attack will not go unpunished. The Home Minister, who was to visit the United States and Russia, cancelled his trip and called Pakistan a "terrorist state" and appealed for its global isolation.

The statements, coming from both the ruling party and the government, are unparalleled in their severity and point to the increasing escalation in the tensions between both India and Pakistan. Indeed, with an elected leader commanding an absolute majority at the center, India possesses the political will necessary to take swift and punitive action this time against Pakistan, "at a time and place of its choosing".  

The numbers provided by a report in the Economic Times are alarming with regard to infiltration of terrorists from across the border and demonstrate the extent to which India's patience has been stretched thin. For example, in 2011, there were 247 infiltration attempts, followed by 264 attempts in 2012, 277 attempts in 2013 and 221 attempts in 2014. 13 infiltrating terrorists were killed in 2012, followed by 38 in 2013, 52 in 2014 and 37 in 2015.

Death by a Thousand Cuts

Ever since it realized that it stands nowhere in terms of conventional warfare when it comes to India, a fact that led to its ignominious defeat in three wars, the Pakistani Army and the ISI seem to have perfected terrorism by non-state actors as a means of sub-conventional warfare, a strategy which has come to be known as "death by a thousand cuts". A dysfunctional and failed state apparatus in Pakistan has meant that while the Pakistani Army and the ISI execute their nefarious plans through their remote control of Pakistani Defense and Foreign Affairs, the civilian leadership is left to deflect the blame, obfuscate the issue and deny any wrongdoing.

In such a scenario, where the real power is exercised by the Army, talks with Pakistani Civilian Leadership are just a hogwash designed to keep India engaged while simultaneously inflicting multiple terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab to stoke militancy and unrest. Parity with India is an obsession in Pakistan and an economically, strategically as well as globally resurgent India does not help their strategic imperatives. In fact, Islamabad has repeatedly scuttled any attempts at establishing good relations between the two countries, either by sponsoring terrorism against India, ceding a part of its illegally held territory in Kashmir to China or by repeatedly trying to internationalize the issue of Jammu and Kashmir while carrying out massive human rights violations in its own province of Baluchistan.

It is for India to realize that it is futile to expect any major changes in Pakistan's attitude given that there is a diffusion of power between various stakeholders in Pakistan. 70 years of Pakistan's existence has shown that it is happy to remain a satellite state of one major power or the other (earlier it was the US and now its China) and that its leadership, both civilian and military, is motivated by personal pecuniary interests coupled with Indophobia, which rationalizes the existence of the state in the first place, and has no vision of an independent foreign policy or resolving domestic issues amicably. In short, the average Pakistani be damned but the Generals need their kick by instigating India. In an interview with Arnab Goswami of Times Now News Network, Prime Minister Modi admitted as much when he said that there are different forces working in Pakistan.

A House Divided

While the reaction among Indian media, political and strategic experts and civil society at large has been that of taking stringent action to stop the flow of terror from Pakistan, on the other hand there is the usual clique of naysayers who have characteristically put their numerous if's and but's in the debate.

Shivam Vij, writing in the Huffington Post, advises the Indian government not to engage Pakistan militarily as it could backfire. Among the reasons cited are "risk of war", "risk of failure", "international pressure", "economy" etc. In short, let there be status quo ante and what if our few soldiers are dying, we can absorb the losses. The Left Parties, are perpetually in favor of an unconditional political dialogue, even when their own Members of Parliament were humiliated by the separatist leadership on their recent visit to the state. I am constantly amazed by the fact that the Left Parties still have Members in the Parliament. This opinion piece by Mohammed Zeeshan in DailyO starts by stating that India can't effectively respond to Pakistan anyway, asks it to decide on a consistent course of action towards Islamabad and says that the only consistent course of action towards Islamabad is Track-II dialogue and maybe economic sanctions. But that's a big maybe.

It is this multiplicity of opinions in the face of terror that stopped successive governments since the outbreak of the militancy in Jammu and Kashmir since 1990 from taking any concrete steps against this proxy war. These governments were also hampered by the fact that all of them were coalition governments requiring endless debates and discussions, cajoling and cooing, to come to any conclusion. However, Prime Minister Modi has no such compulsions. The country has given him a decisive mandate with full majority in the Lok Sabha and the ball is now in his court and he has to make some hard choices if he wants to fulfill the election promises he made in the run up to the 2014 General Election.

