Today’s collection of articles come from “The Diplomat”
website.
The first article is about the prospects of improved relations between Indian and Pakistan now that there is a new Pakistani Prime minister - Nawaz Sharif.
In January this year, U.S. think tank the New
America Foundation played
host to 30-odd Indians and Pakistanis in Dubai. The idea was to share
knowledge and ideas, understand prevailing challenges and issues, identify
common points of collaboration, and collectively suggest the next steps for
policy, strategy, research, and action.
Five months later, Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's Prime Minister-in-waiting, after winning the landmark elections held on 11 May, is speaking along similar lines.
Both Singh and Sharif will, however, have to contend with hardliners back home before they can make any moves to reduce the existing trust deficit between the two countries.
In Pakistan, in particular, no civilian leader has been able to practice an India policy independent of the country's powerful military. Last time, in 1999, Nawaz Sharif tried to break new ground by initiating a friendship bus that travelled from Delhi to Lahore. A new era, it seemed, was about to begin.
Within months, however, Pakistan Army then led by Gen Pervez Musharraf, sabotaged the initiative by sending troops into Indian-held Kashmir, which led to the Kargil conflict. Musharraf’s ploy of dressing up Pakistan Army regulars as Mujahideens (Freedom fighters) was exposed once the Indian Army began to push back the intruders. US President Bill Clinton summoned Sharif to Washington and asked to withdraw the Pakistani Army troops from Kargil even as the Indians gained the upper hand. A humiliated Sharif returned home only to be ousted through a bloodless coup by Musharraf. The Saudis negotiated Sharif’s exile.
India Poll 2013: Views from the
Subcontinent
By Pratyush
The link between public perceptions and
foreign policy in India has increasingly come under scrutiny in recent years.
Long the preserve of the prime minister’s office and the External Affairs
Ministry, foreign policy under the governing United Progressive Alliance (UPA)
government has to a large degree been decentralized, due in part to the
pressures of coalition politics.
Shifting its gaze abroad, the report reveals that, despite a strong culture of strategic autonomy in Indian foreign policy, almost 72 percent of Indians prefer having strong countries – particularly Pakistan and the United States – as partners. The U.S. tops the most favored list of countries, followed by Singapore, Japan and Australia.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Rory Medcalf
The bad news for India-China relations is that 83 percent of Indians see China as some kind of threat to their country’s security over the next ten years. And 60 percent see China as a major threat. It is worth noting that these attitudes were recorded in late 2012, well before the recent flare-up of border tensions.
And large majorities of poll respondents also indicate that their reasons for this mistrust do in fact include the list of issues often cited by India’s strategic experts, such as China’s possession of nuclear weapons, the border dispute, China’s activities in the Indian Ocean region, and the military and other support China gives Pakistan. In other words, Beijing cannot hope to change Indian popular mistrust without substantively addressing at least some of these issues.
But the poll contains good news, too, for the prospect of coexistence and even cooperation between Asia’s rising giants.
The first article is about the prospects of improved relations between Indian and Pakistan now that there is a new Pakistani Prime minister - Nawaz Sharif.
The next two article talk about the India Poll 2013,
conducted by the Lowy and Australia India Institutes about the attitudes of
Indian citizens towards their future in the world:
May 29, 2013
By Nitin A.
Gokhale
The recent election of Nawaz Sharif raises hopes,
but hardliners in both countries remain a hurdle.
Delegates to the closed-door conference included
representatives from the military, public and private institutes, think tanks,
media, and non-profit organizations.
The conversations covered issues of common interest
to the two countries, including trade, business, microfinance, IT, water,
energy, climate change, public health, security, and media.
This writer was
part of the conference as a delegate from India.
Hosted by well-known authors and journalists Steve
Coll and Peter Bergen, the two-day conference came up with the following key
recommendations:
· Facilitate
cross-border exchange visits, both academic and person-to-person.
· In terms of
academia, organize trans-border inter-collegiate exchange programs.
·
Geographically, foster interaction across cities in the border states.
· Provide a
platform for collaborative research between various actors in Pakistan and
India. This may involve a joint think tank or cross-border research on issues
such as energy, trade, and microfinance.
Five months later, Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's Prime Minister-in-waiting, after winning the landmark elections held on 11 May, is speaking along similar lines.
He wants to increase bilateral trade with India to
improve Pakistan's own economy, push for more people to people contacts and is
in favor of a more liberalized visa regime.
