Pax Indica: India and the World of the Twenty-first Century (18 page)

It is striking that the India–Sri Lanka FTA has had a mutually beneficial positive trade creation effect. It is one of the few South–South agreements that are working credibly; in fact some researchers say that it could be an example for other South–South agreements to emulate. The success of the India–Sri Lanka FTA has proved that if the concerns of the smaller economy in the relationship are taken into account with more favourable treatment, then the size differential in the economies of the FTA partners do not matter. Being the first of its kind in the South Asian region, it has invited lot of interest among the exporters of the region. The building of a land bridge between the two nations, which has been talked of desultorily for years, will go an even longer way to integrating the Indian and Sri Lankan economies.

It would be facile to pretend that there are no irritants at all in the relationship between our countries. The condition of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka remains both an emotional and a political issue in India, erupting periodically in the hothouse politics of Tamil Nadu. Another issue, given the proximity of the territorial waters of both countries, especially in the Palk Straits and the Gulf of Mannar, relates to incidents of the straying of fishermen across territorial waters and some cases of poaching, often resulting in their interception by the other country’s coast guard and subsequent incarceration, to a chorus of protests by agitated families and their political representatives. Both countries have agreed on practical arrangements to deal with the issue of bona fide fishermen of either side crossing the International Maritime Boundary Line. Through these arrangements, it has been largely possible to deal with the detention of fishermen in a humanitarian manner, though the occasional incident still occurs.

The way forward for the two countries clearly lies in India and Sri Lanka developing an even more intimate economic relationship—the rapid growth of the Indian economy undoubtedly benefits its southern neighbour—even while New Delhi, egged on by Tamil Nadu politicians, pushes Colombo towards making more visible progress in promoting reconciliation with Sri Lanka’s own Tamil community, which remains still marginalized politically. The end of the war witnessed much widely reported brutality on the part of the Sri Lankan military, and the need for accountability, for the rehabilitation of the Tamils displaced from
their homes by the conflict and for serious steps towards reconciliation and national integration is acute.

On the whole, however, the picture one can paint of India–Sri Lanka relations is a highly positive one. I witnessed at first hand the welcoming atmosphere in Colombo when the International Indian Film Awards (IIFA) took place there in July 2010, shortly after the end of the civil war. As I observed on that occasion, India and Sri Lanka need to look to the future, to a future in which our geographical proximity becomes a reason for closeness rather than controversy, where the past reminds us not of recent pain but of ancient commonalities, where religion and culture bring us together in a celebration of our common heritage. In our shared epic, the Ramayana, Lord Rama came to Lanka to reclaim Sita and left; the Indian emperor Ashoka’s envoys brought Buddhism to Lanka and stayed. These ancient links unify us in spirit, in the spirit of the timeless tides that wash our shores and that have tied us together for millennia. The IIFA saw the film world taking its turn to build a new bridge to Lanka, a Rama Setu of the imagination. The way forward is clear, and well lit.

One should not leave India’s southern waters without a reference to the Maldives, where India enjoys relations that are comparable to those with Bhutan—intimate and trouble-free. For years, New Delhi had the only foreign embassy located in the country; other ambassadors were accredited to the capital, Male, from elsewhere. While the Indian ambassador now has a few Asian brethren for company in the capital, his status in the island state epitomizes a ‘special relationship’ that was repeatedly affirmed to me personally by the then president Nasheed and his senior aides during a recent visit. When Nasheed was overthrown in 2012, one striking feature of the motley coalition that replaced him was that every one of its members reaffirmed the importance of continued strong relations with India.

Despite having been a close ally of President Gayoom (and having dispatched its paratroopers to overturn a coup attempt against him by Sri Lanka–based mercenaries in 1996), New Delhi had welcomed the results of the first multiparty democratic presidential and parliamentary elections in the Maldives that brought Nasheed to power and has taken a similar attitude to the new regime, remaining determined to work
with whoever comes to power in that country. India was visibly active in the diplomatic activity that followed the change of government in 2012, and we have continued enhancing our cooperation in a range of areas, including maritime and coastal security, where we share common concerns. While there is legitimate ground for suggesting that India could have taken a more active stand in defence of the democratically elected president, its close involvement in ensuring a peaceful aftermath of the transfer of power cannot be faulted. The India–Maldives relationship has been nurtured over decades through regular high-level exchanges and by developing mutually identified infrastructure facilities in the Maldives using economic and technical assistance provided by India. At the people-to-people level, as the MP from Thiruvananthapuram, I am conscious of the close bonds we have with the people of the Maldives, many of whom can be seen in the Kerala capital on any given day. We are committed to strengthening and enhancing our bonds of friendship with these close cousins.

As elections in 2011 (and a by-election in 2012) both ratified and subtly altered the consequences of three decades of military rule in Myanmar, formerly (and to many nationalists, still) called Burma, the perspective from India may help explain much about the international survival and continued acceptability of the junta in that country.

Burma was ruled as part of Britain’s Indian Empire until 1935, and the links between the two countries remained strong. An Indian business community thrived in the major Burmese cities, and cultural and political affinities between the two countries were well established. India’s nationalist leader and first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a friend of the Burmese nationalist hero Bogyoke (General) Aung San, whose daughter Suu Kyi studied in New Delhi.