Options Before Us

India must boldly consider moves that it has refused to consider so far fearing escalation and risk of failure. The dream to become a superpower can never become a reality without ensuring that the cardinal duty of a nation state is fulfilled, i.e. achieving security for all its citizens. Given below are some of the steps that India can consider while formulating its future strategy viz-a-viz Pakistan.

1. PoK is Indian Territory, Take Out Terrorist Camps: Kashmir formally acceded to India in 1947 but Governor-General Mountbatten made the accession conditional on a plebiscite. According to the resolution passed in the United Nations, a plebiscite could only take place when Pakistan vacated its troops from the region. Since it has not done so for the last six and a half decades, India should now treat the matter with an iron fist and carry out surgical strikes in the PoK to take out any terrorist camps being run in the region to spread militancy and unrest.

2. Scrap Article 370: It is only India's constitution which guaranteed full autonomy to the State of Jammu and Kashmir in the form of Article 370 which limited the center's role in the state to defense, foreign affairs and communications. Pakistan was not able to formulate its constitution for a long time and when it finally attempted to do so, it did not grant any autonomy to their side of Kashmir. The result was that although the demography in PoK has undergone a profound change since 1947, the demography of Indian Kashmir more or less remains the same (except for the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in 1989). With no industries due to militancy and security situation in the state and not much tourism or trade either, the people of the valley unofficially live in a ghetto where Azadi is a chimera, poverty a reality and darkness is most probably the future.

3. Balochistan: India should maximize its efforts to fix the international spotlight on the massive human rights violations perpetrated by the Pakistani Army in Balochistan. It should patronize the human rights organizations working for Baloch Rights and grant citizenship to prominent Balochistani activists working for the cause. By increasing its contact and network among the Balochi activists, India can in future attempt to create similar militancy and unrest in Balochistan as exists in Kashmir today.

4. Disrupt Pakistan's Aid Infrastructure: Pakistan is a bankrupt state surviving on the aid distributed to it from numerous capitals across the world including the United States. India must bring its enormous international goodwill to bear upon these states (except China) and must categorically state that any aid to Pakistan will only go towards the funding of non-state actors and towards maintaining the luxurious lifestyles of Pakistani Generals, and hence should be stopped. India's diplomats are among the finest in the world and they would be able to bring results if given a clear mandate to do so.

5. Tackling the Dragon: China, Pakistan's all weather ally, should be handled in a different manner. It is no use grandstanding before a nation that has everything to gain by keeping the factors that fuel instability in the region alive. We must leave no stone un-turned in creating hurdles in the implementation of CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridor) while simultaneously baiting China in the South China Sea. We must make it even more difficult for Chinese businessmen to do business in India when we know that the money earned will only be used against us. We should also make it clear that China's strategic imperatives do not precede India's and that terror is not acceptable as a stratagem.  

Conclusion

The National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar, celebrated as doers and men of their word, have lost their face before the public due to the repeated terror attacks taking place on the Indian soil and the failure to counter them. Their role in guiding the Prime minister as he contemplates the future course of action is going to be critical and can make or break their reputation in the time to come. It is hoped that the Indian leadership does not squander away the huge mandate accorded by the public to the government and wipes the menace of militancy and terrorism from its very roots.    

Modi's Speech to US Congress: Culmination of Bipartisan Effort for Closer Indo-US Ties

As India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi travelled to Washington to address the joint sitting of the US Congress, becoming the fifth Indian Prime Minister to do so, Indo-US ties reached a new high in a saga of deepening cooperation between the two democracies. Banned for about 9 years from travelling to the United States, the Prime Minister must be credited for not holding a personal grudge and instead focusing on the advancement of India's national interest through closer cooperation with the United States, a policy which has been pursued strongly by his predecessors. Indeed, endorsement by the United States, Switzerland and Mexico for India's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), an elite club of 48 nations governing trade in items used for nuclear technology, is the culmination of a coherent Foreign Policy followed in this regard by Prime Ministers Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh even in the face of strong opposition at home.

Hesitations of History 

Prime Minister Modi, in his 45 minute address to US Lawmakers, emphasised that Indo-US relations have overcome the hesitations of history. It is a poignant phrase which wonderfully captures the troubled relationship India and the United States shared at the time of the Cold War. A newly Independent India followed a policy of non-alignment as opposed to its neighbour and rival Pakistan, which opted to become a member of SEATO (South East Asia Treaty Organization) and CENTO (Central Treaty Organization), both military alliances modelled on the lines of NATO and lead by the US, for safeguarding its security interests. As time passed, India increasingly became close to the Soviet Union for its security needs, especially through the Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation signed in the backdrop of Indo-Pakistan war of 1971.