Nawaz Sharif also wants lasting peace with India,
reprising an effort he made in 1999. In fact, in one of the first media
interactions after his election victory, Sharif told
reporters: "“We will pick up the threads from where we left in 1999…
That is the roadmap that I have for improvement of relations between Pakistan
and India.”
In interview after interview with Indian
journalists, Nawaz's central theme was his wish and plan for normal relations
with India. Indian media and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government also
hailed Nawaz Sharif's victory. Singh has made peace with Pakistan one of his
“core” themes during his nine years in office, despite a brazen attack by
Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiyba (LeT) terrorists on the commercial city of
Mumbai in November 2008 that left over 160 people dead.
Singh immediately sent Sharif a message
congratulating him on the election win: "… “(people of India) welcome your
publicly articulated commitment to a relationship between India and Pakistan
that is defined by peace, friendship and cooperation.”
Both Singh and Sharif will, however, have to contend with hardliners back home before they can make any moves to reduce the existing trust deficit between the two countries.
In Pakistan, in particular, no civilian leader has been able to practice an India policy independent of the country's powerful military. Last time, in 1999, Nawaz Sharif tried to break new ground by initiating a friendship bus that travelled from Delhi to Lahore. A new era, it seemed, was about to begin.
Within months, however, Pakistan Army then led by Gen Pervez Musharraf, sabotaged the initiative by sending troops into Indian-held Kashmir, which led to the Kargil conflict. Musharraf’s ploy of dressing up Pakistan Army regulars as Mujahideens (Freedom fighters) was exposed once the Indian Army began to push back the intruders. US President Bill Clinton summoned Sharif to Washington and asked to withdraw the Pakistani Army troops from Kargil even as the Indians gained the upper hand. A humiliated Sharif returned home only to be ousted through a bloodless coup by Musharraf. The Saudis negotiated Sharif’s exile.
Today, the tables have turned. Sharif has won a
popular mandate but Pervez Musharraf – after a longish stint as Pakistan’s
chief executive, first as Army chief and then as President – had to flee
Pakistan. When he returned a month before the May 11 election, hoping to
recapture the imagination of the nation, the former dictator was arrested on
court orders. Ultimately, the Pakistani Army may bail Musharraf out. Sharif may
not mind that since he has bigger battles to fight than to think of revenge
against his former tormentor.
Sharif’s biggest challenge will be to get the
Pakistani Army on the same page. Already there are reports that Army Chief
Ashfaq Kayani has had a long meeting with Sharif and advised him to go slow on
his desire to renew détente with India.
The GHQ in Rawalpindi may also be unhappy with
Sharif’s post-election announcement that he is open to launching an
investigation into the planning and conspiracy of the November 2008 Mumbai
attack, widely attributed to LeT.
Sharif’s stand on the 2008 attack will bring him in
direct confrontation with the LeT, considered one
of the most dangerous terrorist groups in the world now. Like Sharif’s own
political party, the LeT’s base is the Punjab province, Pakistan’s largest and
politically most powerful region. Sharif therefore may not want to take the LeT
head on just yet.
Moreover, the Pakistani Army and especially its spy
arm, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) will also resist any such move since
it treats LeT and other smaller terrorist groups such as Jaish-e-Mohhamed (JeM)
as strategic assets against India. Many of LeT’s foot soldiers are often
trained, armed and sent into Indian-administered Kashmir by the ISI to keep the
Kashmir dispute between the two countries simmering. For over 60 years,
maintaining adversarial posture against India has been the very raison
d'être of the Pakistani Army and it is not going to change its stance no
matter how resounding the democratic verdict is for Nawaz Sharif.
Perhaps learning a lesson or two from his earlier
stints as Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif may want to take it one at a time and
not antagonize the Pakistani Army upfront. Writing
in The Daily Times, columnist Mohammad Taqi made an interesting
point. “From his exile on December 10, 2000 to his eventual return on November
25, 2007 he has had plenty of time to reflect and mellow. The trigger-happy Mr
Nawaz Sharif of the 1990s who fired two army chiefs within a year seems to be
taking great pains to project patience. A well-earned confidence has replaced
his pre-May 11 jitteriness. Personal residence at Raiwind — not the Muslim
League Secretariat, Islamabad or even Lahore — chosen as the hub of all
post-election activity by Mr Sharif should leave little doubt about where the
command and control of his eponymous Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is.”
