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Turmoil in India’s neighbourhood |
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The South Asian cauldron is simmering once again. As if the Taliban surge in Pakistan and the military offensive against the LTTE in Sri Lanka were not enough, Nepal is on the boil, on which New Delhi has reason to be worried. The new ingredient of the political crisis in Nepal is the resignation of Nepal Prime Minister and Maoist leader Prachanda after President Ram Baran Yadav overruled his decision to sack the Army Chief, Gen Katawal, on charges of disobeying government orders. As it is, India is the only country which has common borders with other South Asian countries and the developments in its neighbourhood impact it the most. Because of its size and its stakes in peace in its neighbours, India is invariably blamed by interested parties for their domestic problems. If Pakistan accused the Indian consulates in Afghanistan of fishing in the troubled waters in the restive tribal belt and Baluchistan, Prachanda and his deputy, Baburam Bhattarai minced no words to accuse India of having interfered to create a situation in which he had to resign. Prachanda and his party leaders accuse President Yadav, Gen. Katawal, and the Terai-based Sadbhavana Party and the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum of acting at the behest of New Delhi. India did not remain unaffected by the past political convulsions in Nepal when the Maoists joined hands with the political parties to oust King Gyanendra and had to intervene to broker a 12-point agreement between CPN[Maoist] chief Prachanda and the nine-party alliance led by Nepali Congress to restore peace and hold the Constituent Assembly elections to draw up a new Constitution to be followed by a parliamentary elections. That agreement now stands unravelled. With the Maoists pulling out of the ruling coalition and threatening to revert to their old ways, there is a serious possibility that the peace of the last eight months will be short lived. India has a 1751-kilometre border with Nepal and the Maoists in Nepal have close and covert ties with the Naxalites and Maoists on the Indian side which could be a source of great worry to New Delhi. Even when Prachanda was in power, his growing closeness to China and the proposed signing of a friendship treaty with Beijing were being seen with suspicion in ruling circles in New Delhi.
On the other had, even though Colombo is on the verge of a historic military victory against the murderous Tamil Tigers, it would mean very little if the Mahinda Rajapaksa Government does not follow it up with equal rights and opportunities for the Tamil population of Sri Lanka. What happens in Sri Lanka has its direct bearing on South India, especially in Tamil Nadu where the DMK and AIADMK leaders are vying with each other to embrace the Sri Lankan Tamils in order to win the backing of the Tamils at home in the election. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is under intense pressure from both these parties to make Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa to call off the military offensive even at this late stage.
However, it is a foregone conclusion that Prabhakaran is going to be killed or captured in the coming days and with him the dream of Tamil Eelam will be over. But, the Tamil issue as such will be far from over unless President Rajapaksa sincerely approaches the ethnic question and pushes for a devolution package that is acceptable to the majority of the Sri Lankan Tamils. However, given the opposition not only from the Sinhala chauvinist forces in the opposition parties like the JVP and his own brother, Gothabaya Rajapaksa, who is Defence Secretary and the Army Chief, Gen. Fonseka, who would not allow their hard won military victory to be frittered away by “political generosity”, it would be a difficult proposition for the President to sell his devolution package. If the devolution package is not offered or it is far below the expectations of the Tamil people, the LTTE cadres who may survive may resume the guerilla warfare. This may once again take the proportions of a full-fledged insurgency against Colombo under a new underground leader. India would hate such a scenario developing once gain.
In Pakistan, much to the delight of New Delhi, President Obama, for his own security reasons, caught President Zardari by the ear and made him pledge to use his full force to demolish the Taliban who are acting as a State within State in its lawless tribal belt. Zardari and his Afghanistan counterpart, Karzai, were called to Washington for a trilateral summit and told in the clearest possible terms that they should stop bickering and coordinate their measures to take on the Taliban. Only days earlier, Obama told the Pakistani leaders that their obsession of India as a threat was misguided and their real enemy was in the country itself. Perhaps the wise counsel prevailed on Zardari and he announced his decision to withdraw a few thousand troops on Pakistan’s border with India to the border with Afghanistan.
Although it is encouraging that Islamabad is finally seen to be doing something about the growing Taliban menace in Paksitan, it, however, remains unclear as to how far the present round of Pakistani military action will go in wiping out the disease. It would not be easy for Pakistan to stop using domestic extremism as a bargaining chip to get more and more aid as well as put pressure on India. As the former US Ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill, said in New Delhi, the American preoccupation with Pakistan seems to be re-hyphenating the US-India relationship, leading the Administration to see India largely through the lens of deeply disturbing developments in Pakistan. In this context, he warned that India is likely to be subjected to pressure from the US over the Kashmir issue as a fallout of Pakistan’s stand that tensions with India over the dispute are preventing Islamabad from fully participating in the war against terror.
In Bangladesh, after riding to power on a landslide electoral victory last December, the Sheikh Hasina Government has its work cut out as it tries to rein in Islamists who have made the country their new stronghold. The mutiny by Bangladesh Rifles personnel is a pointer to the challenges that lie ahead.
This murky concoction of foreign policy challenges will stare at the new Indian Government that will shape up after Lok Sabha elections the results of which will be known in the middle of this month. A policy of tough handling where needed and compromise where possible will have to be adopted by New Delhi to face the challenges.
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