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HOW FAR IS INDIAS NEIGHBOURHOOD FIRST POLICY SUCCESSFUL?

"Your neighbour is your natural enemy and the neighbour's neighbour is your friend.

- Kautilya

Kautilyas Mandala theory clearly positions that the neighbouring territories of a state are its natural enemies. In
Indias case, especially after the independence, this position has somehow been, more or less, true. With Indias
geographical extent it has more often accused of showing a Big Brotherly attitude towards other nations which has
been a matter of grave concern in the formulation of foreign policies of the regional nations.

A newspaper reported in May, 2014, PM Modi invites the heads of 8 neighbouring countries to his swearing in
ceremony as the Prime Minister of India indicating his priority towards the regional solidarity and cooperation.

When the new government of India was sworn in, in 2014 May, its first step was to ensure the world that India is
looking forward to a cordial and cooperative relationship with its neighbouring nations. This step reflects the
maturity that India has gained in the journey of diplomacy since independence. The beginning is humble and hopeful
but the journey, till now, has not been easy.

Speaking during the general debate of the 69th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Narendra
Modi aptly remarked, A nations destiny is linked to its neighbourhood. That is why my government has placed the
highest priority on advancing friendship and cooperation with its neighbours.

Even before this, an attempt to integrate the region and improve cooperation among the neighbouring states,
Gujaral Doctrine was introduced in 1996, by the then Foreign Minister Mr. I K Gujaral. The Gujral Doctrine sought
to end Indias endless contestations with neighbours and offered to walk the extra mile in resolving longstanding
problems. Being aware of the dangerous neighbourhood of India, this doctrine basically projected India as a benign
big brother so that peace can be maintained. This policy was of non-reciprocal accommodation of Indias neighbours
was aimed for Indias own accelerated economic development also.

Indeed, for India, achieving the objective of becoming one of the key powers in Asia depends entirely on Indias
ability to manage its immediate neighbourhood. India can become a credible power on the global stage only after
attaining enduring primacy in its own neighbourhood.

The approach called Neighbourhood First a phrase adopted by the Indian government is meant to indicate four
things.

Firstly, it shows New Delhis willingness to give political and diplomatic priority to its immediate neighbours and the
Indian Ocean island states. Secondly, it aims to provide neighbours with support, as needed, in the form of
resources, equipment, and training. Thirdly, and perhaps most important, is greater connectivity and integration, so
as to improve the free flow of goods, people, energy, capital, and information. Fourthly is to promote a model of
India-led regionalism with which its neighbours are comfortable.

The efforts to integrate the whole region and starting dialogues with many of our neighbours on a fresh page have
been strongly praised even by the critics. The policy has given success in improving relationships with various
neighbouring countries.

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The India-Nepal Joint Commission which had remained frozen for 23 years, inviting the President of Sri Lanka and
having a meaningful engagement with him, despite opposition from some regional Indian political parties, is another
case in point.

India has also become more forthcoming in providing support and in capacity building. As India recently concluded
its biggest ever defence sale to Mauritius. This shows that the country is gaining ground in the strategic arms market
while providing weapons to other countries. It was also among the countries that stood foremost in providing
humanitarian assistance to Nepal during recent earthquakes that shattered the whole region. The operation was
known as operation MAITRI.

A similar helping hand was provided to Sri Lanka during its worst floods in May 2017. India, the first country to
respond, dispatched three Navy ships with emergency supplies to help Sri Lanka in the rescue and relief operations.

In 2014, the new Prime Minister at New Delhi chose Bhutan as his first foreign destination. The Prime Minister
coined the idea of B2B as Bharat to Bhutan for building effective and renewed bilateral relationship.
With Bangladesh, the completion of the Land Boundary Agreement, improvements in energy connectivity, and steps
taken towards accessing the port of Chittagong have all been crucial developments that have helped to set a positive
tone for a region long defined by cross-border suspicion and animosity.Also the bus routes linking Kolkata to
Agartala and Shilong via Dhaka has been started.

The governments emphasis on regional connectivity is also manifest through a trilateral agreement with Iran and
Afghanistan for the development of Chabahar port or Kaladan in Myanmar as well as the launch of the Bangladesh-
Bhutan-India-Nepal (BBIN) Transport Network.

The island of Maldives has been a difficult stance for the country owing to fate of their former President Mohammad
Nasheed. Despite the tensions the President of Maldives, Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom, visited New Delhi in 2016.

India has also shown its interest in improving relations with China. Ever since the coming of new government, Indias
stance on One China Policy has been supportive of the Mainland China. Gradually, connects with Taiwan were
dissolved. However, a reversal to this policy has been witnessed in wake of CPEC controversy.