Patience apart, Nawaz Sharif will have to show
urgency on several basic domestic issues. The Pakistani economy is in the
doldrums and the country is plagued by perpetual energy shortages. Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh, much against conventional wisdom, has offered to
supply electricity to Pakistan. There are renewed attempts now to boost
India-Pakistan bilateral trade too.
However, the biggest challenge for both New Delhi
and Islamabad could come from the fast-changing situation in a third
country—Afghanistan. As American and ISAF forces prepare for a drawdown from
Afghanistan in 2014, there are growing security concerns about a possible
resurgence of Taliban and Pakistani Army’s complicity in propping up these
groups.
Growing friction between troops of the Afghan
National Army (ANA) and Taliban insurgents around the Durand line that divides
Afghanistan and Pakistan may have prompted President Hamid Karzai to seek
direct military help from India during his visit to India last week. Karzai
in fact openly told Indian media that he had presented a wish list to the
Indians without elaborating on what he sought.
But sources in Indian security establishment have
revealed Karzai wanted transport helicopters, light artillery and ammunition
from New Delhi, apart from stepping up training for ANA troops.
India has so far not revealed its hand about
supplying military hardware to Afghanistan, with opinion among strategic
thinkers divided.
Some advocate immediate supply of weapons to facilitate conversion of the ANA
from a light infantry-type force into an army capable of holding its own
against a likely onslaught by the Taliban. Others favor continuation of the
current Indian policy: aid in reconstruction and in civilian areas combined
with training for ANA troops within India. Both camps agree, however, that
there should be no
Indian boots on the ground in Afghanistan since that is a red line for
Pakistan. Watching Indian moves very closely will be the Pakistani Army, which
regards any Indian presence in Afghanistan as a threat to its need for a
“strategic depth” in the event of a military showdown with India.
Despite the Pakistan Army’s reservations, Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh has for long articulated a need for normal relations
with Islamabad, arguing that a stable Pakistan is in India’s long-term
interest. In so doing, he has raised the hackles of many Indians. His attempt
to convert the Siachen Glacier – described as the world’s highest battlefield
– into a “peace park” has run into fierce opposition, mainly from the Indian
Army, which otherwise submits to total civilian control over its affairs. The
Indian Army leadership has reminded the prime minister and other civilian
leaders that the Kargil
conflict of 1999 happened primarily because Pakistan wanted to seize
Siachen from Indian control.
Terrorism emanating from Pakistan is another thorny
issue. Although the Indian prime minister walked the extra mile after the 2008
Mumbai attack, Pakistan has so far failed to bring the mastermind of that
attack, LeT founder Mohammed Hafeez Saeed and his associates to book for their
role in the brazen assault, limiting Singh’s ability to sell his peace agenda
to Indians. The ISI continues to run
terror camps along the border in Kashmir and periodically sends well-armed
terrorists to disrupt hard-earned peace in the Kashmir Valley. With general
elections in India due in less than a year, the current government cannot
afford to be seen compromising the country’s interest with Pakistan.
Even for Nawaz Sharif, consolidating his grip on
government will depend on three crucial events coming up in the next eight
months: the end of President Asif Ali Zardari’s term; the appointment of a new
Chief Justice of Pakistan and choosing a successor to General Kayani (if indeed
he chooses to retire in November at the end of his extended term).
Sharif’s challenge will be to create the right
balance with the army and deliver on the election promises he made to the
citizens of Pakistan. Economic recovery and controlling domestic terrorism will
be high priorities. As for India, both countries have tried to come to terms
with each other over the past six decades, without ever succeeding fully, so a
durable peace can wait a little longer.
(Nitin A. Gokhale is Security & Strategic
Affairs Editor with Indian Boradcaster NDTV)
Photo Credit: Wikicommons
------------------------------------------------------------------------
India Poll 2013: Views from the
Subcontinent
By Pratyush
One prominent example came in March, when India’s
UPA government voted against Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council. The
UPA took this stance in a bid to allay the concerns of its then ally from Tamil
Nadu, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party, over Sri Lanka’s human rights
record.
But do Indians consider foreign policy a
key determinant of their voting choices?
The assumption has been that foreign policy
is the domain of elites. This perception stems from the belief that issues
pertaining to foreign powers are too remote to matter in the day-to-day lives
of ordinary people.
