Prof. Harsh V Pant is Director, Studies and Head of the Strategic Studies Programme at Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi and he holds a joint appointment with the Department of Defence Studies and King’s India Institute as Professor of International Relations at King’s College London.
He is also a Non-Resident Fellow with the Wadhwani Chair in US-India Policy Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC.
Prof. Pant has been Visiting Professor at several reputed universities such as the University of Pennsylvania, McGill University, University of Melbourne, and others.
His most recent books include New Directions in India’s Foreign Policy: Theory and Praxis, India’s Nuclear Policy,
The US Pivot and Indian Foreign Policy, Handbook of Indian Defence Policy, India’s Afghan Muddle, and the US-India Nuclear Pact: Policy, Process and Great Power Politics.
Dr. Pramod Jaiswal, Strategic Affairs Editor at Khabarhub, spoke to Prof. Harsh V Pant on the issues related to India’s Foreign Policy.
What are the current foreign policy priorities and challenges for India?
When you look at India and Indian Foreign Policy, it is constantly evolving in response to what is happening around India, in the international environment as well as within India.
But I think at the moment if you look at various priorities of India, the topmost one would be primarily ensuring there is relative stability in the wider region in which India operates so that it can continue to focus on domestic economic development.
At the end of the day, a strong economy is one of the most important markers of any country’s global aspirations.
So, unless the economic fundamentals are sound, unless the Indian economy is doing well, I think, India’s role in the global order in the wider region will remain constrained.
I think for most policymakers it is important to focus on internal capacity building, internal development, but I think we are increasingly living in a world where the differences between domestic policy and foreign policy are getting blurred and I think that is a very important message that is coming out from across the world at this point.
In the post COVID19 environment, countries are having to deal with both the health front-the health crisis and the economic front- the wealth crisis as well as in trying to figure out the response to so much that is happening around the world from major power contestation to the growth in extremism and terrorism, to the wider challenges in the maritime space, to new technologies that are emerging and reshaping the way they work, we think and we operate.
All of these challenges are profoundly serious and are having a significant impact on the way most nations are thinking about their foreign policy priorities, India is no different, but as a COVID19 situation stabilizes hopefully the challenges for India would be to bring its economy back on track, as well as to use or try to shape their regional and global environment which allows India to fulfill some of its domestic aspirations.
Where is India’s Neighbourhood policy headed under the Modi Government especially during and after the COVID19?
I think this has been a very challenging time for all nations including India and India’s neighbors. And in that context, India’s neighborhood policy in the last one and half years has also responded to some of the challenges that India and India’s neighbors have been facing.
So, you would recall, for instance, from the very beginning, India was one of the few countries to say that look this pandemic cannot be resolved by countries turning inwards.
We have to work together and in fact, at that point in time even PM Modi convened a conference of all SAARC nations, of all nations in the neighborhood, Pakistan was also invited.
So in a sense, that was the first phase of the crisis, and India was arguing that India really cannot tackle it on its own, it needs the support of its neighbors to tackle it because we live in a neighborhood which is, you know, where the boundaries are porous, borders are porous, where people interact with each other all the time and this is a region where people to people ties are very strong so it’s very difficult to become, to change the way we operate on a day to day basis.
Therefore, regional cooperation was very important and, in that spirit, in the 1st phase, in fact, we saw India using some of its global manufacturing capacity to reach out to its neighbors- supplying PPE kits and medicines that were needed then.
Moving on to vaccine diplomacy, I think the first phase of vaccine diplomacy was largely focused on India supplying it to its neighbors.
But then you had the second wave and that second wave earlier this year, March-April blindsided Indian policymakers and it was very difficult because the resources were very limited and the scale of the crisis was of a very different magnitude.
And at that point in time, India started prioritizing domestic consumption and its vaccine diplomacy. So, we have seen India not exporting and supplying vaccines since March-April this year.
And given their production capacity, the manufacturing industry is also coming down. And now that I think India is back on track with its own vaccination program and the supply of vaccines, the issue is once again getting normalized.
I think very soon we would see India once again engaging with the neighborhood.
But I think there are two important points on the neighborhood policy, one, compared to the past, India’s neighborhood policy is being shaped also by the rise of China and China is now one of the most important partners of almost all of India’s neighbors and all that will continue because China is a growing power.
