India Under Strain Across South Asia - The Diplomat, 7 August 2020

In this week's column for The Diplomat, I look at India's strained relations with almost all its neighbours in South Asia. I argue that India’s regional relations are almost all in states of distress and that’s a big problem for New Delhi.

India’s standing in its South Asian neighborhood is under some strain. New Delhi is facing trouble not only in its relations with its traditional adversary, Pakistan, but also Nepal, Bangladesh and possibly Sri Lanka, too, just as it is facing pressure from China along the Tibet border. The Maldives is possibly the only relatively bright spot for India in the region at present.

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In May this year, Nepali Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli surprised India by releasing a new political map claiming a part of Indian territory. The new map shows the Kalapani, Limpiyadhura, and Lipulekh areas in the Indian state of Uttarakhand as belonging to Nepal. These areas are shown as part of Byas rural municipality in Nepal’s Sudurpaschim province. Speaking to the media, Padma Kumari Aryal, the minister for land management, cooperatives, and poverty alleviation, said that the map will come into effect immediately and added that “The areas including Gunji, Navi and Kuti near Kalapani, which had been left out in earlier maps, are also included in the new map.”

India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) responded by calling it a “unilateral act” that “is not based on historical facts and evidence.” The Indian statement rejected the claim, calling “contrary to the bilateral understanding to resolve the outstanding boundary issues through diplomatic dialogue.” Nepal’s action followed large protests in Kathmandu after Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh opened an 80-kilometer road between Dharchula and Lipulekh in Uttarakhand, part of India’s effort to improve its infrastructure along the Tibet border. Indian Army Chief General M.M. Naravane suggested that Nepal was possibly acting on behalf of “someone else,” a not-so-veiled reference to China, creating more anger in Nepal.

The new map has now been endorsed by Nepal’s Parliament and the Oli government is planning to send the map to the United Nations and other multilateral institutions. Meanwhile, Oli appears to be making a bad situation worse by talking about India’s efforts to remove him from office. This escalation has worried even members of his own party, with one saying that if India asks for concrete evidence “we will have to prove it or face the consequences.” Oli has made other controversial anti-India statements recently including a reference to the “Indian virus” being “more lethal than the Chinese or Italian viruses.” Although he was talking about workers carrying the virus from India to Nepal and trying to suggest a possible difference in the strain of the virus, it was an inelegant formulation that has not gone down well in New Delhi.

Following the India-Nepal map row, Pakistan is testing the waters by issuing a new political map of its own. On the eve of the first anniversary of India’s revoking the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan released a new political map, containing the whole of Jammu and Kashmir as well as parts of Gujarat. Calling it a “historical occasion,” Prime Minister Imran Khan said, “The political map reflects our national aspiration and supports our principled stance on Kashmir dispute.”

This has clearly irked India and New Delhi dismissed it as “ridiculous assertions” with “neither legal validity nor international credibility.” The Indian MEA in a statement called it “an exercise in political absurdity” and that it “confirms reality of Pakistan’s obsession with territorial aggrandisement supported by cross-border terrorism.” Manish Tewari, a member of parliament from the opposition Congress party, said in a tweet that this is essentially “a Geostrategic statement by China.” He added that, “Coming as it does after Nepal’s new map it is China’s way of rubbing in India’s isolation in it’s Neighbhourhood (sic). Wouldn’t be surprised if one or two others in neighbourhood walk down this absurd street.”

India is facing difficulties with Bangladesh, too. India had managed its relations with Bangladesh quite well during Modi’s first term, but that is not the case anymore. The India Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which is seen as targeting Muslims, especially migrants from Bangladesh, has cratered relations. The Sheikh Hasina government has been clear about how Bangladesh views CAA, and the reference to Bangladeshi migrants as “termites” by India’s home minister created understandable anger. Demonstrating Dhaka’s displeasure, a scheduled visit by Bangladesh Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen was cancelled by Dhaka at the very last minute. The CAA has put Bangladesh, a predominantly Muslim country that was friendly to India and the Modi government, in a difficult position. Bangladesh also worries about possible reverse migration, because there could be an exodus of Muslim migrants escaping persecution in India, especially from the northeastern state of Assam.

With the Rajapaksas back in office, Sri Lanka, another South Asian neighbor, may also be a cause for worry in New Delhi. The Rajapaksas are seen to be close to China, and there are reports suggesting that China is keen for Sri Lanka to distance itself from India and its other partners such as Japan. Austin Fernando, former Sri Lankan high commissioner to India, argued in a recent essay that India’s over-cautious approach is partly to blame for the situation. The Sri Lankan government’s recent decision to halt a Japan-funded light rail project is one indicator that all is not well. Bandula Gunewardene, Sri Lanka’s information minister, stated that it was an expensive proposition with low returns. Similarly, the India-Japan collaboration on Sri Lanka’s East Container Terminal (ECT) project in Colombo is on shaky grounds. The three countries had signed an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) only a year ago but there is no guarantee that this project will go ahead, at least with India and Japan as partners.