In case of Pakistan, the efforts have not been as fruitful as was expected. But one can see the extent of willingness to
improve ties from the surprise journey of Indian Prime Minister to Pakistan, inviting Pakistani Premier on the
swearing in ceremony, etc.

India launched the South Asia Satellite with an aim to boost communication services and disaster support in the
region. Except for Pakistan, which refused to participate in the project, the launch was cheered by all South Asian
nations.

Government has also expressed a willingness to develop issue-specific groupings that are not held hostage to
consensus: a SAARC minus X approach. For example, the BBIN group - Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal.

However, the constant efforts have seen failures in some, and success in others which makes the question of
Neighbourhood first policy a bit more twisted.

The policy of Neighbourhood first has seen many diplomatic failures in the way. Be it the tussle with Pakistan in
terms of Uri attack, Pathankot attack or the recent curious case of Kulbhushan Singh Jadhav; or various issues with
other neighbours like Nepal blockade, question of Teesta river with Bangladesh, contentions regarding Chinas One
Road & One Belt initiative and China Pakistan Economic Corridor, etc.

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Where on one hand Bangladesh and Bhutan are the success stories of Indias diplomacy through neighbourhood
first, on the other hand China and Pakistan are the evidences of shortfall of the policy. At the same time, there are
others like Sri Lanka and Nepal that have mixed responses towards Indian efforts.

The current policy is seen as one with good intentions but highly flawed in various ways. For example, many experts
have expressed their concerns over a lack of strategic vision, and have described them as vacuous.. While
commending the prime ministers sound instincts, initiative, and energy, former foreign secretary Shyam Saran has
lamented the lack of an overall national security strategy and criticised the priority granted showmanship over
substance.

The lack of clarity can be allied with the fact that neither this Indian government nor any of its predecessors have
ever explicitly spelled out their strategic intentions in a single document.

Besides this, the challenge for Indian diplomacy lies in convincing its neighbours that India is an opportunity, not a
threat. Far from being encircled by India, they can gain access to a vast market and to a productive hinterland that
could provide their economies with far greater opportunities for growth than if they were to rely on their domestic
markets alone. Intra-South Asian trade remains limited, and its growth is unsteady and slow. Economic cooperation
represents the easiest sell to various constituencies within the countries of the region.

A strategy for each neighbouring country may require better coordination among various units of government in
Delhi than has been the case to date. Also, a stronger role for the Prime Ministers office, as has emerged in the
formative months of the Modi Government, and a greater mutual engagement of the foreign and security ministries
could yield significant dividends.

Thus, one can see that the problem is not with the intentions rather with the lack of a properly framed strategy and
the plethora of challenges make things further rough. To a certain extent the policy has been a great success, but in
many cases it has seen failure.

As the famous security advisor to United States-Zbigniew Brzezinski, rightly said that-

Foreign Policy should not be justified through making oneself feel good but through results that `
have tangible consequences.

Therefore, to justify or to reject the success of the policy we must look at the outcomes or tangible results. And a
proper scrutiny of policy and its tangible results can only be done while looking at the policy in the hindsight. It is still
too early to pass any judgement regarding the performance of the policy because it is still a work in progress.

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INDIAS FOREIGN POLICY: CHANGE OR CONTINUITY OF NAM?

Non-Alignment is one of those phenomena which appeared on the international scene after Second Word War when
the world was divided into two hostile power blocs. The newly independent states refused to join the existing
military alliances notwithstanding (although), their former allegiances and economic and military weakness. These
nations were interested to play active role in the shaping of their own future and to influence world affairs in
general.
Such a situation called for a middle path between the two extremes of joining either of the two blocs or isolating
oneself completely form world politics. Amidst the tensions of Cold War these nations felt that the only way through
which they could achieve their goal was to adopt a policy of non-alignment, a decision that was reached by the
leaders of five protagonist nations, viz. India, Yugoslavia, Indonesia, Egypt and Ghana. The stance can be well
explained through famous quote by Kwame Nkrumah, viz.
We face neither East nor West; We face forward
The five principles of Panchasheel that form the basis of NAM are:
- Mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty.
- Mutual non-aggression.
- Mutual non-interference in domestic affairs.
- Equality and mutual benefit.
- Peaceful co-existence.
NAM is an example of a combination of idealism and pragmatic, a characteristic that has helped it to find place in
Indias Foreign Policy ever since.
Indias foreign policy, unlike the west, has been influenced largely by its idealism and its quest to be a moral
exemplar or moral crusader. A similar effort was visible in the provisions of Non-Alignment Movement. However,
with the passing time and changing governments there has been a palpable anxiety regarding the changes in the
Foreign Policy, taking it away from Nehrus NAM to a more pragmatic and realistic policy which becomes inevitable
given the changes in the world affairs and conditions.
But irrespective of changes in the government or international situations, NAM has till date remained the strategic
core of Indian Foreign Policy. However, Ms Condoleezza Rice triggered a controversy in her speech by asserting
that non-alignment had lost its meaning after the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Such ambiguities, regarding whether NAM is still a part of Indias diplomatic stands or has it been implicitly shunned
way back in 1990, are due to various changes in the geopolitical and geo-economic situations in the world as well as
Indias immediate neighbourhood. For example, Pakistans increasing nuclear capabilities, Indias growing economic
relations under various bilateral and multilateral treaties (BIMSTEC, BRICS, IBSA etc), need for energy resources led
partnerships, geostrategic emphasis on the Indian Ocean, etc, have called for a policy more apt in the current
circumstances.
A benign and benevolent principle, as NAM, seems to be a part of Indias utopia that has been challenged time and
again ever since India joined international community as an independent nation. When the stage was apt for
following NAM, i.e, during the cold war era, even then India could not stick to the principles of NAM without
faltering.
During the decades after independence when India out rightly adopted a middle path between the two camps, an
inevitable bend was seen in Indian policies towards socialist USSR. It came as a reflex to the increasing proximities