It a power that has resources and therefore it is important for India’s neighbors to engage with China as well.
But this dilemma which India faces and to a certain extent India’s neighbors also face; how do you balance India and China and their foreign policy priorities?
And how can India make sure that it remains a positive player in the region? Those challenges will remain with Indian foreign policy for some time now, given China’s role in its expanding profile.
The other thing, which I will very briefly touch upon, is the issue of Afghanistan and what has happened in Afghanistan with the coming back of the Taliban to power.
Now I think, this will once again have significant consequences for the region because this is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious region and any attempt where religious extremism comes on the rise that challenges the stability of the region.
So, I think for some time now India’s neighborhood will have to focus more on its western frontier- the Pakistan-Afghanistan belt because for a long time now India had been focusing on the eastern flank, the whole BIMSTEC, Bay of Bengal, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Myanmar and Thailand.
Those were the focus areas for India but now with the Taliban coming to power in Afghanistan, which raises some significant security concerns for India and I think the focus is slightly to be shifted towards it.
Will the Indian government acknowledge Afghanistan under Taliban rule? What transpired the Indian and Taliban talks earlier this month? Does this indicate the shift in India’s policy?
I sense that there is a new reality in India’s neighborhood and India always had this consistent position that the political processes in Afghanistan should be Afghan-owned and Afghan lead.
And now that the Taliban is in power in Afghanistan, I think more or less India will engage with the government of the Taliban as the other countries would.
It is a reality you cannot shy away from, that there is a government and you have to deal with them. But I think legitimacy and recognition are two different things, it’s still some way off.
I think engagement to serve the interests which are immediate interest for India, India will continue to see that its nationals are protected and those who have helped Indian in the past are protected that India’s stakes are preserved, that requires a certain level of engagement with whoever is running Kabul, or whoever is running Afghanistan and that would involve India reaching out to the Taliban.
Recognition is something that not only India but also other countries have been saying out repeatedly, whether it is the BRICS platform, or India and Australia yesterday in their joint declaration or whether it is India and other like-minded countries.
The sense that India will have to wait and see what the Taliban will do on the ground because there is a lot of commentaries out there that this is the new Taliban- a Taliban that is changed but if you look at the government there it’s not an inclusive government that they have announced, it’s an all-male and largely Pashtun government, they have not brought in other stakeholders to the table and have been brutal in dealing with their political opponents.
The fate of the Panjshir valley for example is a case in point. If they were interested in a negotiated political settlement, they could easily have reached out to the fighters in Panjshir and made a deal but they continued to use violence as a means of appropriating the opponents.
So, there are larger questions about what happens to political minorities, religious minorities, what happens to women, what is their governance agenda if they at all have any?
Those questions are important. But the one thing you pointed out that India had the 1st official engagement with the Taliban in recent weeks is interesting as it happened at the behest of the Taliban and India made two points, one that evacuations should happen without any problems and that those Indian nationals and other nationals who want to get out of Afghanistan should be allowed to get out of Afghanistan.
And the other point that India continued to reiterate is that Afghan soil should not be used in targeting other nations when it comes to terrorism and Taliban have indicated that they are open to it and but we know that commitments, verbal commitments in foreign policy, in international relations don’t mean much and it is always the action on the ground that matters and I think India will wait and see how and what Taliban will do over the next few months?
How do they relate to other stakeholders? What do they do with the minorities in Afghanistan and therein India will try to chart out its own course but I think it’s at this point while engagement with Taliban has become a necessity, a practical necessity for India, I think recognition is still some way off.
Why did India play a neutral role during the crisis in Myanmar and Palestine? How far can India continue with sitting on the fence not taking sides in its foreign policy approach?
Yes, I think that’s an interesting question because there is a demand for India and many in India also believe that it should be playing a much larger role in global politics.
But that means India and countries that want to play a larger role are also inevitably required to pick sides because you really cannot be neutral all the time.
Now in the case of Myanmar for example, if you look at India’s engagement in Myanmar and India’s role in Myanmar it is primarily aimed at engaging all the stakeholders because traditionally India has been a big votary of democratic transition in Myanmar.
