Misguided foreign policy has left India friendless in South Asia

Chinese rivalry has blinded Modi to adverse political trends in nearby nations

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made a series of miscalculations in his attempts to strengthen the country’s ties with neighboring nations.    © Reuters

TORU TAKAHASHI, Nikkei senior staff writerOctober 7, 2024 11:03 JST

TOKYO -- Eager to position India as a leading Asian power to rival China, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has prioritized strengthening ties with Sri Lanka and other nearby countries. However, political developments in neighboring nations, along with some misguided diplomacy from New Delhi, are undermining the leader's efforts.

In Sri Lanka, antiestablishment lawmaker Anura Kumara Dissanayake won the presidential election on Sept. 21. However, the coalition led by his Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) party held only three of the 225 seats in parliament, prompting Dissanayake to dissolve the legislature and call a general election for Nov. 14.

In the island nation, sometimes referred to as "the pearl of the Indian Ocean," the Rajapaksa brothers and their clan -- who played a crucial role in ending a 26-year civil war in 2009 -- had long held power. The regime of former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa collapsed in 2022, however, due to an economic meltdown caused by the perfect storm of inefficient investment in China-led infrastructure projects, the financial fallout from the COVID pandemic, and inflation triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Although the economy has recovered somewhat, painful measures such as tax hikes and spending cuts have fueled growing public discontent, contributing to Dissanayake's electoral victory.

Modi may now see an opportunity to improve ties with Sri Lanka, which, under the Rajapaksa family, had leaned toward closer relations with China. But, it remains uncertain whether this change in power will ultimately benefit India, which likes to see itself as the leader of South Asia.

Sri Lanka, long plagued by deep-seated animosity between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamil populations, plunged into civil war in 1983 when separatist Tamil militants clashed with the military. New Delhi provided humanitarian support to the militants to address concerns among its own Tamil population while attempting to prevent the secessionist movement from spilling over into its territory. But, India's half-hearted involvement in the civil war backfired, leading to the assassination of then-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by a Tamil extremist.

Currently, there are about 3.3 million Tamils in Sri Lanka, while nearly 80 million live across the Palk Strait in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

Sri Lankan antiestablishment lawmaker Anura Kumara Dissanayake waves to well-wishers in Colombo on Sept. 22, after winning the presidential election the day before.    © Reuters

Dissanayake's JVP once championed Sinhalese nationalism and still holds some anti-Indian sentiment. In February, Dissanayake visited India at New Delhi's invitation to foster friendly ties. However, during his election campaign, he criticized infrastructure projects undertaken by India's Adani Group in Sri Lanka and called for excluding Indian fishing boats from national waters. Even if the new president does not pursue a clearly pro-China policy, strengthening ties with India may not be easy.

Sri Lanka is just one of several miscalculations in Modi's "neighborhood-first" policy, which aims to cultivate good relations and economic synergy with India's smaller neighbors.

In Myanmar, the increasingly China-leaning military seized power in February 2021, detaining Aung San Suu Kyi, the pro-democracy leader who once studied in India. In Afghanistan, the withdrawal of U.S. forces in August of that year led to the resurgence of the Taliban regime, which is closely aligned with Pakistan, India's archrival.

Furthermore, the pro-India president of the Maldives lost the nation's 2023 election to a pro-China candidate. Upon assuming power, the new president, Mohamed Muizzu, ordered the withdrawal of Indian military units that had been assisting the country with maritime surveillance and medical emergencies using their aircraft, while also signing a military assistance pact with China. In Nepal, K.P. Sharma Oli, a veteran communist politician with pro-China policies, became prime minister in July.

Changes in national leadership culminated in major upheaval in Bangladesh in August, as antigovernment demonstrations led by students prompted the ousting of Sheikh Hasina, who had ruled the country with an iron fist for years. Hasina, the eldest daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman -- Bangladesh's first president and a hero of the country's fight for independence from Pakistan in 1971 -- has been closely aligned with India, which supported that struggle. After her ousting, Hasina has sought refuge in India.