The ties plummeted to an all time low when India conducted its nuclear test in 1998. Codenamed Operation Smiling Buddha, the covert nature of the tests left the intelligence community in the west red faced and led its failure to detect Indian preparations for an imminent test being known as "intelligence failure of the decade". The United States and other European Nations imposed sanctions, which were lifted by President George W Bush in an effort to stitch together a global alliance against terrorism following the 9/11 attacks. Economic and Strategic cooperation between the two countries began to pick up given the converging geo-political interests and economic reforms at home, but India continued to be a victim of nuclear apartheid by reason of its being excluded from important institutions like the NSG and MTCR (Missile Technology Control Regime), denying it an opportunity to engage in trade of nuclear technology with other nations.

Indo-US Civil Nuclear Deal

What changed the contours of the relationship between the two countries was the hard push given to and the personal leadership shown with regard to the Indo-US Civil Nuclear Deal by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2008. The soft-spoken Prime Minister who was accused of lacking real power and the ability to take decisions on his own, showed uncharacteristic defiance and stuck to his guns in order to support the Agreement with the United States, even risking his own government. The Left Parties famously withdrew support to the United Progressive Alliance, and the government was saved through the outside support of several regional parties. 

Manmohan Singh's leadership also benefited Indo-US relationship in the aftermath of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, when he and President Obama developed personal rapport and a close working relationship. In his own address to the US Congress, Prime Minister Singh called India's non-proliferation track record as "impeccable" and said that the country neither has, nor will, support the proliferation of sensitive nuclear technology to third countries. He also gave a call for the end of nuclear apartheid against India and an early admission of India to NSG. In his speech to the Indian Parliament in 2010, President Barack Obama endorsed India's case for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council, thus taking one more step in the direction of strong Indo-US ties. 

Strategic Autonomy to Strategic Alliance

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking to build on the progress made by his predecessors, has shifted the focus of Indian Foreign Policy from Strategic Autonomy to that of Strategic Alliance. This is a policy which is mindful of the rapidly changing geo-political realities in the region as evidenced by the strong and deepening partnership between China and Pakistan. Nations cannot change their geographies, but they cannot be tied down by their neighbours either. Modi seeks to develop India into a major manufacturing hub and needs enormous foreign direct investment to make that dream come true. The Indian Economy is a lone bright spot in the current global scenario with a growth rate of 7.5% and a young population with majority of its citizens below the age of 35 years. 

In his speech to the US lawmakers, Modi tried to leverage both these strong points and also made a case for closer economic and strategic cooperation and reiterated his focus on government's flagship initiatives like Skill India, Smart Cities, Digital India and building rail, road and port infrastructure. In agreeing to ratify the Paris Climate Change Deal in exchange for a US led push for India's entry into the NSG, the Prime Minister also displayed the Gujarati characteristic skill of striking a good bargain. His call for greater investment from US Businesses drew serious attention given the slowing down of the economy of China and increasing strains in US-China bilateral ties. 

A Roadblock Named China

One of the strategic objectives of a closer Indo-US relationship is to secure the freedom of navigation in the seas particularly in the Asia Pacific region. China's increasing assertiveness in the South China sea has seriously impacted the security considerations of the countries such as Japan and Australia. The United States has led an effort to check China's activities in the region and prevent a major conflict from taking place. Closer Indo-US ties would go a long way in counterbalancing China's influence in the region and maintaining a balance of power in the South Asian region. 

There are obvious implications. China is leading an effort to block the entry of India in the NSG, demanding that its ally Pakistan also be admitted under a "non-discriminatory approach" if India's entry is to be considered. This is obviously not possible since Pakistan has a horrible proliferation record (Iran and North Korea acquired nuclear technology from A Q Khan, father of Pakistan's nuclear program) and its entry into the NSG would render the body meaningless. 

As the United States gets ready to elect a new President, Prime Minister Modi will have to act to make sure that the gains made so far in the Indo-US ties continue to bear their fruits irrespective of the kind of administration that takes charge next. He must improve India's human rights record and continue to protect the interests of India's religious and ethnic minorities while delivering sustainable economic growth. The deepening relations between the world's oldest and the world's largest democracies will significantly benefit people of both the countries if allowed to blossom to their maximum potential.  