But what has also happened is that India has great relations with the military junta there and that military and security agencies have been an important partner of India in tackling border problems and insurgencies along the border and have been very helpful for India in managing that periphery.
So, it’s not the idea that the questions are will India continue to raise questions about democracy in Myanmar but I think India has to balance that with the question of India’s security concerns that emanate from Myanmar and India has to look at various stakeholders and bring them all together.
Because if you would recall that even in the past when the 1st military transition and the political transition was happening, India was the only country that had the channels of communication open to all the stakeholders and that allowed India to be able to have an engagement both with the National League for Democracy as well as military junta that perhaps no other country had.
There are some advantages of being able to engage with everyone, with all the stakeholders, but in India’s case, in this particular instance, it is also important for strategic and security reasons that India continues to remain engaged with whoever is running the government.
As we were talking in the case of Afghanistan, some practical issues have to be taken care of. For India in Myanmar, security is one, the border security is very important, insurgencies in the border areas are very important to be tackled and for that India needs the help of Myanmar’s military.
So, I think this will continue to be a question of balancing both sides but I think it is also important that when it comes to Israel and Palestine, India’s stand is no different from other major powers.
India’s stand is very similar to what western countries take; India wants the two-state solution to be implemented and India wants that terrorism should not be the means of operation for those who want a two-state solution in Israel.
So, I think India’s relation with both Palestinians and Israelis has been strong and has continued to grow. But I think on the issue of Israel and Palestine India is certainly not taking a provision that is quite distinct from other major powers.
And I think this is also interesting, certainly given that India is a democracy, this question should be asked of India but if you look at other countries like China, more or less the same situation arises that China continues to have relations where China has no compunction in having relations with all the stakeholders with any country.
I think that gives China leverage that other countries don’t have. I think for India as a democracy it is important to speak about democratic values, to speak about people’s rights and their aspirations but as a nation-state, it is also incumbent upon India to look at its own security, its own strategic interest.
And therefore, that can only happen if India has broad-based engagement with all the stakeholders in any particular situation.
How has India perceived China’s new maritime rules designed to control the entry of foreign vessels in what Beijing calls “Chinese territorial waters” in the disputed seas of South China? Is it likely to cause more rift or spike tension in the South China Sea?
Definitely, there is no doubt that China is gradually trying to exercise control in the South China Sea, which is quite unprecedented and detrimental to the region’s stability.
That is also making smaller states in the region very anxious. This is further going to escalate tensions in the already volatile part of the world.
The South China Sea today has become extremely volatile because Chinese aggressive actions are leading to counteractions from other states.
The Western powers are now making a big play of their naval forces in that part of the world. For India, it is important to uphold the values of freedom, inclusivity, and freedom of navigation because that is where India connects with the smaller states in the region.
India is not speaking on behalf of the state; of course, there is a significant part of the trade that passes from the South China Sea. India would want that region to be void of any conflict, to be void of any hegemon state designs.
But it is also about smaller states and countries like India speaking up for them, after all, most of the South China Sea claimants are smaller than China, their claims, contestations have been going on for a while and major powers are entering the frame.
The question is no longer simply about the discourse; it is also about the operational capacity of some of the countries to shape the strategic environment in the South China Sea and South East Asia broadly.
I think India has got stakes in the wider Indo Pacific, South China Sea, South East Asia and India would like that region to remain stable.
Anything that adds instability, volatility to the region is something India would not like and India would speak out against.
Its gradually becoming clear that India would want to not only talk about certain aspects of fundamental principles that need to operate in maritime relations between nation-states but also India recently sent its naval forces in the South China Sea, in the Pacific to undertake military exercises with like-minded countries, they involved bi-lateral exercises with big countries like Philippines, Indonesia but also involve Malabar exercises in the Indo-Pacific.
So I think there is a wider role here for India, which is just beginning to think about and operationalize in the region.
How can the US and India work together on neutralizing China’s growing presence in the region?
I think India and the US broadly look at the region through a similar lens and that has been one of the reasons why the relationship between the two nations has been growing despite the challenges in India-US relations.
The wider trajectory of India-US relations has been very positive, we have seen different governments come to India, different presidents come to India but the relationship has only grown.
There is a reason for that because the larger strategic map that the two have of the region and where their roles fit in is largely the same.