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between our neighbour Pakistan and the USA. This disturbed the geopolitical and strategic balance of the region.
The situational compulsions pushed India closer to USSR. Critics have seen this as faltering from the stance of Non-
Alignment, taken and bragged by India. Whereas many scholars believe that it was a foreseeable need of the
situation.
Besides, after independence the major focus of Indian leaders was nation building and the settlement of border
disputes that camouflaged the international angle to the process. That was the time when Indias goal, on the
international stage, was to sustain as a free and independent nation, expressing its independent sovereign voice
regarding the issues affecting it. NAM suited this initial purpose well.NAM had never really isolated India but made
India look inwards at the cost of international standing and limited it into a block tilting closer to communists- a
logical outcome of post-colonial policy.
But today, the country has more or less attained self- sustenance and increasingly its focus is shifting towards
achieving a status of world leader. Such objectives, as is contended by many, does not go well with the inward
looking, peaceful principles of NAM. It needs India to be strong and robust in its endeavours. For example, earlier
India was an undaunted supporter of Nuclear Disarmament. But due to changing world political dynamics, in 1973, it
became one of the nations having nuclear capabilities.
The principle of Mutual non-interference in each others domestic affairs, was also tinkered with during the 1971
war with Pakistan as well as in conflict over the rights of Sri Lankan Tamil community. India tried hard to maintain
distance from the internal conflicts of the neighbours but at last, what goes on in the neighbourhood, affects the
internal security of a country.
However, this shifting stance was never accepted by India. Rather NAM was always seen as the guiding light and the
crucial part of Indias foreign policy. It is true to some extent as only certain extreme circumstances called in for this
shift.
In the past, India might have compromised on many principles of NAM but 3 major principles were held on to-
Anti colonialism and social justice
Consciousness of Asian Identity
Anti imperialism and economic rationale
At the time of lack of economic power and military might NAM acted as the smokescreen for Indias march towards
power. It still performs this role to some extent.
Interestingly, NAM was not a contending factor due to the end of Cold War as much as it is to accommodate
globalisation and liberalisation on one hand and Indo-US relations on the other, within Indias foreign policy
structure. The efficacy of NAM is also questioned due to new government at the centre. Under the current
government a complete overhaul of NAM was expected which did not happen.
According to many scholars, NAM has rather strengthened in current scenario where India needs to protect its
sovereignty, territorial integrity and autonomy in decision making, in wake of increasing globalisation and
liberalisation where asserting ones sovereignty has become crucial. NAM 2.0 suggests that the strategic autonomy
helps India in exploring new partnerships, economically and strategically without any outside pressure.
It provides defensive and reactive tactics to have bargaining power against nations like United States, and big
international forums. It is reflected in the compelling strategic move by India that are not really away from NAMs
core principle.
Thus, one can say that India has faltered NAM but is not ideologically away from it. Indias traditional and core
policies go hand in hand with Indias pursuit for power and security. While Non Alignment will remain the core of
Indias Foreign Policy, it would not hinder the modern methods of negotiations, partnerships, and structures.

Central Delhi: 60/17, Above Subway, Old Rajinder Nagar, Delhi-110060

North Delhi: B-18, Satija House, Main Road, Dr.Mukherjee Nagar, Delhi -110009
Ph: 011 - 45090051, 9818333201, 9871216382