The Diplomacy of Language

First Published in Youth Ki Awaaz

While the more broad minded and vernacular oriented people in India whose preferred domestic language happens not to be Hindi might take offense, the fact is that encouraging the usage of Hindi in other nations has long been on the agenda of India’s foreign policy. With its ideal of projecting its soft power of culture, customs and the way of life, India’s foreign policy places an unusual amount of importance on encouraging the usage of Hindi in other nations.

India is not alone in this move. In fact, encouraging the usage of their respective vernaculars in foreign countries has for long been on the to-do lists of nations with a strong vernacular culture. The westerners did not need it, as the necessity of the same was fulfilled by the forceful colonization and subjugation of countries across the globe. In India, to be particular, the famous minute of Lord MaCaulay heralded the arrival of English as the sole medium of imparting education and consequently, as the de facto official language for the rest of her life under the British. However, for the nations which did not have the luxury of expansionist programs or large swathes of colonies under their rule, the process of language diplomacy started only after the process of decolonization had been accomplished to a significant degree in the latter part of the twentieth century.

A Cold War Equation

Nehruvian vision and a particular tilt towards Russia in the cold war and non aligned years ensured that Russian Universities were the first to take up the teaching of Hindi as an optional language. The banning of Hollywood films in the cold war era resulted in Soviet Russia turning to Bollywood films for their entertainment, a phenomenon which made actor Raj Kapoor an instant celebrity in that country. The warm response to such films provided both the countries with an opportunity to further their people to people ties, as a means of furthering their national interest, making the exchange of their respective vernacular languages inevitable.

Indian governments which succeeded Nehru were quick to realize the pragmatism of “exporting” domestic culture to other countries as well as familiarizing themselves with the culture of their counterparts. Jawaharlal Nehru University (which was established in 1969) was one of the first universities to take up the task of dissemination of foreign languages in the country. Following the grand success of festival of India in Soviet Russia in 1988, the Indian Embassy in Moscow embarked on an aggressive program of showcasing the country’s culture through the Jawaharlal Nehru Cultural Centre which was established in 1989.

Apart from Nehru’s experiments of cultural ideas in the laboratory of International relations, India’s reluctance to engage in any kind of third party military adventurism has over the years, strengthened the case for its projection of soft power. In this larger scheme of things, language, undoubtedly, plays the largest role.

In a Globalized World

While a more muscular Cold War age may not have been particularly receptive to such ideas, choosing instead to gain allies with the show off of its arsenal, the case is certainly not so in a globalized and inter connected post cold war era. The immediate agenda now is to shift the study of their respective languages from the drowsy seminar rooms of a few odd universities in a friendly country to a larger audience in the primary and secondary schools with a long term view of creating a fertile field for realizing their goals and interests in foreign relations.

In June this year, China decided to introduce Hindi in South China by setting up a Hindi chair in Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in Guangzhou. Several schools and universities in other parts of China are already teaching Hindi as an optional language. This month, India decided to reciprocate this gesture by announcing that Mandarin would be introduced in over a hundred schools as an optional language.

While Sino-Indian reciprocity can be seen in the light of two nations trying to shake off the shackles of their past scarred by a bitter war in 1962, other nations which are warming up to the idea of introducing foreign languages in their school and university curriculum, see it as a result of the fast paced growth of Asia.

Last Monday, Australian Prime Minister Ms. Julia Gillard introduced a white paper on the “Asian Century” which included, among other proposals, a proposal to introduce Hindi, Bhasa Indonesia, Japanese and Mandarin in the country’s primary and secondary schools, with the primary focus being on Hindi. Aimed at maximizing the links with the fast growing economies of Asia, the proposal has already been lauded by various sections of the Australian civil and political society.

A Policy of Necessity

Although the diplomacy of language remains the central scheme of things in India’s soft power, so dear to its foreign policy, it can also not be denied that this is a policy that India badly needs in order to create more jobs for its young population in order to realize the maximum potential of its demographic dividend. India is expected to surpass China in population terms by 2025 with the majority of its population being in the working age category. In order to provide employment to such a large proportion of population, India cannot depend entirely on the public sector. New and unconventional avenues will have to be explored which is only possible if the youth of the country are equipped with the right set of employable skills.

A continuing familiarization with the languages of different countries can not only boost India’s tourism industry and provide it with more translators, interpreters and teachers, but it can also help in adding more value to the already strong Diaspora of Indians which exists abroad.