Now for the US, there is this sense that a power transition is happening, a power like China that is posed to a lot of the institutional framework and the normative framework that America and the western led order had proposed over the last few decades is coming under challenge because China is opposing them.
For India, of course, the relationship with China is becoming more and more difficult to sustain, as China is putting pressure on India along the border, is making sure that India is not part of a global platform like the Security Council and is working with Pakistan to present India with a two-front theatre.
So, I think there are challenges in the wider Indo-Pacific as we were discussing concerning the previous question, that in the wider Indo-Pacific, maritime instability, due to some of the actions of the Chinese have caused a lot of problems.
Thus, for India and the US, it becomes imperative to work with each other. India, certainly on its own cannot manage this transition; America on its own cannot manage this transition.
They both need like-minded partners and not only do India and America need each other but they also need a wider set of partners.
As a result, we have seen the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue take shape with the Japanese and the Australians, we have seen great engagement with ASEAN member states, and we have seen the European Union engaging more and more in the Indo-Pacific with India.
There is a larger shift happening in global politics, where the fragmentation in the global order between China and its friends, and slightly more democratic countries on the other side is beginning to emerge.
Now, how far it will go, what sorts of costs and challenges it will bring are still to be reckoned with but I think for both India and the US, this is a reflection point in global politics and unless they work together, I think there will be feeling that they won’t be able to manage the extreme flux that we are witnessing in the system in the Indo-Pacific in particular.
In what ways does QUAD represent India’s interest? What is India’s role in the Indo-Pacific?
Well, the Indo-Pacific geography that has emerged- it’s a new nomenclature, since the end of the Cold War we have not seen this term being used.
Instead, the wider Asian region was bracketed into various distinct parts; like you had the Asia-Pacific and people used to talk about South Asia as if South Asia is not part of the Asia-pacific.
So, you always had this arbitrary distinction that was made conceptually and operationally. For example, the American military commands were based on this interpretation which was quite not in sync with the operational realities on the ground but it was what it was.
Similarly, India also was largely an insular power but not with the kind of economic heft it now has and of course, China was emerging but still was a relatively smaller power.
Once China started rising its impact was being felt from Oceania to the Middle East and beyond, to the East coast of Africa.
The challenge became that here there is new geography that needed to be looked at. One cannot look at the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean in isolation because the balance of power in the region was shifting; China’s rise was making it impossible to ignore these new realities and India’s rise, its economic rise, made it possible to think of India as a balancer in the region.
Therefore, when you bring these elements together, you sort of, look at the Indo-Pacific conflict duration differently; hence, Asia-Pacific became Indo-pacific because South Asia was being looked at more organically as being part of the larger Asia-Pacific.
And once we start doing that the distinction between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean becomes arbitrary.
This is the reason why we have seen the rise of the Indo-Pacific narrative in such a strong wave in the last decade or so and it is now being accepted by the countries in the region- Australia, Japan, ASEAN, European Union, America, all of these countries are now looking at the larger Asian region through the prism of the Indo-pacific.
This is because the story that it tells you is that the center of gravity of liberal politics and economics are shifting to Indo-Pacific and therefore, the major powers there will have to shift and recalibrate their positions.
And because India was historically, organically linked with South East Asia; so if you look at India’s historical engagements with countries such as Thailand, Myanmar and Indonesia it was not something that India was creating or India was trying to establish artificially; the linkages are very clear, the cultural, historical linkages are substantive.
But somehow they had not been seen as part of the discourse and India was not seen as part of East or South-East Asia organically but now as India enters into East and South-East Asia through economic engagements, maritime engagements, the logic of the Indo-Pacific is becoming clearer and it allows India to play a larger role in the wider Indo-Pacific geography, in the wider maritime space where India traditionally has had a larger role in the past but over the last few decades it has certainly not lived up to that historical commitment.
But I think that is changing and that means that the instability in the power transition, the structural shifts, and the institutional weaknesses of the region will be front and center in Indian foreign policy priorities.
So, we have seen India, like other nations, grappling with this issue that while we talk of the Indo-Pacific, there are no institutional frameworks in the Indo-Pacific to manage the power transition in the region; so, Quad as an informal grouping, as a platform allows these like-minded countries to shape some kind of a security architecture for the region because these four countries are like-minded in more ways than one-their strategic interests converge, they are all democracies.