When the generals in Rangoon (now Yangon) suppressed the popular uprising of 1988, overturned the results of a free election overwhelmingly won by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), shot students and arrested the new democratically elected leaders, leaving NLD leaders and party workers a choice of incarceration or exile, the
Government of India initially reacted as most Indians would have wanted it to. India gave asylum to fleeing students, allowed them to operate their resistance movement on the Indian side of the border (with some financial help from New Delhi) and supported a newspaper and a radio station that propagated the democratic voice. For many years, India was unambiguously on the side of democracy, freedom and human rights in Myanmar—and in ways more tangible than the rhetoric of the regime’s Western critics. In 1995 Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding, India’s highest honour given to a foreigner.

But then reality intruded. India’s strategic rivals, China and Pakistan, began to cultivate the Burmese generals. Major economic and geopolitical concessions were offered to both suitors. The Chinese even began developing a port on the Burmese coast, far closer to Kolkata than to Canton. And the generals of the SLORC junta, well aware of the utility of what comes out of the barrel of a gun, began providing safe havens and arms to a motley assortment of anti–New Delhi rebel movements that would wreak havoc in the north-eastern states of India and retreat to sanctuaries in the newly renamed Myanmar.

This was troubling enough to policy-makers in New Delhi, who were being painfully reminded of their own vulnerabilities to a determined neighbour. The two countries share a 1600-kilometre land border and a longer maritime boundary with overlapping economic zones in the strategically crucial Bay of Bengal. Four of India’s politically sensitive north-eastern states have international borders with Myanmar. These borders are porous and impossible to patrol closely; people, traders, smugglers and militants all cross easily in both directions. The potential threat to India from its own periphery is therefore considerable.

But the clincher came when large deposits of natural gas were found in Myanmar, which it was clear would not be available to an India deemed hostile to the junta. India realized that its rivals were gaining ground in its own backyard while New Delhi was losing out on new economic opportunities. The price of pursuing a moral foreign policy simply became too high.

So New Delhi turned 180 degrees. When Pakistan’s President Musharraf travelled to Myanmar in 1999 to celebrate his country’s new
relationship with his fellow generals, India’s then foreign minister Jaswant Singh soon followed. The increasingly forlorn resistance operations from Indian soil were shut down in the hope of reciprocation from the Burmese side. And New Delhi sweetened the Burmese generals’ tea for them by providing both military assistance and intelligence support to their regime in their never-ending battles against their own rebels.

India’s journey was complete: from standing up for democracy, New Delhi had gone on to aiding and enabling the objectives of the military regime. When monks were being mowed down on the streets of Yangon in 2006, the Indian government called for negotiations, muttered banalities about national reconciliation and opposed sanctions. New Delhi also sent its oil minister to negotiate an energy deal, making it clear the country’s real priorities lay with its own national economic interests, ahead of its solidarity with Burmese democrats. (At the same time, Indian diplomats intervened discreetly from time to time on behalf of Suu Kyi, though their effectiveness was limited by New Delhi’s unwillingness to alienate Rangoon.)

All this was in fact perfectly understandable. Officials in New Delhi were justified in reacting with asperity to Western critics of its policy: India needed no ethical lessons from a Washington or London that has long coddled military dictators in our neighbourhood, notably in Islamabad. Any Indian government’s primary obligation is to its own people, and there is little doubt that the economic opportunities provided by Burmese oil and gas are of real benefit to Indians. India does not have the luxury of distance from Myanmar; there is also the strategic imperative of not ceding ground to India’s enemies on its own borders. One inescapable fact of geopolitics remains: you can put your ideals on hold, but you cannot change who your neighbours are.

The member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), on Myanmar’s eastern flank, have made similar calculations. India’s government therefore cannot be blamed for deciding that its national interests in Myanmar more important than standing up for democracy there. As I wrote at the time, India’s policy was being made with its head rather than its heart, but in the process we had lost a little bit of our soul.

And yet, paradoxically, the gradual opening up of Myanmar following
the 2011 elections and the installation of a general-turned-civilian, Thien Sein, as president, may offer New Delhi some measure of vindication. As the new regime released political prisoners, permitted freedom of movement to the detained Aung San Suu Kyi, allowing her to contest and win a by-election, and even questioned the environmental and economic impact of a big Chinese dam project in the country’s north, India’s Western critics began grudgingly to acknowledge that genuine change might well be on the way. Countries like India that had maintained links with the junta and gently prised open its clenched fist may well have achieved more than those whose threats, bluster and sanctions had merely hardened the junta’s heart.

After two decades of ruthless military rule under a remarkably opaque regime, Myanmar has witnessed an opening up of its political space amid evidence of self-assertion by the nominally civilian government. Aung San Suu Kyi’s victory in a by-election to the Myanmarese Parliament offers a glimmer of hope that the fledgling political process in that country could yet be used by its democrats to create something resembling a genuine democracy. There is no doubt that the country’s military rulers are cynically hoping to use her participation in the parliamentary process to bolster the illusion of freedom while continuing to exert real control over what goes on in their country. But such exercises in ‘managed democratization’ have often surprised their would-be manipulators in places as far apart as Iran and Indonesia. It is clearly in the interests of both India and the United States to work with this possibility. While China has always been much more comfortable dealing with an uncompromising military regime which could be guaranteed to uphold its interests, India’s embrace of the junta has always been a more reluctant one, based on the compulsions of a common geography rather than the affinities of shared ideals.