Indian foreign policy and by
extension strategic studies have obsessed on defensive multilateral global
engagement and an emphasis on peace rather than national interests as a primary
objective. It is undeniable that when it came to the crux, India intervened
decisively in East Pakistan in 1971 leading to formation of Bangladesh. India
has intervened in Sri Lanka more than once with mixed effects as it did in
Maldives. Indian intelligence has been actively involved in foiling attempts to
overthrow governments in the Vanilla Islands like Mauritius and Seychelles. Yet
India has been hesitant of interventions as tool of foreign policy in contrast
to the Western world. India has remained passive to calls for intervention;.
Few years ago when President Nasheed was dispossessed in Maldives, India
remained silent than intervening on his behalf. At some point, there is a
feeling that India’s moral standing might take a beating if India is seen to
enhance and demonstrate military credentials. Perhaps for this reason, India
was reluctant to intervene in Pakistan whenever there were cross border
terrorist attacks. As India seeks to reframe the power structure in the global
milieu, it needs to revisit these paradigms.
India has contributed to the global
scene in multiple ways. One of which that can be illustrated would be the
current vaccine diplomacy. The ‘Vaccine-Maitri’ is certainly an intervention,
though a different kind. As the world battles the pandemic induced by the
Chinese originated virus, India has been in the forefront to distribute
vaccines across the world. Indian vaccines have reached farthest corners of the
Caribbean to the remote outposts of Africa and all set to hit islands of
Pacific. This is no doubt an exercise of soft power. As Indian vaccines reach
different shores, there would be a goodwill built up which India can encash in
the times to come. China over the year has been attempting to use its economic
muscle to spread its tentacles across the world. While China has been keen to
use the economic hard power, India is more seemingly content with the softer
dimensions. Indian intervention in stability of global health security seems to
be driven by a future expectation of reciprocal altruism rather than an
immediate return. It might be more of a manifestation of Chris Anderson called
Freemium model in an unrelated context, just that the Indian model is a
manifestation of Freemium in global politics.
Each country has been sensitive to
interventions from external players in its domestic politics. India has been
sensitive to Western lectures on affairs in Kashmir for instance. India has
long been victim of Pakistani attempts to change status quo in Kashmir or
Chinese attempts to foster insurgency in the North-East. America’s Monroe
Doctrine was essentially an element of non-intervention by European players in
the American continent. It was generally believed that the European powers
intervened in the affairs of the global South. This coupled with experiences of
centuries of colonial rule made the newly independent countries deeply
suspicious of the Western powers. This too perhaps was the reason why these countries
looked towards Soviet Union as perhaps their natural ally. Soviet Union too was
possessive of its Eurasian preserve seeking to protect from external
interventions. It was the pursuit of the warm weather port that made Soviet
Union look towards including Iran into its sphere of its orbit something that
unnerved Britain, thus the beginning of the Great Game. Through the Great Game
and later the twentieth century wars were about interventionisms and seeking to
protect their own turf. The turf battles were fought not just directly but
through proxy.
India was quick in criticizing the
West for its interventions whether in Suez crisis of 1956 or Vietnam in 1966. Yet
it was guarded in its reaction to the Soviet invasion of Hungary or
Czechoslovakia or much later in Afghanistan. While in private India did express
concerns about the Soviet interventions, the public diplomacy was centered on
quid pro quo of Soviet using its veto to prevent anti-India resolutions in the
UN Security Council. India’s approach
was essentially to seek UN interventions in the global power struggles. Despite
the hard realities of the power battle, India somehow kept faith in the UN and
its peacekeeping operations. India has been the single largest contributor in
terms of men and armed resources for UN peacekeeping operations. It might have
to do with India’s aspirations for UN Security Council permanent membership but
so far the efforts have proved little. China is known to participate in the UN
peacekeeping operations ostensibly to gain operational experience for its PLA
outside its boundaries. While it might be similar motives for India, the
evidence of course is scanty. It is the Indian belief that UN is a forum to
solve global problems and blue helmets are key instruments in the same that has
driven the Indian logic rather than operational exposure.
As India seeks to expand the role in
the global power calculus, India needs to rethink its role in global
interventions. There might be hard or soft but interventions would not
disappear. India has intervened in the past on many an occasion. The pre-independent
India was essentially a dominion that protected the British interests in the
Indo-Pacific. It was the omphalos of the empire. Whether it was in Afghanistan
or China or Tibet or Burma, Indian forces were key to the British objectives. India
needs to revisit the paradigm of non-intervention. It has even in the
independent India and there is no need why it cannot do so. If it has to step
up its role, it needs to reclaim its position as net security provider in the
Indo-Pacific region. It was in the orbit of Indian power from Suez to Fiji. As China
scales its ambitions, India would have to match for its own self-interest. India
cannot have the hesitations of the past that prevented it from exercising
power. India was sought and drawn into a moral trap where it has remained
entrapped barring few exceptions. The experiences in Sri Lanka for instance have
reinforced the hesitations. There is a need to change the thinking and
strategic thinking should be it at building the Indo-Pacific zone beyond the
South Asian calculus as it sphere of influence.
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