For a better South Asian neighbourhood 

News: Recently, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Pakistan have been facing a lot of hardship. All the South Asian countries are facing the problem of higher oil and food inflation. This has resulted in popular unrest across the region. This underlines the geographic imperative that binds India to its neighbours in the Subcontinent.  

How is India at the centre of geographic imperative in the South Asia region? 

India has had a long tradition of hosting political exiles from the region. Delhi has welcomed leaders from the neighbourhood taking shelter in India. For example, Dalai Lama from Tibet or Prachanda from Nepal.  

India’s emerging neighbourhood policy requires the Indian leadership to provide support and assistance at such crisis time. 

What are the challenges in the South Asian Regions? 

India-Sri Lank relations 

In the past, India has been involved in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka. It has caused deep distrust between Delhi and the Sinhala nationalists 

India-Nepal relationship

The Chinese influence is growing in Nepal. For example, China has built a new airport near Lumbini, Nepal.  

India is facing the challenge of turbulent triangular dynamics between Delhi, Kathmandu, and Beijing.  

There is a deep political discomfort between India and Nepal. Nepal’s politics have been dominated by the communists in the last two decades.  

India-Pakistan  

India-Paksitan bilateral relationship has been frozen. Islamabad’s policies are deliberately anti-geographic. For example, the recent controversy in Pakistan over the routine appointment of a “trade officer” in its high commission in Delhi. 

The Pakistan is unwilling to expand trade ties or at least have a limited trade liberalisation with India. For example, Pakistan said it can’t trade with India unless Delhi reversed its 2019 constitutional changes in Kashmir. 

Pakistan Army has been long viewed as a decisive arbiter in Pakistan’s political and policy disputes. 

At present, Pakistan is facing a political crisis. Delhi had little reason to believe that Pakistan’s new government can alter its self-defeating policy towards India.  

Way Forward  

Overall 

All the countries in South Asia should work with the logic of geography amidst the deepening regional and global crises accentuated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

The cultural geography can help in reshaping the Subcontinent’s regional relations. Religion and culture are deeply interconnected in South Asia. Therefore, all religious pilgrimage sites should be developed across the region.  They should be made accessible. This will improve tourist revenues and also calm the troubled political relations between nations. 

The Subcontinent can be reconnected through sacred geographies — including the Ramayana trail and Sufi shrines. 

A more intensive regional cooperation is one of the tools for managing the new dangers by the countries in the region. 

India-Sri Lanka Relations 

The Sri Lankan current crisis raised hopes for transcending the internal ethnic divide in the island nation. This can rebuild political confidence between Colombo and Delhi. 

India’s has provided both material and financial support during this unprecedented economic and political crisis in Sri Lanka. This has generated much goodwill in Sri Lanka.  

India-Nepal Relations 

The Nepal congress has returned and its readiness to deepen ties with India has opened the door for a recalibrating India-Nepal ties.  

In addition to revitalising cultural geography, better management of economic geography is inevitable.  

Prime Minister Modi visited Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha in Nepal. There is an idea of a “Buddhist circuit” across the India-Nepal border. There is wider international interest in the Buddhist’s historic sites.  

The Indian government should accelerate transborder transport and energy connectivity in the eastern subcontinent. 

India-Pakistan Relations 

Delhi and Islamabad had agreed to open the Kartarpur corridor to make it easier for Sikh pilgrims to visit the shrine in Kartarpur in Pakistan. 

India must continue to bet that the geographic imperative will eventually prevail over Islamabad’s policies. India must continue to find ways to work with Pakistan. 

Source: The post is based on an article “For a better South Asian neighbourhood” published in the Indian Express on 17th May 2022.