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Context

The evolving situation in Afghanistan has thrown up renewed challenges for India’s regional and bilateral ties with Central Asia and the Caucasus, prompting India to recalibrate its rules of engagement with the region.

Background of India’s relations with Central Asian countries

• After the breakup of the Soviet Union and the formation of the independent republics in Central Asia, India reset its ties with the strategically critical region.
• India provided financial aid to the region and established diplomatic relations.
• New Delhi signed the Strategic Partnership Agreements (SPA) with Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to stimulate defence cooperation and deepen trade relations.
• In 2012, New Delhi’s ‘Connect Central Asia’ policy aimed at furthering India’s political, economic, historical and cultural connections with the region.
• However, India’s efforts were stonewalled by Pakistan’s lack of willingness to allow India passage through its territory.

Renewed engagement with Central Asia

• The growing geostrategic and security concerns regarding the BRI’s China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and its violation of India’s sovereignty forced New Delhi to fix its lethargic strategy.
• Eventually, Central Asia became the link that placed Eurasia in New Delhi’s zone of interest.
• India signed MoUs with Iran in 2015 to develop the Chabahar port in the Sistan-Baluchistan province that was in the doldrums from 2003.
• External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar was in the region earlier this month.
• In Kyrgyzstan, Mr. Jaishankar extended a credit line of $200 million for the support of development projects and signed an memorandum of understanding (MoU) on High-Impact Community Development Projects (HICDP).
• Kazakhstan: His next stop was the Kazakhstan capital, Nur Sultan, where he attended the 6th Foreign Ministers’ Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA).
• Armenia: Mr. Jaishankar has become the first Indian External Affairs Minister to visit Armenia.
•  During the visit, Mr. Jaishankar also supported efforts for a peaceful solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia under the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Minsk group.

Limits of SCO

• The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) was created in response to the threats of terrorism that sprang from Afghanistan.
• The Taliban re-establishing its supremacy over Afghanistan has also exposed the weaknesses of coalitions such as SCO.
• The SCO has been used by most member countries for their own regional geostrategic and security interests, increasing the trust-deficit and divergence within the forum.

Way forward

• Most of the Central Asian leaders view India’s Chabahar port as an opportunity to diversify their export markets and control China’s ambitions.
• They have admitted New Delhi into the Ashgabat Agreement, allowing India access to connectivity networks to facilitate trade and commercial interactions with both Central Asia and Eurasia, and also access the natural resources of the region.
• Rising anti-Chinese sentiments within the region and security threats from the Taliban allow New Delhi and Central Asia to reimagine their engagement.
• Central Asian countries have been keen to have India as a partner as they have sought to diversify their strategic ties.

Conclusion

India cannot afford to lose any time in recalibrating its regional engagements.

Context

Whether it can or should make a difference to Pakistan’s internal politics, India must pay greater attention to the internal dynamics of our most difficult neighbour and more purposefully engage a diverse set of actors in that polity.

India’s interventions in internal affairs of neighbours

• Except for Pakistan, in most other countries of the subcontinent, India is drawn quickly into their internal political arguments.
• Delhi has always exercised some influence on the outcomes of those contestations.
• It is enough to note that India’s interventions are a recurring pattern in the subcontinent’s international relations.
• Even when Delhi is reluctant to get into the weeds of these conflicts, the competing parties in the neighbourhood demand India’s intervention on their behalf.
• All of the contestants, of course, resolutely oppose India’s meddling when it goes against them.
• But Delhi has rarely been a decisive player in Pakistan’s internal politics.
• Delhi’s hands-off attitude is surprising, given India’s huge stakes in the nature of Pakistan’s policies and their massive impact on regional security.

Current crises in Pakistan

• Internal crises: Among the many challenges confronting Pakistan is the fresh breakdown in civil-military relations.
• Pakistan’s economy is in a tailspin as it struggles to negotiate a stabilisation package with the International Monetary Fund.
• The militant religious movement Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) has mounted a fresh march against the capital demanding the release of its arrested leader.
• External crises: The internal crises are sharpened by worsening external conditions.
• In Afghanistan, Pakistan has succeeded in restoring the Taliban to power.
• The celebrations have not lasted too long; the long-awaited victory is turning sour.
• The Arab Gulf states that have been fast friends of Pakistan are now tilting towards India.
• Once a favourite partner of the West, Pakistan today faces tensions in its ties with the US and Europe.
• More broadly, nuclear weapons and a powerful army seem unable to stop Pakistan’s relative decline in relation to not just India but also Bangladesh.
• Pakistan’s economy is now 10 times smaller than that of India and is well behind Bangladesh.

Suggestions

• Whether it can or should make a difference to Pakistan’s internal politics, India must pay greater attention to the internal dynamics of our most difficult neighbour and more purposefully engage a diverse set of actors in that polity.
• For Delhi, it is always about narrow political arguments with Rawalpindi and Islamabad; it is as if the people of Pakistan do not exist.
• For India, the crises in Pakistan should be an occasion to reflect on the long-term regional consequences of Pakistan’s internal turbulence.
• It might be argued that that unlike elsewhere in the neighbourhood, Delhi’s leverage in Pakistan’s politics is limited. But it is by no means negligible.

Consider the question “For Delhi, it is always about narrow political arguments with Rawalpindi and Islamabad; it is as if the people of Pakistan do not exist. The depth of the current crises in Pakistan, however, should nudge India into overcoming this entrenched indifference. Comment.”

Conclusion

India looms so large in Pakistan’s mind space. For Delhi, it may be worth trying to turn that into influence over Pakistan’s policies if only at the tactical level and at the margins.