KAMALIKA PIERIS
When India gained Independence as a sovereign state
in 1947, it considered itself the natural leader of South Asia because of its
size, its antiquity and its classy leader, Jawaharlal Nehru. It considered
itself a regional power and took a very arrogant attitude towards it neighbors. This haughty, aggressive policy only succeeded in
angering India’s neighbors.
India has interfered in the internal affairs of
neighboring countries and tried to bully them. As a result, India
became heartily disliked by its neighbors. Indian analysts are concerned. One after another of India’s immediate neighbors in South Asia are
turning away from India. Bangladesh,
Sri Lanka and Nepal are tilting toward China, they said.
With each of our South Asian neighbours, the potential for
accommodating bilateral relations is immense. But our relations with nearly all
of them is ‘discordant.’ India should secure its security
through friendly relations with its neighbors, they advised.
Pakistan, Sri Lanka and
China could gang up against India in the future. China (1962) and Pakistan ((1965, 1971, 1999) fought wars against India. India does not have
cordial relations with these two countries today either.
India shares land borders with, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China,
Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar. There are border disputes with several
of them. The main reason for this is that, except for China, all the other
states are ‘new’ states and the boundaries are not historical ones. In
addition, the population in the northern states is clearly of Chinese origin.
Pakistan
and India are fighting over Jammu and Kashmir, Chinaand India are fighting over the two extremes of their border,
Ladakh and Arunchal Pradesh and Nepal has recently expanded its territory.
In June 2020 Nepal took
three strategic areas bordering India, Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura,
into its territory through an Act of Parliament and then issued a map showing
these areas. Nepal says that its right
to Lipulekh Pass is mentioned in Sugauli Treaty between the British East India
Company and Nepal in 1816. These places are at the border with India’s
Uttarakhand state.
The biggest problem for India at
present is its land border with China.
India has no historical links to its northern border, and wants Chinato recognize the McMahon Line. China says No. Imperial China was border conscious and
would have had a firm border in its south. But China prefers to settle the
issue militarily.
The entire
Sino-Indian border is 4,056km or 2,520 miles long, and traverses one Indian
union territory, Ladakh, and four Indian states, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh,
Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. India claims the McMahon Line drawn in 1914
including Arunachal Pradesh as its border with China in the north-east and the
Johnson Line drawn in 1899 including Aksai Chin in the north. China has brushed
this aside. China lays claim to several parts of Ladakh and the whole of
Arunchal Pradesh.
In July 2020 China’s army pushed into several disputed areas in
Eastern Ladakh and there was direct
confrontation. Over 100 Indian and Chinese soldiers were injured. this could become the biggest confrontation after the
Doklam episode in 2017. India sent a
senior official from the Ministry of External Affairs to the border talks. This
was a surprise and China also sent a foreign ministry representative. India
wants a final agreement which will
settle all the friction points along the border with China.
India
has good relations with Bangladesh. There is some arrogance arising from the
fact that it was India that helped Bangladesh gain its independence. A
comprehensive bilateral treaty was signed by India and Bangladesh in 1996. The
treaty established a 30-year water-sharing arrangement and recognized
Bangladesh’s rights.
India has settled its land boundary issue with
Bangladesh with an exchange of enclaves. There was an exchange of territories
in Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya and West Bengal. In July 2015, a total of 162 tiny
Island of land, 111 in Bangladesh and 51 In India were officially handed over
to the countries surrounding them. they had been stateless, without schools,
clinics, or power since 1947. The enclaves were allowed to decide where they
wanted to go.
West Bengal and Bangladesh share the Teesta River, Negotiations on the Teesta River have been going on for decades
and a draft agreement was prepared, in
2011 but it was not accepted and no
progress has been made since. there are over fifty
rivers that flow from India into Bangladesh and sharing arrangements will be
needed for them all later said analysts.
India
annexed Sikkim in 1975 when Sikkim asked to be made sovereign state. The
head of Sikkim, the Chogyal asked India to revise the Indo-Sikkim Treaty, which
made Sikkim a protectorate of India.
Sikkim wanted to be a sovereign state like Bhutan. But Sikkim was on India’s border with China and
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi did not want to let Sikkim go.
Instead she
wanted Sikkim absorbed into India in the shortest possible time. the task was given to RAW, India’s
intelligence agency. The operation was carried out by a secret three-member RAW
team. . Only they knew what the ultimate objective was.
RAW ran a 27-month-long, ruthless operation from 1973 to 1975, to
undermine and weaken the Chogyal. RAW instigated, directed and funded political
and social agitation by political parties, notably Sikkim National Congress. The
head of the Sikkim National Congress, Kazi Lendhup Dorzi alone, knew what the
real purpose was.
The plan
succeeded. There was an uprising against Sikkim’s rule. Kazi won a landslide victory
at the general election. Parliament
passed the Government of Sikkim Act,
1974, making Sikkim an associate state of India.
The Chogyal was removed from office in a bloodless coup. it took
less than 20 minutes for the Indian Army to enter the palace, disarm the Sikkim
guards and take the Chogyal. Chogyal was furious but was helpless. On May 15,
1976 Sikkim officially became the 22nd state of India. Chogyal’s eldest son, the potential heir died
soon after.
Rarely has there been a more successful Indian intelligence
operation than the merger of Sikkim, said RAW proudly. This is a classic
example of what RAW can do. The operation was low key and executed without any international furore.
But the matter is not ended. The
Sikkim public continue to recognize the Chogyal
who is living in Sikkim. In 2015, the Opposition in the Sikkim State
Assembly asked for a reappraisal of India’s annexation of Sikkim. Sikkim National Congress also pressed for an
open debate. This annexation of Sikkim by RAW is of interest to Sri Lanka. Analysts in Sri Lanka said that RAW was behind India’s support for
the LTTE in 1980s.
