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A stable India amid unstable neighbours |
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The victory for the Congress Party in Lok Sabha elections marks political stability in India while many of its neighbours are in a challenging state. The previous Manmohan Singh Government was tied by some of its partners’s whims and fancies on important national issues. If the Leftists, who eventually withdrew the support, were against India’s nuclear deal with the US and its disinvestment plan, the leaders of smaller parties such as Lalu Prasad Yadav were taking undue advantage of the support they extended to the Manmohan Singh Government. So much so that Manmohan Singh used to be ridiculed by BJP as the weakest Prime Minister the country has ever seen who held the seat but enjoyed no power. The emergence of the Congress-led UPA as the single largest party in the 15th Lok Sabha would now ensure a more coherent and stable government at the Centre without the support of the Left, whimsical partners like BSP chief Mayawati or any other coercive ally.
Political stability in India is in sharp contrast to developments in some of its neighbours in South Asia such as Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Nepal is embroiled in a political crisis after Prime Minister Prachanda, had to resign after President Ram Baran Yadav overruled his decision to sack the Army chief and the coalition partners withdrew their support. Although a consensus is building round CPM (UML) leader Madhav Kumar Nepal becoming the next Prime Minister with the support of parties such as the Nepali Congress and the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum, the Maoists are unlikely to sit quiet. Prachanda has made it clear that the Maoists would not return to the jungles again and they are unlikely to let the Government live in peace. The Maoists who are lying low as part of a 12-point agreement which brought them to power, are unlikely to be reconciled to loss of political power. The Youth wing of the Maoists is notorious for holding violent demonstrations, extortions, intimidation of the media and elimination of political rivals. Already the Maoist protesters have laid a blockade around the Constituent Assembly, a sign of the coming events if the Maoists do not share power in Kathmandu.
In another of India’s neighbour, Sri Lanka, although the Rajapaksa Government has scored a major victory over the LTTE and the last bastion of a one square kilometre of Tamil Tiger territory is about to fall, it will take sometime to consolidate the victory and rehabilitate the internally displaced people. But Colombo it must satisfy the Tamil demands through a package of devolution of powers if the Government does not want the rise of another separatist outfit to take up the cause of the Tamils deprived of many rights in the Sinhala-majority State. India has very high stakes in peace in Sri Lanka and a fair deal to the Tamils who have been discriminated against in both education and employment by the successive chauvinist Sinhala Governments in Colombo. Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi in the course of her election campaign in Chennai raked up the 1987 accord which envisaged a solution of the Tamil problem within the framework of the Sri Lankan constitution, but in the run-up to the elections, both Lok Sabha DMK and AIADMK leader, Karunanidhi and J. Jayalalithaa were seen vying with each other to support the demand for the formation of an independent Eelam.
A prolonged denial of a package offering adequate devolution of powers before elections in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka are organised after peace is restored there, may make it difficult for New Delhi to discourage the demand for a separate Tamil Eelam.
In yet another neighbouring State of Pakistan, pressured by the United States, the Army has launched an air and ground attack against the Taliban in the Swat Valley and its surrounding areas. The promise of US aid and the steady advance of the Taliban towards urban Pakistan, having reached just one hundred kilometers from Lahore, have forced Islamabad to launch operation against the very militants who once enjoyed Army and ISI patronage. But, given the record of its earlier policy of carrot and stick under the Musharraf regime – signing peace deals occasionally but also waging military assaults – the current offensive is unlikely to return the country to a permanent peace. The Taliban militants may be temporarily suppressed, but will raise their head again once the Army pressure subsides. Further, President Obama has vowed to send 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan but the US lawmakers have expressed the fear that the Taliban fighting in Afghanistan instead of being killed, will quietly slip into the lawless tribal belt of Pakistan. The Taliban from both sides of the border will join hands and take up arms against both the Pakistan and Afghanistan Government thus creating a greater military challenge to both Pakistan and the US.
India’s own relations with Pakistan will need a new look after the new Government is in place in New Delhi. Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari’s statement while in the US that he does not view India as a threat and his disclosure that he has withdrawn hundreds of thousands of troops from the border with India for deployment on its north-western border in the fight against the Taliban, may be viewed favourably in India. But these overtures are unlikely to encourage New Delhi to resume composite dialogue with Islamabad. In the run-up to Lok Sabha elections, India’s demand that Pakistan hand over those who were responsible for the Mumbai terror attacks for trial or at least try them at home as a price for the resumption of talks, is likely to be reiterated once the new Government settles down. It would be naďve on the part of Pakistan that India will forget the Mumbai mayhem and as in the past, give it another chance to prove to be a friendly neighbour. Pakistan is mouthing friendly overtures simply to please the US which has repeatedly advised Islamabad to address India’s complaints and not to do anything which would give it an excuse to refuse to resume the peace talks. The US special envoy on Af-Pak, Richard Holbrooke in his recent testimony before the senate Foreign Relations Committee said that India was an important factor in the restoration of peace in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The US is, therefore, expected to lean on Pakistan to take strong measures to ensure that there is no movement of extremists from its territory into the Indian part of Kashmir for carrying out terror attacks. Already, some unconfirmed reports that some Taliban jihadis too have infiltrated into the Kashmir Valley caused serious concerns in the establishment in New Delhi. They were supposed to have been sent to disrupt Lok Sabha elections. However, the fact that the elections in Kashmir were more or less peaceful and the boycott call by the Hurriyat Conference and reports of infiltration did not stop voters from coming out in large numbers marks the defeat of the Pakistan Government to influence the people of Kashmir. Of course the preoccupation of the Pakistan Army and the ISI to deal with the Taliban militants has kept Pakistan’s attention away from India and Kashmir has been relatively free from terrorist attacks despite reports of infiltration. But, if after the current military operations in Swat, the Pakistan Army and the ISI revert to their old game of encouraging terrorist attacks and infiltration in India whatever little scope there is for the revival of the dialogue process will be defeated.
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