By P Kharel
Indian intellectuals and politicians vociferously lament the British colonial tyranny that lasted two centuries until independence was gained in 1947. While painstakingly cataloguing and grieving over their miserable conditions inflicted by none other than the “mother of all parliamentary democracies” whose roots are overstretched to the 1215 Magna Carta, Indian politicians want to avenge the humiliation caused by the powerful perpetrators.
India treats its South Asian neighbours as its “sphere of influence” and tries dictating terms of treaties and agreements, especially cashing in on the latter’s vulnerabilities, by sowing of seeds of dissensions and creating strangleholds. A case in point is the manner in which New Delhi entrapped Prime Minister Mohan Shumsher into signing the 1950 “Treaty of Peace and Friendship” during the dying months of Rana rule. The Koshi, Gandak and Mahakali agreements followed the same track.
As the movement for democracy and restoration of legitimate monarchy was about to be launched in 1950, the Jawaharlal Nehru government extracted a bilateral treaty that from the very beginning was decried as a national humiliation for the only country in the region not to have ever been colonised. Economic blockades and unfair trade tactics are too frequent for overemphasis. Indian interference and intervention in not only Nepal but also Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives exposed New Delhi’s intentions.
PAINFUL BIRTH: Labour Prime Minister Clement Atlee initially announced British rule would end in June 1948, but Viceroy Louis Mountbatten advanced it by some 10 months. The consequent running wounds of separation on Hindu-Muslim basis are yet to heal even 79 years later.
The haste in which the Indian National Congress stalwarts wanted the British to hand over power enabling them to run the affairs of independent India at the quickest was conspiratorial. Divide and rule was an imperialist policy throughout the colonial timeframe. Before quitting the “Jewel in the British Crown”, London ensured a festering feud between Hindu majority India and Muslim majority Pakistan.
As if in appreciation, the new rulers in New Delhi asked Mountbatten to continue serving as independent India’s viceroy whereas Muhammad Ali Jinnah became Pakistan’s first executive head, dispensing with a British viceroy for guardian. Lady Edwina and India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s romance was no secret, and the stolen love melted the Indian leader to persuade the Congress and Mahatma Gandhi to agree to a divided India without due preparations for history’s biggest mass cross-migrations—with grievous consequences.
At the beginning of the 18th century India accounted for a quarter of the world’s GDP. By the time it obtained independence in 1947, the country was a picture of division, abject poverty and want. Some 12 to 14 million people died of starvation in several famines that occurred on imperial watch. A year after Prithvi Narayan Shah laid down a firm foundation for a united Nepal, a major famine occurred in India, killing hundreds of thousands of people.
Wartime British Prime Minister Winston Churchill asked if starvation was so great why was it that the Indian population was increasing. He once summed it up, as records show, “I hate Indians” and sneered that “Indians breed like rabbits”. He was disappointed that a fasting Mohan Karamchand Gandhi had not died yet.
Politicians like Shashi Tharoor lament that the British funnelled $45 trillion worth of profits, or modern Britain’s 15 years of income, to British banks. Such defeatist and belated comments without serious efforts to extract a firm apology from London make the situation pathetic.
CHOKEPOINT INDIA: India abhors competition of any kind from Nepal with whom it unilaterally claims “special relationship”. Neighbours redefine priorities: any nation without a strategy runs adrift, with sails but a dilapidated strap. Vultures prey on the weak and the tottering. Big powers entrap rivals. What about Nepal, which is not bound by a restrictive 1949 treaty that allows India to supervise Bhutan’s foreign policy and defence? It is in limbo—neither here nor there. Political leaders make empty noises without any substantive measures that deflect extraneous factors seeping into—nay, flooding—the domestic terrain with deep international implications.
China, Iran and most others in the Muslim world are unhappy with India’s international positions. Africa, despite a sizeable Indian diaspora, is in the grips of China, Russia and the United States. When the draw has to be cast between the next-door superpower China and India, Moscow will tango with Beijing. That the US, as the “greatest democracy”, should overlook the eager eyes and ears of the “largest democracy” and elect Islamic Pakistan to play peace broker for pausing the war with Iran comes as a stinging setback for New Delhi.
AVOIDING DISSPATION: News media in the West report grudgingly about China’s success stories only when it becomes too obvious to the public to ignore. When they do, the angling concerns the “strategic” threat to American or global interests. India would do well to pick up the pieces of its losses internationally.
First, patch up and bond better with credibly the most congenial country in its neighbourhood. Bhutan might be under its thumb due to a 1949 Treaty enforced on the kingdom but could be wriggled out of New Delhi’s grip with the quietest of diplomacy its wits cultivate in the deepest of secrecy with a new foreign force—the obvious in the proximity or seven seas away.
South Asia is without an effective regional grouping for 12 years as India ensures SAARC is rudely left to dissipate. Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Pakistan have been looking elsewhere for partnership. Now Bangladesh has accelerated the trend with studied but brisk moves. Bhutan cringes at New Delhi’s overtures. The changing power equations might offer it a breathing space by the 2030s.
Hence South Asians might well be on their way to looking northwards—China and Central Asia together with the Gulf region—leaving South Asia to the lone claimant as its empty “sphere of influence”. The rest of the region looks Northwards and/or to East Asia.
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