Modi’s hour of reckoning

Geopolitical challenges

The year 2020 will unquestionably be recalled by posterity as one of the worst in history. Whether the virus that originated in Wuhan was inadvertently released or consciously unleashed by China upon an unsuspecting world could well remain a mystery. But tackling the still vastly spreading Covid-19 pandemic remains the world’s, and India’s, foremost challenge.

India, located in one of the most geopolitically stressed regions of the world, while also confronting the raging pandemic, found itself taken by utter surprise by the Chinese army’s serious transgressions at many points across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Eastern Ladakh region. Notwithstanding the Indian government’s reluctance to share the details of the exact ground situation and clarifying the exactitude of the Chinese transgressions, according to widespread media reports, the aggressive Chinese are sitting on the Indian side of the LAC in the Depsang Plateau area, the Galwan Valley high ground, and Fingers 5 to 8 in the Pangong Tso area. The Chinese have not displayed any intention to withdraw to the pre-19 April 2020 dispositions.

Indian and Chinese forces may now be in for a long-haul deployment facing each other, but New Delhi will have to take some punitive measures to thwart China’s aggression. Mere political rhetoric will not suffice against the overly assertive and hegemonistic orientation of the Chinese. The majority of global opinion is against China currently for its role in spreading the Covid-19 pandemic globally and causing untold misery to the entire world. In addition, its aggressive intentions in not only Eastern Ladakh but also in the South and East China Seas, its cruel handling of protesters in Hong Kong and the new national security law there, its aggressiveness against tiny Taiwan and its inhuman handling of the Uighurs in the restive Xinjiang province have all attracted global opprobrium.

As regards India, China has been making regular efforts at the United Nations Security Council and with the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) to discuss and internationalise the Kashmir situation, though in vain. India will have to use its good offices with Saudi Arabia, in particular, and with as many Muslim nations, in general, to keep at bay the Pakistan-Iran-China mischief at the OIC.

A dispassionate look around India’s immediate neighbourhood clearly reveals that New Delhi’s current relations with its neighbours lacks the degree of warmth and cooperation that was seen in the past. With a traditionally anti-India Pakistan, it appears to be a zero-sum game for India-Pakistan relations in the foreseeable future. Pakistan, in collusion with China, will endeavour to keep India occupied over Jammu and Kashmir whilst stepping up its terrorist activities in the Valley. Thus, India has to ensure hawk-like vigilance and an adequately responsive counter-insurgency grid inside J&K. Some out-of-the-box people-friendly measures have to be implemented in the restive Valley.

A recent worrisome development has been the unexpected hardening of the NSCN-IM’s stand in its dealings with Nagaland Governor and Delhi’s interlocutor in the Naga peace talks, N Ravi. Asking for a separate flag and Nagalim once again appears to be the handiwork of hidden forces inimical to India. For decades, China has been playing mischief with our tribes in the North-East. The Modi government must now come down with a heavy hand on NSCN-IM leader Thiungaleng Muviah and his band of insurgents. India cannot have one rule for national integration for the Kashmiris, where Delhi scrapped J&K’s special status, and another for the Nagas. Consistency in our principled stand, genuine compassion in our dealings, coupled with unflinching resolve on sovereignty issues, should underscore our internal policies.

With the Rajapaksa brothers back in the driving seat in Sri Lanka, now with a huge majority, India will have to use all its diplomatic acumen, embellished with substantial economic largesse, to keep Sri Lanka from falling totally into China’s sphere of influence. The Rajapaksa brothers are reportedly close to China, but they nevertheless do comprehend the need for adequate sensitivity to Indian interests. India’s security establishment will have to remain ever vigilant about China’s machinations and ensure that the latter’s growing footprint in the tiny island is not at India’s expense.

Nepal, bound to India not only by geography but by religious and cultural affinity, has under Prime Minister KP Oli, displayed intransigence towards India like never before. Its recent cartographic provocation, by showing some Indian territory as Nepalese, could not have been imagined ever before. Recent reports of China trying to entice Gurkhas for service in the People’s Liberation Army have rightly rung alarm bells in the Indian establishment. India has over 40,000 Gurkhas in its army, and any such Chinese machinations will have serious adverse repercussions.

The emerging unpredictable future of Afghanistan presents another geo-political challenge for India. With the fundamentalist Taliban on the ascendant, a weary United States in a quandary over having to make its inevitable exit, and a wily Pakistan waiting in the wings to reignite its machinations, Afghanistan displays all the potential to be drawn into the throes of political instability and unending violence. India must reinvigorate its soft power forays into that impoverished, hapless country. India must continue supporting, along with the US, the democratically-elected Ashraf Ghani government whilst also endeavouring to get Russia on board to counter any China-Pakistan-Iran axis in the region.

The prevalent geopolitical scenario in the region distinctively points at an overly ambitious China and its collusive stratagems, along with its surrogate state, Pakistan, to harm Indian interests. India must shed its diffidence in dealing with the wily Chinese and determinedly give it a taste of its own medicine. This is thus India’s and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hour of reckoning.

(The writer was the first chief, Defence Intelligence Agency and deputy chief, Integrated Defence Staff)