With much of its neighborhood relations in various degrees of distress, India is making its pitch in the Maldives to restrict China’s growing influence. According to Indian media reports, India is planning to announce a “substantial financial assistance package” to the Maldives in order for Male to address the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The real goal appears to be strategic: to curtail China’s growing footprint. In July, Sunjay Sudhir, Indian high commissioner in the Maldives, gave the country a symbolic check for carrying out nine projects in the Maldives through the High Impact Community Development Projects (HICDP) scheme. Under this scheme, India has signed several MoUs to develop fish-processing units, set up tourism zones, and establish a bottled water plant. The current package comes after India had given the Maldives $400 million under an extended currency swap arrangement to help manage its liquidity crisis. India has also provided the Maldives with an additional $1.4 billion as budgetary aid to battle the economic impact from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Whether these assistance packages will sustain India’s role and influence in the Maldives remains to be seen. For the moment, it appears to be so. India enjoys considerable goodwill in the country after the 2018 elections, with the election of Ibrahim Mohamed Solih. India does have friends in the Maldives. Mohamed Nasheed, speaker and former president, recently said in Male that the Maldives must be wise in making smart choices, and “join hands with India” for growth and prosperity. Highlighting the Maldives’ important geographical importance, he added, “I am also certain that Maldivians and their elected leaders will be wise and make shrewd and sensible decisions regarding our foreign policy and our relationship with our closest allies and neighbors, the closest and dearest of whom is India.”

New Delhi will try hard to improve its relations with other neighbors, but for now, it has to be satisfied with just the Maldives.

Sri Lanka’s Role in Sino-Indian Competition in South Asia - The Diplomat, 28 January 2020

In this week's column for The Diplomat, I examined the role of Sri Lanka in the Sino-Indian competition in South Asia. The country continues to be a prime area of competition for both Asian powers in the South Asia region.

How China and India will manage their bilateral relations, even as their competition intensifies, remains a major question, with implications for their ties as well as the wider region. At the Raisina Dialogue earlier this month, India’s external affairs minister, Dr. S Jaishankar, said that finding accommodation with China “is a must; it is not a choice… We have to get along with each other.” Jaishankar recognized, as he put it, that “it is work-in-progress and it will continue to be work-in-progress because both powers are very dynamic.”

Nowhere is this arguably more difficult than in the South Asian region, which has been so far dominated by India. China has tried hard to woo various neighbors of India including Sri Lanka, Mauritius, and Myanmar. These all are countries which have had closer ties with India but because of the proximity, have also felt dominated by New Delhi. Nevertheless, India has also tried hard to make sure that these countries did not fully fall under China’s sway.

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Sri Lanka is a prime area of competition. And we have seen this playing out over the past few weeks, particularly as senior officials from both countries made their way to Sri Lanka to woo the newly-elected government of Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

China’s growing role in Sri Lanka has been widely documented, particularly its significant investment in Sri Lankan infrastructure. But these have also been controversial even within Sri Lanka because some of the terms of China’s loans with which these infrastructure projects have been built has been quite unfavorable. Indeed, the Hambantota port has now become a prime example of the perils of what has come to be termed as China’s debt-trap diplomacy.

More broadly, China’s presence in Sri Lanka and the terms of its investments became a controversial issue in the last elections in Sri Lanka. Gotabaya campaigned that he would renegotiate the deal that allowed China to lease Hambantota for 99 years, a controversial deal that was made by the Sirisena Government, but one which had raised a lot of objections within the country. Despite such promises, once he was elected, Rajapaksa appears to have gone back in challenging China’s hold on Hambantota. Instead, he called upon other important players including India, Singapore, Japan, Australia, and ASEAN countries to invest in Sri Lanka.

How the new government balances India and China is clearly of importance to both New Delhi and Beijing. As if to illustrate that, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi visited Colombo last week. While it appears to have been more of a goodwill visit, Beijing will no doubt also continue to be concerned about Rajapaksa’s rhetoric during the election campaign. Seen from that perspective, Wang Yi probably wanted to ensure that there would be no damage to China’s political and financial investments under the new government.

If that is so, he has reasons to be satisfied. According to the Chinese foreign ministry statement, “China will continue to firmly support Sri Lanka in safeguarding its sovereignty and national dignity.” But at the same time, the statement also noted that “China-Sri Lanka cooperation has never targeted at any third party and also it should not be affected by any third party.” It doesn’t take much to guess which third party that China is referring to here.

Not to be outdone, India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval made a beeline for Colombo just a few days after Wang Yi left. The previously unannounced visit appears to have been cordial, with the two sides discussing strengthening bilateral cooperation on national security, intelligence sharing and regional cooperation. India and Sri Lanka have had several high-level exchanges even since Rajapaksa’s election in November 2019. His first foreign visit was to India in November. His brother and now Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa is to visit New Delhi in early February.

Both China and India are clearly attempting to ensure that they do not lose out to the other when it comes to currying favor with the new regime in Colombo. At the same time, is unlikely that Colombo will pick one side or the other because it makes more sense for it to get China and India continue to woo it with gifts and attention, which will stop if Sri Lanka makes a choice. Thus, even as India and China compete, Sri Lanka has every incentive to keep both parties in play so as to benefit from both.

