In My View

India should make bold in SAARC

Come April, India would need to emerge out of its mien of injured innocence it had been adopting with some of its neighbours like Pakistan and Bangladesh. For the SAARC summit needs to be meaningfully hosted by New Delhi in the Association’s 23rd year. This has become more important with the USA and the world feting the country as an emerging great power, much to the relish of the Indian elite.

Not for long can the country even maintain its stoic silence and imperious neglect in dealings with other countries of the region like Sri Lanka or Bhutan. Nepal and the newest entrant to South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) could claim to have evinced some interest of the policymakers here lately.

But at this juncture it is imperative that Indian leadership should be able to emerge out of the neat little diplomatic box they have long spent their lives in, created by the issues of terrorism and militancy. Indeed, a great power needs to show its greatness first at home, then the near abroad and finally further afield. Chanakya might have had a thing or two tosay on such an issue. He did write in his Arthashastra, Book IV, that, “A king who is equal to his enemy in the matter of his sovereign elements shall, in virtue of his own righteous conduct or with the help of those who are hostile or conspiring against his enemy, endeavor to throw his enemy’s power into the shade; or if he thinks:-
‘That my enemy, possessed as he is of immense power, will yet in the near future, hurt the elements of his own sovereignty, by using contumelious language, by inflicting severe punishments, and by squandering his wealth; that though attaining success for a time yet he will blindly take himself to hunting, gambling, drinking and women; that as his subjects are disaffected, himself powerless and haughty, I can overthrow him; that when attacked, he will take shelter with all his paraphernalia into a fort or elsewhere; that possessed as he is of a strong army, he will yet fall into my hands, as he has neither a friend nor a fort to help him; that a distant king is desirous to put down his own enemy, and also inclined to help me to put down my own assailable enemy when my resources are poor; or that I may be invited as a Madhyama king,’
- for these reasons the conqueror may allow his enemy to grow in strength and to attain success for the time being.”

The Indian Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh had been urging all to think out-of-the-box solutions to problems. That will require courage in the South Asian context. And a truly brave decision would be for India to take an initiative in terms of economic migration to India from the proximate neighbours. This move would have to be based upon a domestic debate on the necessity for an immigration policy that recognises the realities on the ground. These realities are that India, being the largest economy of the region acts like a beacon to which the poor of the region flock in search of succour. These people work mostly in the unorganised sector of the economy; contribute to the growth of the gross domestic product of the country; but cannot enjoy the rights that a usual citizen can, nor respite to their itinerant status.

Considering that the nation has a population bulge in general terms and of young people, more specifically, New Delhi could begin by taking multi-sectoral look at the issue and devise a plan that acknowledges the reality of immigration with attendant issues of equitable treatment of guest workers; while balancing the employment needs of the country’s own. Of course, the trade unions of the country would have to sign up to any such proposal.

This proposal could well be meshed with a push for fuller implementation of South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) that India hopes to achieve, but is facing various obstacles in the process from recalcitrant quarters. An acceptance by New Delhi of the region’s labour issues could create a fund of goodwill at the popular level that would ameliorate any reservations that the contending elites of the other countries might have about barrier free trade in the region.

A bold move of that kind could remove lingering doubts in some people’s minds that the great power being conferred upon India is more a case of default, than earned. It would also help to reclaim its largely lost relevance in the region, eroded over decades of neglect as New Delhi felt obligated to look at the segregated picture of the region, without noticing the wide vista.

Indeed, the choice for the country is clear. It has to decide whether it wants to live an existence of China in East Asia; at odds with most countries of the region that look at it with consternation. They fear its burgeoning economic power and feel increasingly insecure at the military muscle it affords Beijing as a result. This allows other powers to increase their influence in the region, at the cost of the Chinese strategic interests.
It is only fair that since this piece had begun by quoting Chanakya, it should end with the words of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. In his preface to Satyagraha in South Africa, Gandhi wrote“A dharma yudhha (just war), in which there are no secrets to be guarded, no scope for cunning and no place for untruth, comes unsought; and a man of religion is ever ready for it. A struggle which has to be planned is not a righteous struggle.”

Purity that Gandhi advocated was the badge of honour for the satyagrahi for whom religion could mean their way of life. Can the Indian strategists strive to reach that goal this SAARC summit?

Pinaki Bhattacharya, currently located in Kolkata, is a Special Correspondent with the Mathrubhumi, Kerala. He writes on Strategic Security issues. He can be contacted at pinaki63@dataone.in .