In an interview with the Indian Express, Abdul Moyeen Khan, a senior member of Bangladesh's main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, argued that the Indian government made "massive" blunders by putting "all its eggs in one basket." The former minister of information was referring to New Delhi's lopsided support for the ousted prime minister. The interim Bangladeshi government, led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, has demanded Hasina's extradition, placing India in a difficult position.

Modi speaks with then-Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in New Delhi on June 22.    © Reuters

Looking around, India now has only one country in South Asia that is friendly toward it: Bhutan, which relies on India for its economy and diplomacy. Many pundits attribute India's predicament to its obsession with competing against China.

"The Asian balance of power was skewed by the Partition," wrote Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in his 2020 book "The India Way," referring to the 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan, which consisted of West Pakistan (now Pakistan) and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), following independence from Britain. By the "balance of power," Jaishankar is clearly pointing to India's regional standing in relation to China.

According to United Nations estimates, China's population was 540 million in 1950, compared to India's 340 million. However, if the populations of East and West Pakistan had been included, India's population would have been 420 million. By 2023, India's population surpassed China's for the first time, reaching 1.44 billion compared to China's 1.42 billion. Pundits argue that without partition, India would have overtaken China long ago.

Population may be just one element of national power, but from India's perspective, the humiliating defeat in the 1962 Sino-Indian border conflict was attributed to the dilution of national strength, both economic and military, following partition. Actions taken by India, such as the de facto military alliance with the Soviet Union in 1971 and nuclear tests in 1974, were all aimed at countering China's rise.

India continues to face a security threat from China, as shown by a military standoff in the Doklam plateau near the borders of India, Bhutan and China in 2017, as well as a deadly clash between Indian and Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley of the Himalayas in 2020. This clash resulted in the first casualties in 45 years in the territorial conflict between the two powers.

While India is preoccupied with Chinese threats on land, Beijing has accelerated its naval expansion. Since the 2000s, China has developed several ports in India's neighboring countries, including Gwadar in Pakistan, Hambantota in Sri Lanka and Kyaukpyu in Myanmar. China is pursuing the "string of pearls" strategy, which aims to encircle India by financing infrastructure projects with potential military applications in these countries.

This growing threat from China is why Modi began to pursue his neighborhood diplomacy after taking office in 2014. He was eager to reassert the country's position as a dominant power in South Asia.

Yet China's overtures are not the only reason India's neighbors have begun to distance themselves from the South Asian country. Many experts attribute this shift to India's perceived arrogance in asserting itself as a "big brother" in the region.

Public sentiment against India appears strong in some neighboring countries. "Our local bases in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka were often reluctant to share information with the regional headquarters in India," said an executive at a Japanese company that moved its South Asia headquarters from New Delhi to Singapore five years ago.

Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu meets with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing in January.    © Reuters

While directing much of his energy toward neighborhood diplomacy, Modi also sought to expand India's geopolitical reach to better compete with China's Belt and Road Initiative. Under his leadership, India has enhanced cooperation with ASEAN through the Act East policy, joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which includes Central Asian nations such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, and formed the I2U2 cooperation framework with the U.S., the United Arab Emirates and Israel.

In addition, Modi has leveraged the Global South group of emerging and developing countries as a platform to solidify India's position as a major player while countering China. In January 2023, shortly after assuming the chair of the Group of 20 major powers, India hosted an online summit that brought together 125 developing nations and regions to discuss a wide range of concerns and challenges. India has hosted the same event twice since then, again deliberately excluding China, despite Beijing's claims of being part of the Global South.

With Modi's popularity declining at home, the tectonic shifts in political dynamics across South Asia threaten to undermine his major-power diplomacy. "Unlike China, India lacks the bargaining chips it can draw upon in areas such as funding, infrastructure technology, military support and natural resources," said Ryohei Kasai, a visiting associate professor at the Center for South Asian Studies at Gifu Women's University. "It is clear to its neighbors that India's means are limited, and it is merely engaging in 'lip service diplomacy.'"

He added, "Indian diplomacy is overrated, and its substance will come under increasing scrutiny in the future.⍐"