A recent report called India Poll
2013 produced jointly by the Lowy Institute
for International Policy and the Australia
India Institute offers rich insights into what Indians think about the
world. The “nationally representative” opinion poll surveys 1233 Indian adults
on their attitudes towards subjects from democracy to the economy and
perceptions on potential security threats.
A recent
article in The
Diplomat by the poll’s author, Rory Medcalf, has already presented
some of the results, but it is worth making a few additional points.
First, an overwhelming 70 percent of
Indians believe in democracy, while only 21 percent view it as an impediment to
progress. Looking deeper, an astounding 95
percent support the right to a fair trial, the right to vote and the right
to free expression, while 87 percent support a free press. All of this suggests
that Indians hold tightly to their democratic traditions.
Further, despite a sharp deceleration of
the Indian economy in fiscal 2012 (ended March 31) from the previous year’s 6.2
percent to 5 percent, 74 percent of Indians are optimistic about the country’s
future economic prospects. Indeed, despite a flagging economy, 56 percent of
people said they were better off economically than five years ago, while only 18
percent said they were worse off.
In terms of security threats, chronic
shortage of food and water, as well as climate change were viewed as the
biggest dangers to the country by 80 to 85 percent of those surveyed. Other
prominent security threats rated include potential war with Pakistan (77
percent), homegrown terrorism and foreign jihadist attacks (74 percent),
possible war with China (73 percent) and Maoist insurgency (71 percent).
Shifting its gaze abroad, the report reveals that, despite a strong culture of strategic autonomy in Indian foreign policy, almost 72 percent of Indians prefer having strong countries – particularly Pakistan and the United States – as partners. The U.S. tops the most favored list of countries, followed by Singapore, Japan and Australia.
Further, as Rory pointed out, 83 percent of
respondents consider China a security threat, while only 31 percent see China’s
rise as a positive force for India. However, on China’s rise itself respondents
showed a preference for a mixed approach, with 65 percent opting for a concert
of nations to check China’s rise and 64 percent also sharing the belief that
China and India could collude and play a leading role in the world.
Meanwhile, Pakistan was given least favored
nation status, an unsurprising result considering the turbulent shared history
of the nations. History aside, 76 percent of respondents believe that New Delhi
should take the initiative to forge better ties with Islamabad, with almost 87
percent believing that such a step would require courageous leadership on both
sides.
Now, consider this hypothetical situation.
If the UPA’s re-election centered on the 1,233 respondents of this poll with
foreign policy as the main electoral issue, what would the government’s report
card look like? To put it simply, the scores are mixed.
In the 2009 general elections, Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh’s assertive stance on the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal
boosted his image as a decisive leader and was seen as being a key to his
re-election. While U.S. President Barack Obama made a landmark
visit to India in November 2010, during which he pledged U.S. support for
an expanded UN Security Council in the future “with India as a permanent
member”, India-U.S. ties have plateaued since.
The government’s failure to initiate
wide-ranging economic reforms, combined with its reticence to be seen as a
close U.S. ally, has caused relations with Washington to drift. India has also
been ambivalent towards America’s “pivot
to Asia” despite being described as a “lynchpin”
in the new U.S. strategy.
On China, Premier
Li Keqiang’s choice to visit India last week as his first port of call
since taking office in March did little to remove strains in ties following a flare-up
on the contested border in April. When Chinese troops camped out for weeks
recently on territory claimed by India, the Indian government’s pusillanimous
response infuriated opposition politicians and sections of the public, who
sought something more muscular.
Meanwhile, a fledgling peace process with
Pakistan has received grudging support from the Indian public. Another terror
attack along the lines of the one that hit Mumbai
in 2008 would once again force the Indian government to pull out of the
peace process.
While Pakistan’s Prime Minister-designate Nawaz
Sharif has reached out to India, New Delhi is unlikely to mount any
concerted peace overtures for now, relegating any peace talks with Pakistan to
after the 2014 general elections.
Image credit: Wikicommons
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
What Indians Think About China
By Rory Medcalf
What do Indians really think about China?
It’s a question that has been on many minds over the past week, with the visit
to India of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.
The media
headlines about a new opinion poll
suggest that the answer is that most Indians see China as a security challenge,
indeed as a threat. While that is an accurate description of one part of the poll,
it is not the whole story.
As the designer and author of the poll
study, I would like to set the record straight.
