Seventy-five years after independence, the subcontinent remains at odds with itself. Bemoaning this tragedy is no substitute for hard-headed analysis. There has been plenty of reflection on the state of the subcontinent in this issue of India’s World.
No analysis of the region can overlook the historical burden of the Partition that continues to weigh down on Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. So is the inevitable fragmentation of the broader subcontinent, whose heartland and periphery were held together by the paramountcy of the British Raj until 1947. Independent India could not have sustained that hegemony after Partition, thanks to relative economic decline, the rise of national identities, and the quest for autonomy on the periphery.
India’s inward orientation in the decades after independence helped turn the political division of the subcontinent into an economic one too. Delhi’s socialist planners had no value for trade and regional connectivity. The logic of globalisation at the turn of the 21st century has helped reverse this dynamic, but not in sufficient measure. Consider, for example, the significant progress in dispute resolution and economic integration over the last decade and a half between India and Bangladesh. Will these important gains survive the ouster of Prime Minister Shiekh Hasina in August 2024? Or could India-Bangla economic interdependence dampen the attempts of those in Dhaka seeking a political rupture with India? The jury is out.
Pessimists, though, worry about the backlash against India’s deep identification with one political formation in Bangladesh. That brings us to the question of India’s role in the domestic politics of its neighbours. Given the enduring interconnections between India and its neighbours, Delhi can’t simply stay away from the domestic politics of its neighbours. The challenge is to develop a framework for limited intervention and that too in extremis. The question then is, ‘when to intervene’ rather than ‘whether to intervene’ in the internal affairs of India’s neighbours.
The profound changes in India’s regional environment have created new complexities for India’s subcontinental strategy. The rise of China and its growing economic and military weight cast a dark shadow over India’s claims for primacy in the subcontinent. Dealing with the Chinese power has made the overhaul of India’s regional policies and intensifying cooperation with other great powers urgent imperatives.
India’s growing strategic cooperation with the U.S. and Europe has helped the West dehyphenate ties with Delhi and Islamabad. Meanwhile, the positive evolution of India’s relations with the moderate Gulf regimes like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have contributed to the shifting balance of diplomatic influence between India and Pakistan.
What about the argument between those who call for putting the neighbourhood first in India’s strategic priorities and others who insist India’s future lies beyond the unrewarding engagement with the subcontinent. This debate is helpful in focusing sharply on India’s dilemmas between the region and the world.
But any productive strategy will recognise that the subcontinent’s innenpolitik and aussenpolitik can’t be delinked. India’s problems and opportunities in the region and the world do not come separately. Delhi has to deal with both, each on its own merit rather than in a pre-defined sequence. India must seize the opportunities in the region and the world, where and when they are presented. Gains in one will beget more in the other.
It may be reasonable to assume that India’s problems with its neighbours will unfortunately persist into the second century after Partition. But today, a rising India has many resources and possibilities to stitch together a more cooperative subcontinent. Delhi must sustain its optimism of the will to transcend the pessimism of the intellect and develop realistic strategies to rearrange the subcontinent.
