National 2 (Spotlight Weekly)

Stifled By Insecurity

South Asian countries are far away from reaching consensus on security issues

By A CORRESPONDENT

Despite their commonalities of interests and sharing of culture, South Asian countries have many differences over the issues of security. These differences often complicate patterns of relations resulting in distrust and mistrust among them.

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Misunderstanding, distrust and mistrust surface through various overt and covert activities against each others. Being a region with heterogeneous culture, religion and ethnicity, outside involvement pushes the situation towards further complexity.

Whenever scholars from South Asian countries sit together, they always express the candid judgment regarding the issues of regional security. This scholarly remarks and observation are yet to change the overall mindset of particular country. Since India is the largest country in terms of size, population and resources, its security perception always plays the key role in maintaining overall security in the region.

At a time when the countries around the world are trying to develop understandings on the security issues, South Asian countries are still suffering from mistrust and distrust.

The region consists of seven nations - five smaller countries in the region have little influence over the two bigger countries of the region – India and Pakistan. India - the largest among all - also has contiguous borders with all the seven countries of the region (Maldives and Sri Lanka are cut off by a narrow strip of sea from India). Any policy change in India will have major implications to these smaller countries.

Since the foreign policy and defense policy of small countries have insignificant impacts on the overall security in the region, the regional situation depends upon the role of the bigger countries of the region. The pattern of relations between India and Pakistan often has significant impacts on regional security and peace.

Recently, various scholars from the region discussed the regional security issue in two-day seminar on 'Comprehensive Security in South Asia' organized by the Institute of Foreign Affairs in cooperation with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung in Kathmandu. "The principle of comprehensive security is a protective manifestation of the solidarity of peaceful states as opposed to that which sets exclusive national interests above those of the community interests of states and people,” said Dev Raj Dahal, head of FES Nepal office.

“In the first place, contemporary South Asia enjoys the dubious distinction of being the one and the only region in the post-cold-war world that has failed to put in place even a basic institutional framework for underscoring collective security of its seven constituent states,” writes Gani Jafar, a senior research analyst, Institute of Regional Studies Islamabad.

“While being a geographical, geo-political, geo-strategic and as already highlighted geo-economic entity in itself; South Asia is anything but an archipelago of seven-odd island states detached from the rest of the planet; to say nothing of the even more preposterous proposition that Pakistan and India can, in disregard of the concerns of their five smaller neighbors, kiss, make up and be content that security would reign in the region,” writes Jafar.

Conflict Prone Region

South Asia remains a major region of conflict and no country in the region is free of internal conflict. From big India to tiny Bhutan, all of them faced various kinds of violent and sectarian insurgency. To flush out the Indian insurgents operating from their soil, Bhutanese government launched army assault against India’s north eastern insurgents like ULFA and BODO.

"There have been more intra-state conflicts than interstate conflicts at the global level as has been seen earlier. The same trend was also reflected in South Asia,” writes Suba Chandran, an Indian scholar on Intra-State Armed Conflicts in South Asia Impact on Regional Security.

“For understandable reasons, India’s size and power and the Indo-centric geographic layout of the region of South Asia engenders in Bangladesh a big power small power syndrome vis-à-vis India,” writes Humayun Kabir on Recent Trends in Bangladesh-India Relations.

Despite their commonalities in geography and culture, the relations are often dominated by conflict. Countries of the region accuse each other for overtly and covertly supporting internal conflicts against each other. India accuses Pakistan and Bangladesh for supporting the covert operation against it. India’s material and moral support to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elem in Sri Lanka was a matter of controversy. Nepalese, too, face frequent threats on its internal security from violent insurgency groomed in India.

Pakistan and India frequently charge each other of instigating violence. Pakistan dismisses the charges made by India and India flatly rejects possibility of grooming any kinds of violent insurgency on it soil.

“In South Asia, unfortunately, trans border terrorism continues to pose threats to domestic security but the resolute counter terrorism fight cannot be seen in context of any prevailing anti-Islamic sentiment. Terrorism is restored to in the pursuit of extremist ideologies, which do not believe in available democratic instruments of redress of socio-economic and political grievances. It is being restored to for territorial expansion. Bases from which terrorists can operate against neighbors are provided in countries who wish to destabilize them for the achievement of political objectives. Experiences have shown that those who provide such bases are themselves overwhelmed by threats to their domestic security and harmony. Trans border targets thus could shift to domestic ones,” writes Ambassador C.V. Ranganathan, former Indian ambassador to China and France. “In view of the above South Asian countries need to consciously create an environment for total rejection of terrorism as unacceptable in any form regardless of the apparent causes which terrorists espouse.”

China Factor

Although there are efforts to ignore China factor, it remains a decisive power in the region demanding due role. Along with India, China also shares borders with four countries Nepal, India, Pakistan and Bhutan. Despite several rounds of negotiations on the settlement of border dispute, China and India are yet to settle their problem.

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This is one of the irritating factors between them. Except Bhutan, all three countries Nepal, India and Pakistan have diplomatic relations with China and the annual trade between three south Asian countries and China have drastically increased over the period of time.

From giant India to tiny Bhutan, all of them feel the rising China in their northern border. “In light of the contentious state of Indo-China relations, it is no secret that Bhutan with strategic location figures into India’s security interests. Therefore, whatever course Indo-China relations may follow in the future, it is likely that these bear implications for Indo-Bhutan relation as well,” writes Tashi Choden on Indo-Bhutan Relations: Recent Trends. “And even as current geo-political and geo-economic realities ensure that India will continue to be one of the most critical elements in Bhutan’s foreign relations, Bhutan has to consider the reality of China to its north."

China has signaled her interest in the region. “In recent times, at the official or diplomatic level, too, Beijing has signaled her interest in forging some form of association with South Asia, principally through SAARC,” writes M.R. Josse in his paper China in South Asia: An emerging Dynamic. “Quite aside from the growing Chinese interest in SAARC, in particular, and, more generally, in South Asia as noted above, there is, I believe the important definitional aspect of recognizing what exactly South Asia means.”

Refugees pose another major problem in the region. “A major problem is that maximum number of refugees in South Asia have been absorbed inside the region itself. The refugee management process in the region is not uniform and there have been shifts in terms of policy framework and strategy to mitigate its adverse impacts on the society, its polity, economy and the environment,” writes Nishchal Nath Pandey in his paper. Dr. Mohan Lohani also presented the paper at two day seminar, which was participated by prominent scholars from Nepal, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Bangladesh.

At a time when the region seems to be facing various kinds of interstate and intra-state conflicts, the seminar helped to discuss its various effects and implications. For smaller countries like Nepal, the presence of powerful states like India in the south and China in the north can be both a part of problem as well as a part of solution.