Moreover, they have similar world views and they want to preserve certain basic stability in the region and the maritime space because they believe it’s good for them and for the region and this convergence brings the Quad member states together; of course, China has problem with it, China doesn’t like it.
It feels this is about its containment but if you look at the agenda that the four Quad countries articulated in their first leaders level summit earlier this year, their agenda is much more than merely targeting China, their agenda is about climate change, about SDGs, about health and vaccines, their agenda talks about supply chain resilience and trade in a world that is being reshaped by COVID-19.
So, on a range of issues there is a sense that the four countries can mobilize regional resources, can mobilize the region towards attaining positive outcomes and towards creating some sort of stable institutional architecture.
A stronger political push for an economic decoupling from China has been a hot topic of political discourse in all the QUAD countries including the EU and G7. How do you see the potential role of initiatives like Blue Dot Network and B3W – build back better word- in this process and how feasible is it for India to decouple from China?
I think one of the things the COVID-19 has done is it has opened the eyes of the world, in particular some of the major countries, towards the challenges that come when you are over-dependent in your supply chains in any particular country.
The Indian PM said it very early on in one of his remarks when COVID-19 just struck India, that one of the biggest lessons we are learning is that we need to be self-reliant in certain critical areas.
So, this is something that has been talked about in the US after the whole logic of Trump and Biden’s policy of building America’s domestic strengths, it has also been talked about in the European Union, in the sense that, over-reliance on China has come with costs and it is happening in Australia and Japan, etc.
There is a recognition of the issue that you cannot be over-reliant on one particular country. The old framework of globalization is perhaps something that needs to be relooked at and I think that is already happening.
I personally think that it’s certainly not feasible and not desirable to have a complete decoupling from China because China and India as economic partners, its economic relationships cannot be constructed overnight.
Likewise, supply chains cannot be constructed overnight so what I think is going to happen is that gradually you are going to see sectors which is critical and strategic in nature, where India is trying to make a case that where we will not allow certain countries to become dominant, or allow India to become overly dependent on one particular country and those critical sectors will be firewalled against certain nations so that the strategic autonomy of decision making can be preserved.
I think that is how you will gradually see this move forward. In India it’s called ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’, ‘a self-reliant India’ and in other countries, there is America first.
So, countries are now looking at this notion of how the world is changing and how the economics and national security dynamics are interrelated, through a different lens.
The relationship with China has been re-evaluated, it would not be possible to have complete decoupling but I think what most major powers and countries want is to have a more reciprocal relationship, a more balanced relationship.
If China wants entry into Indian markets for example, then it should provide India access to its own market on issues where India has a comparative advantage- pharmaceuticals, IT, services sector and that is something that China has not been forthcoming about.
China has not made it easier for Indian companies to operate in China but China expects to operate in Indian markets freely and that narrative, that paradigm will not be acceptable anymore; it is changing in India, it is changing elsewhere and I think the larger narrative of globalization itself is undergoing a transformation where we are seeing a larger fragmentation of the global economic order.
Again, the consequences are still unknown but I think the direction is perhaps much more certain.
This year PM Modi personally wished the Dalai Lama on his birthday and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met a representative of the Dalai Lama in New Delhi, a move likely to anger Beijing. Does this mean that India is on its way to play the Tibet card in its dealings with China?
I don’t know whether India will be playing this card, as for many in India, the relationship with Tibet is not a card to be played, it’s a much more organic relationship.
The way the Dalai Lama is revered in India and elsewhere also has very little to do with geopolitics or India’s relationship with China.
Dalai Lama is revered in India and around the world as a spiritual leader of Tibetans and he is well respected and loved.
So, in some ways, in past India has been a bit cagey about openly expressing it at times on how it views its relationship with the Dalai Lama and the wider Tibetan community.
I think what has changed post-Galwan valley incident, post-Sino-Indian tensions, is that there is greater openness in India to ask away basic questions that one should ask in any relationship that if China can be open about its engagement with all countries including Pakistan if China can openly behave in a manner that is inevitable to Indian interest, then why are Indian leaders cagey about openly expressing their admiration for Dalai Lama.