China and India too certainly recognize the dynamic at play. But they will also recognize that they have little choice but to keep up the game given the broader geopolitical dynamics at play. Neither side can win unless they abandon the field, which of course neither side will do.

Should Rising China-Nepal Military Ties Worry India? - 20 August 2018

In this week's column for the Diplomat, "Should Rising China-Nepal Military Ties Worry India?," I analyse the growing China-Nepal military ties and what it might mean for India's security. New Delhi’s concerns are growing, and perhaps understandably so.



There has been no shortage of references recently to the fact that China and Nepal are about to conduct a second round of joint military exercises, titled Sagarmatha, in Chengdu in Sichuan, China, next month. The two countries held their first joint military exercise, Sagarmatha Friendship 2017, for 10 days in Kathmandu in April last year.

Often neglected in a focus on headlines alone is the fact that it has been reported that there will be no more than 15 personnel taking part in this edition of the exercise. Nonetheless, even as the scale and sophistication of the China-Nepal joint military exercise is nowhere comparable to the kind that India holds with Nepal, it still raises hackles in New Delhi.

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India does the Surya Kiran series of military exercise with Nepal twice a year, alternating between India and Nepal. The last one, SURYA KIRAN-XIII, was held in June this year. Reportedly, this series of military exercise with Nepal remains the “largest military exercise in terms of troop participation” that the Indian army undertakes with any other country. A press statement noted that that the focus of the exercise was on counterterrorism operations.

While India can find some solace in the depth of New Delhi’s relations with Nepal, India’s concerns nonetheless have been growing about this new facet of the China-Nepal relationship that has seen an uptick, particularly in recent years.

That concern is not entirely without reason. India’s own relations with Nepal have seen some testing times. More generally, Beijing’s proactive diplomacy in South Asia and the Indian Ocean remains particularly sensitive to New Delhi. While these are not new manifestations to be sure, China’s outreach has indeed picked up the pace in recent years.

The growing security ties between China and Nepal also comes in the wake of growing commercial and economic linkages as well. China pumped in more than $8 billion in investments in Nepal last year and overtook India as the biggest foreign investor three years ago. That is no small feat.

To be sure, it has not all been smooth sailing for China. For example, Nepal recently cancelled two massive hydroelectric projects that Chinese firms were contracted to build. Furthermore, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been stepping up his outreach to Nepal as well, making his third visit to Kathmandu in just four years.

But, for perspective, Modi’s latest visit was also to repair the damage done by the two-month long Indian economic blockade of Nepal in 2015, a move that had caused serious hardships for ordinary Nepalis. Everything from fuel to medicines and earthquake relief supplies were affected, resulting in a huge backlash against India in Nepal. This had happened in the backdrop of Nepal’s efforts to amend its Constitution and India’s efforts at championing the case of the Madhesi people, which made India a villain in the eyes of ordinary Nepalis. Following these events, Nepal’s outreach to China grew even as the Himalayan Kingdom attempts to maintain a balance in its relationship with these two giants on its border.

That balance appears set to continue. For example, former Prime Minister of Nepal and alliance partner of the Oli Government, P K Dahal Prachanda, is slated to visit India next month from September 7 to 12, a few days before he travels to China. Prime Minister Oli too had done this balancing act earlier this year, when he travelled to India first before he headed to Beijing.

All of this indicates that the Oli government is possibly just keeping its options open, and that there are really no major or dramatic changes to Nepal’s foreign policy in spite of individual moves that might be taken.

Yet India’s fears about China’s encirclement in the neighborhood are not without any basis. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s aggressive strategic pitch through his Belt and Road Initiative and debt trap diplomacy have seen the strengthening of China’s footprint in the Indian neighborhood.

The case of Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port is the oft-cited case in point. But the Maldivian government’s approach toward India is another instance of how the traditionally pro-India Maldives has turned against New Delhi, with support from China.

To be sure, India must shoulder its own share of blame for not managing these relations well. But the fact also is that for the smaller countries in the region, the economic incentives offered by China has been critical. Nepal’s decision to join the BRI will beef up Beijing’s role and presence in Kathmandu manifold. Similarly, Modi’s efforts to stem China’s influence in Nepal would depend on India’s ability to deliver on the promises made during Oli’s visit to India earlier this year, apart from any wider geopolitical calculations or moves.

It is worth keeping in mind that the fact that India and China are competing on similar projects including infrastructure development means this competition is likely to be lopsided. India does not enjoy a good track record in completing such ventures on time. The India-Myanmar-Thailand trilateral way is a case in point, with the project, initially conceptualized in 2002, seeing many delays and the latest update suggests 2021 as the completion date.

Certainly, in an election year, Modi will want to show clear successes in his neighborhood-first approach. But unless India strengthens its delivery capacity, New Delhi is bound to continue to lose to China. Ultimately, irrespective of what India’s neighbors do with China in the economic or military domains, New Delhi’s surest bet to shore up ties with these countries is to focus on shoring up its own reputation as a provider of security and prosperity. Nepal is no exception to this rule.