There is a fascinating tension or, as a
Hindu might put it, a duality to how Indians see China. While 83 percent of
respondents to the poll see their neighbor as a security threat, it is also
notable that 63 percent want India-China ties to improve, and only 9 percent
think that relationship is already too close.
Moreover, Indians feel slightly more warmly
towards the people of China than they do about certain other Asian countries,
including Indonesia, South Korea and Vietnam.
The 2013 India Poll, prepared by the Lowy
Institute for International Policy in partnership with the Australia India
Institute, involved face-to-face interviews with a carefully selected
representative sample of 1233 Indians, from all sectors of society. The sample
size is obviously small relative to India’s enormous population, hence an
acknowledged statistical margin of error of 3.6 percent.
Even allowing for this, some of the results
are striking.
The survey examined attitudes to a whole
host of issues, from transnational security challenges to domestic leadership,
from the economy to corruption, any one of which merits further analysis. But
some of its most illuminating findings relate to what Indians think about other
countries, especially China, Pakistan and the United States.
The bad news for India-China relations is that 83 percent of Indians see China as some kind of threat to their country’s security over the next ten years. And 60 percent see China as a major threat. It is worth noting that these attitudes were recorded in late 2012, well before the recent flare-up of border tensions.
These data do not, as one
editorial implies, have a “propaganda angle”. Quite the contrary. It is a
reflection of Indian anxiety and it amounts to hard evidence that such threat
perceptions are not exclusively held by India’s strategic elite, but rather by
a large cross-section of society. This means that China’s public diplomacy
challenge in dealing with India is of Himalayan proportions, and will not be
resolved by one high-level visit, however successful.
And large majorities of poll respondents also indicate that their reasons for this mistrust do in fact include the list of issues often cited by India’s strategic experts, such as China’s possession of nuclear weapons, the border dispute, China’s activities in the Indian Ocean region, and the military and other support China gives Pakistan. In other words, Beijing cannot hope to change Indian popular mistrust without substantively addressing at least some of these issues.
But the poll contains good news, too, for the prospect of coexistence and even cooperation between Asia’s rising giants.
Although the poll suggests that around 95
percent of Indians are strongly attached to their democratic rights, there is
also a degree of respect for aspects of China’s growth and development.
Notably, 42 percent of poll respondents
think it would be better if India’s government and society “worked more like”
those of China. That is a significant result, given that a developed Western
democracy, Germany, ranked about the same in terms of this kind of positive
Indian sentiment. That said, most Indian poll respondents (78 percent) rank the
United States number one in terms of their respect for its type of government
and society, followed by Australia, Japan and Singapore. And a large minority,
31 percent, of Indians consider that it would be worse for the people of India
if their government and society were more like China’s.
Turning to geopolitics, while 70 percent of
poll respondents think China’s aim is to dominate Asia and 65 percent agree
that India should work with other countries to limit China’s power, a majority
(64 percent) also agree that India and China should cooperate to play a leading
role in the world together.
In other words, some Indians hold these
views at the same time. This is not necessarily a contradiction – rather, it
reflects the profound dilemmas faced by Indian foreign policy.
It is often claimed that Indians see the
Indian Ocean as India’s ocean, and the poll confirms this at one level: 94
percent of respondents want their country to be the most powerful nation in
those waters. But there is also some appetite for cooperation: 72 percent see
the United States as a good partner for India in the Indian Ocean, while a
still-substantial 39 percent see China in a similar light.
Even so, it is clear that China still has a
long way to go in allaying popular Indian misgivings.
Despite the fact that
China has become India’s largest trade partner, and there is an official target
to grow this commerce to $100 billion a year, only 31 percent of Indians think
China’s rise has been good for their country.
Indians are fairly evenly divided on two
crucial matters: while 45 percent think that India’s interests would not be
harmed if China gained more power and influence, 41 percent think the opposite.
And while 42 percent do not want the United States to give China a greater role
in regional affairs, a similar proportion, 40 percent, would like to see
America share the stage in this way.
Many Indians, it seems, have an intuitive
grasp of the challenges of great-power diplomacy.
Rory Medcalf designed and oversaw India
Poll 2013. He is program director for international security at the Lowy
Institute, associate director of the Australia India Institute and a
nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Follow him on twitter
@Rory_Medcalf
Image credit: From Office of India’s Prime
Minister