This is something that many in India have been asking and many will continue to ask that if China was respectful of Indian sensitivities, perhaps Indians would want to be respectful of Chinese sensitivities, but it can’t be a one-way street forever.
I think this is the challenge the Sino-Indian relation faces at the moment. I think they are at the inflection point and all the assumptions that are made about Sino-India relations are being re-assessed.
That doesn’t mean there is a bigger part to be played, what it means is India’s ties with the Tibetan people, ties with Dalai lama will be openly expressed and India would not be reticent in expressing them.
But certainly, if there is a need, India will also make sure that the issue of Tibet, the issue of the Dalai Lama, the issue of what perhaps has been the most militarized responses to a minority religion in a country, can also be put in the international map.
But I think primarily what you talked about- PM Modi’s wishes for the Dalai Lama, they have actually been part of this landscape for a while now, many Indian leaders have done it in the past, PM Modi himself had met the Dalai Lama in the past.
But perhaps bringing it out in the open, PM Modi is signaling that this is an important enough relationship for India, to be sustained on its own merits and one need not look at it primarily through the prism of China.
If India has to talk to the Dalai Lama and the Tibet people then it can do so irrespective of how China feels or does.
Ultimately this is also a question of India expressing its sovereignty in the region, which has been as much part of India’s cultural history as much of any other country.
At the moment where does Nepal stand in India’s foreign policy and how does Delhi perceive the political developments in Kathmandu?
Nepal has always been a very special case because I don’t think any two countries have this kind of relationship that India and Nepal have, at the people-to-people level, it’s almost as if the two countries are the same people.
But when it comes to the nation-states they will always have some divergence on certain issues where it’s incumbent upon diplomacy of both nations to navigate them very carefully.
So, because India and Nepal are so close, it also makes the possibilities of challenges emerging much more palpable; if you are too close to someone you also get hurt when the other side doesn’t play by what you expect them to do.
With India and Nepal, it has been a consistent pattern that while there has been so much love and affection at the level of the people; at the level of nation-states we’ve always seen this challenge about how India is perceived, about how Nepal is perceived, sometimes people in Nepal perceive India as a big brother who tries to bully Nepal, sometimes people in India would feel that Nepal is not being sensitive to Indian concerns.
But at the end of the day, I think what matters in Nepal-India relations is the ability to navigate these challenges which will inevitably come because when you have such a close relationship, such frustrations, such sentiments are natural. On both sides, there can be a sense of betrayal, damage but it is a role of effective diplomacy to better it up.
Over the last few years, we have seen great ups and downs in the relationship. We’ve also seen the fact that Nepal as a country has its own aspirations; it wants to play a certain kind of role in the region and wants to engage various powers in the region.
And that I think in some ways is also a reflection of how South Asia as a region is changing, it’s evolving.
India’s role in that context becomes not only looking at Nepal strategically but also looking at Nepal as a co-partner in development, as a co-partner in the regional development initiatives that are needed to remap the region or to look at the region differently in the global context where so much is happening and there is so much potential.
So, my sense is that Indian policymakers will always look at Nepal very carefully as I am sure Nepalese policymakers do.
That means that we have to be extra cautious, extra sensitive, and invest that extra bit in this relationship than you’ll have to do with other nations.
Given the special nature of this relationship, it is incumbent upon Indian policymakers to nurture it more and not to let this feeling grow that it is being ignored.
Similarly, in the case of Nepal, a certain kind of responsible leadership will always make it a point that Indian sensitivities are always, if not respected but at least acknowledged.
Both sides are responsible for nurturing this relationship because we know from past experience that one single step in the wrong direction, one single policy mis-step can escalate to something very dangerous and difficult later on that eventually both sides have found difficult to manage.
So, I think in order not to enter into that phase, a little bit of caution, a little bit of sustained high-level engagement is very necessary.
I think Nepal will remain a very important perhaps the most important part of India’s South Asia policy and for Indian policymakers, it is important to keep a close eye on what is happening in Nepal and I think in particular how the next generation in Nepal is responding to their aspirations, what are their aspirations, how they are looking at their role in the region, their role vis-a-vis India.
Those questions will have to be engaged with by Indian policymakers much more substantively as Nepal also undergoes a generation shift, as Nepalese politics also goes a significant shift from the old patterns in the past.
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