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The Hindu report on 30 December 2013, quoting External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid that the "US is at some distance from Bangladesh, India is right next to it" may be a polite, though not an apologetic way of New Delhi telling the Washington ally, to stay off India's "traditional sphere of influence, interest and concern". The more pronounced India-US differences over the recently-concluded parliamentary polls in Bangladesh subsequently is proof that Washington is not concerned about Khurshid's sage advice that "India's understanding of Bangladesh will help the US".
This is not the first time that the US is ploughing a lone furrow in Bangladesh and the rest of India's neighbourhood, in the post-Cold War era, when the two democratic giants were supposed to have become friends and allies. Then US Ambassador Pat Butenis was seen as 'running' Bangladesh during the long and controversial run-up to the elections five years back. Later, she was shifted to Colombo, where it became a different ball-game, though.
Elections in Bangladesh, pro-democracy posturing in Myanmar, aid for Bhutan-Nepal re-settlers, human rights in Sri Lanka and avoidable military pacts with Maldives -- the US and the rest of the West has done enough to embarrass India now, and harass it in the years to come what China's 'String of Pearls' alone is supposed to have done.
When India is still looking for a dependable ally like the erstwhile Soviet Union, which would not interfere in India's neighbourhood, post-Cold War allies of India are unable and unwilling to leave the past behind. Four long decades after the non-starter of an American 'mis-adventure' at the peak of the 'Bangladesh War', the expansive 'fishing expedition' now precedes the conclusion of the controversial Anglo-American deal on Diego Garcia that India cannot afford to ignore.
Friendly complications
The one possible occasion that Moscow did anything in India's neighbourhood without taking India into confidence, the Afghan misadventure ended in the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was/is no different for the US-led West which side-stepped the unilateral Indian offer of military assistance to target post-9/11 Afghanistan. Both paid the price for not asking/listening to India.
Today, the West has left not only Afghanistan but also Pakistan in a greater mess than when they came, and India with not adequate leverage to clean up the same. With both nations, it is a repeat of what the West had done to the region at the height of the unwarranted 'Soviet occupation' of Afghanistan. Eliminating Osama bin-Laden, post-9/11, did not have to entail destruction of nations and peoples, to say the least.
By design or otherwise, the era after the two Great Wars of the 20th century has witnessed that most, if not all, major State and non-State centred military actions moving away from Europe and the Americas, and to converging on Asia, closer to India, at every turn. With existing adversities with China and Pakistan, India can do without 'friendly complications' that are political in nature, yet have the potential to harm Indian interests in its immediate backyard.
Paying for others' concerns
The past 20 years have witnessed the world telling India that it was a reigning regional power, raising to be a global power. At one-level, the West used the argument to out-source its post-Cold War geo-strategic power-projection (passing for security concerns) to countries such as India, Japan and South Korea, given the history and historicity of their bilateral relations with China in particular.
At least in India's case, it was also made to pay for not only its own security, but also someone else's perceptions of India's security in terms of military hardware, but with no proven guarantee of political support if and when required. At a time when India's need for friends and allies that are dependable for good is immeasurable, they are actually seen as undermining India in the immediate neighbourhood.
Sharing waters and concerns
Among other things, India requires its neighbours to 'out-source' its larger geo-strategic security concerns in the shared Indian Ocean neighbourhood - and otherwise, too. They all share the same waters and/or land-borders, and similar concerns. India's neighbours - Pakistan included -- do not often have the kind of resources that India alone can hope to command, in political and military terms, in the neighbourhood.
India needs to prioritise its concerns and interests in the neighbourhood context. It needs to nurture its neighbours and censure the rest - friends and adversaries alike. The unilateral and differentiated application of the eternally-shifting western standards to India's 'responsibility' in neighbourhood matters, taken up unilaterally and enforced through faceless external sources may achieve homogeneity of sorts at one-level, but would still leave India (feel) more vulnerable than already!
(The writer is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter)
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