India would very much like to become a
world power, rivaling China. In
2016, India announced the creation of
an Asia-Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC) with Japan as a counter to China’s One Belt
One Road (OBOR). This was stated in the
joint declaration issued by Prime Ministers Modi and Shinzo Abe in November
2016 and declared at the 52nd annual
general meeting of the African Development Bank
in May 2017.
the AAGC has a plan to connect ports in Jamnagar (Gujarat) with
Djibouti in the Gulf of Eden. Similarly, ports of Mombasa and Zanzibar will be
connected to ports near Madurai (Tamil Nadu); Kolkata (West Bengal) will be
linked to Sittwe port in Myanmar.. this will be under the Sagarmala programme. Unlike
OBOR which entails development of a land corridor, AAGC will essentially be a
sea corridor linking Africa with India and other countries of South-East Asia
and Oceania.
There is
now a powerful new Buddhist region, led by China, in South East Asia, with Sri
Lanka and Nepal joining in. India does not wish to be left out. India plans to
reconstruct Nalanda University in Bihar. Nalanda is one of
India’s largest archaeological complexes with stupas, temples, monasteries,
hostels, meditation hall and libraries spread over 16 square kilometers. This
is planned as an international project.
India is
also to create a Buddha Smriti Park in Patna, Bihar, with relics from Japan,
Thailand, Sri Lanka Myanmar and Dharamsala.
India’s most sacred relic of the Buddha, the Vaishali relic, discovered
in excavations of 1958-62, is presently in display at the Patna museum,
reported the media in 2010.
India is wishes to emerge as a powerful military in its own right.
It buys its military requirements from both Russia and the US. In 2018 India
signed a Rs 39,000-crore deal with Russia for the supply of S-400 Triumf air
defence missile systems, ignoring Washington’s concerns about the purchase.
What we have to buy from
Russia, we will buy. We do not recognize unilateral sanctions by any country.
We have made known to the US that we have our own national interest and the
ties with Russia are old and unique, said India.
The US is also a leading supplier of weapons to India, accounting
for 12% of the country’s defence imports. Since 2008, India has bought or
ordered military equipment worth $15 billion from the US, including C-130J
special operations planes, C-17 transport aircraft, P-8I submarine hunter
planes, Harpoon missiles, Apache and Chinook helicopters and M777 lightweight
howitzers.
.In 2020 India signed two deals worth $3 billion for 24 MH-60
`Romeo’ naval helicopters and six Apache attack choppers. They have taken the
total value of lucrative Indian defence deals bagged by the US to over $21
billion just since 2007.
India has test fired a number of its own missiles including a new
version of the surface-to-surface supersonic cruise missile BrahMos and
anti-radiation missile Rudram-1.The successful test firing of Rudram-1 was seen
as a major milestone as it is India’s first indigenously developed
anti-radiation weapon. India also carried out successful test firing of a laser
guided anti-tank guided missile and nuclear capable hypersonic missile
‘Shaurya’.
BrahMos Aerospace, an India-Russia joint venture, produces a
supersonic cruise missile that can be launched from submarines, ships,
aircraft, or from land platforms. naval version of the BrahMos supersonic
cruise missile was successfully test-fired from an indigenously built stealth
destroyer of the Indian Navy in the Arabian Sea it hit the target with
pin-point accuracy . It will engage naval surface targets at long ranges.
In May last year, the Indian Air Force successfully test fired the
aerial version of the BrahMos missile from a Su-30 MKI fighter aircraft. On
September India successfully test fired
a new version of the surface-to-surface version of the BrahMos. The range was
now 400 km, increased from the original
290 km. India has already deployed a
sizeable number of the original BrahMos missiles along the de-facto border with
China in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh.
India conducted wide-ranging military exercises in a tri-service
format (army, navy, air force) with the
United States and Russia, in separate exercises in November and December, 2019. This
was the first time with USA and second with Russia. The first exercise with
Russia was in Vladivostok in October 2017.
India’s ties with the US and Russia are independent of the relationship
between those two powers, India said. India is guided by its own national
interests. It is imperative that India maintains good relations with both the
US and Russia. The fact that both those nations want to exercise with us shows
that India too is important in their calculations.
India has its own foreign policy it is not a
satellite of US, said its analysts.
In 2016, India ruled out US proposal for joint patrolling of Asia pacific
region to counter China. India will
participate in joint naval exercises, that is all. India and France held talks for exercises involving their armies,
navies and air forces in 2019.
However,
India has signed many military agreements with USA. India inked the General Security of Military Information
Agreement (GSOMIA) with the US in 2002. It was followed by the Logistics
Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) in 2016, and then the Communications,
Compatibility and Security Arrangement (COMCASA) in 2018.
LEMOA provides for reciprocal logistics support like refuelling
and berthing facilities for each other’s warships and aircraft, while the
COMCASA has paved the way for India to get greater access to advanced military
technologies with encrypted and secure communications and data links like armed
Predator-B or Sea Guardian drones.
In 2020 India will ink the fourth and final `foundational military pact’ called the
Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-Spatial Cooperation (BECA)
with the United States. BECA will enable the US to share advanced satellite and
topographical data for long-range navigation and missile-targeting with India.
There are, however, some concerns about Indian inking BECA when India has its
own considerable satellite imaging capabilities.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had refused to sign LEMOA, COMCASA
and BECA on the grounds that it would compromise India’s strategic autonomy”, but
Narendra Modi has signed, saying that there are enough India-specific
safeguards” built into these pacts.
India is a part of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) led by
USA. The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue was specifically created to control China in the Indo Pacific.
It is however described as a strategic forum between the United States, Japan,
Australia and India ,maintained by regular summits, information exchanges and
military drills between member countries. ( Continued)