It is in India’s interest to continue to experiment and explore new avenues in addition to its diplomacy of language, that can not only further its interests abroad, but can also prove beneficial in domestic terms in the long run.

Chinese Maritime Silk Route and South Asia

China’s ‘New Silk Roads’ policy seeks to enhance land connectivity with Central Asia and establish ‘Maritime Silk Roads’ to connect it with the ASEAN countries and the coastal cities of South Asia.

As the Chinese Premier Xi Jingping gets ready to visit India next month, his foremost priority would be to get India to participate in China’s ambitious Maritime Silk Route project. The concept first emerged during Xi’s trip to Southeast Asia last October where he called for increased maritime cooperation between China and the ASEAN countries. Since then, the concept has expanded to cover not only the ASEAN states, but also the subcontinent, the Middle East and the coast of Africa. 

This is not a new concept. The movement of goods has been taking place through this ancient maritime silk route since many centuries and reached its peak in the 15th century. By reviving this ancient trade route, China hopes to set new benchmarks for ‘neighborhood diplomacy’ and seeks to improve ‘regional stability’. However, its aggressive posturing in the South China Sea and strategic encirclement of India in the past has made it difficult to regard this proposal without a jaundiced eye.

The Indian Dilemma

India and China are already cooperating in the development of the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) corridor which will connect the Yunnan province of China with the other three countries and will form an important segment of the Southern Silk Road. The Chinese accord special importance to India in their silk roads plan as it lies at the intersection of the overland silk roads and maritime silk routes. However, India has so far resisted signing on the Maritime Silk Route (MSR) project not only due to the opaque nature of the project, but also because it sees this project as an attempt by China to establish a foothold in the Indian Ocean. Despite projecting MSR as an exclusively commercial venture meant for the development of massive maritime infrastructure, China has been surprisingly unforthcoming on the specifics of the project which has lead others to suspect its geopolitical motives. 

India has been wary of any Chinese attempt to raise its naval profile in the Indian Ocean and has scorned at Chinese construction of port infrastructure in Gwadar (Pakistan) and Hambantota (Sri Lanka) in the past. However, the sheer scope and scale of the new MSR project and the potential commercial benefits arising out of it are bound to make the new NDA government seriously weigh the implications of rejecting participation in it. 

Response from the Neighborhood

In contrast, the Sri Lankan response to the MSR proposal was enthusiastic as it became the first country to express its support for the project. China is Sri Lanka’s second largest trading partner after India, and both the nations recently signed a Strategic Cooperative Partnership (SCP) agreement during President Rajapaksa’s visit to China in May 2013. The Bilateral relations between both the nations are at their peak as President Xi Jinping will become the first Chinese premier to visit the island nation next month. With the MSR project, Sri Lanka seeks to enhance its strategic identity in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) by emerging as a financial hub in South Asia and a link to Africa and the Middle East while China wants to legitimize its increased role in IOR even as it increases the economic viability of its many port infrastructure projects. Both the countries are expected to sign a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) to further bolster their ties by the end of 2014. 

Besides India and Sri Lanka, China has also been trying to woo the Maldives to be a part of its pet project. In a meeting with the Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen in Nanjing, President Xi invited the Maldives to be a part of China’s ambitious MSR plan. Earlier in July, the Chinese had offered to train the Maldivian Maritime personnel and to increase their involvement in the infrastructure projects in the small island nation. It is not very difficult to understand why China would want the Maldives to be a part of its MSR initiative as the island nation acts as a converging point for hundreds of cargo ships both from the east and the west and can help in expanding east-west trade.

China and Pakistan are moving rapidly towards the implementation of multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor which passes through the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK). The corridor connects China’s Xinjiang with Pakistan’s Gwadar port. 

Conclusion

China’s eagerness to induct India in its MSR proposal has raised some eyebrows within the strategic community. While Indians remain deeply suspicious of any attempt of strategic encirclement by China through its ‘string of pearls’ strategy, Chinese experts have pointed out that the only purposes of China in the Indian Ocean are economic gains and security of Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC). 

The announcement of a 10 billion Yuan ($1.6 billion) fund for financing the MSR project has shown the seriousness that China attaches to this proposal. The potential short term benefits arising out of this are hard to ignore and can benefit local economies enormously. However, even if the economic benefits of this project were to be delivered, India’s choice must be based on the impact its geopolitical interests will have from such a development in the IOR. The NDA government will have to consider both - the desperate need of connectivity and the threat from China in the IOR before taking any decision on the subject.