*Preview: South Asia in 2023
*Ukraine: How Russia is Failing
By Shashi P.B.B. Malla
Prospects for South Asia in 2023
India’s Year of Opportunity
The year 2023 will be favourable for India in various aspects.
It will become the world’s most populous country, overtaking China. It will also enjoy a demographic dividend.
Despite concerns about rampant inflation – as elsewhere in the region – and unemployment (especially among the young), it has avoided the economic turbulence felt elsewhere in the wider region.
India’s booming economy – now the world’s fifth largest – is expected to be the fastest growing major economy in the world this year (Michael Kugelman/Foreign Policy: South Asia Brief, Dec. 27, 2022).
India will also play a leading role in international affairs through its yearlong chairmanship of the G – 20, the world’s most powerful economic bloc.
2023 is also set to be a big year for Indian science and technology. The world’s biggest technology firms are likely to keep exploring relocating production from China – including in India.
India plans to conduct milestone tests for space exploration as it acts to launch its first human-driven space mission.
India’s Domestic Politics
India’s domestic politics are expected to heat up considerably as the country moves closer to national general elections in 2024.
Nine state elections are scheduled this year, and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – at the centre – which has remained powerful thanks to the enduring popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will definitely ramp up its extremist Hindu-nationalist agenda on the campaign trail.
This was crucial in helping the BJP win reelection in 2019 and in key state elections most recently.
Modi and other BJP leaders are unconcerned that this will produce more hateful rhetoric and fuel dangerous communal tensions. The West remains impervious to this aspect of India’s extremist nationalism, since it is busy courting India in its foreign policy and economic campaign against China.
“India has a big opportunity to shine [this] year, but divisive domestic politics risk putting a damper on its efforts to showcase its global clout” (FP/Kugelman).
Final Recovery from Covid-19?
After a difficult 2021, South Asia managed to turn the corner on the Covid-19 pandemic last year.
Although supply chain bottlenecks affected the region’s economies last year, the challenge should be manageable if the pandemic continues to recede.
However, Russia’s war in Ukraine has also disrupted South Asian economies, manifesting in high inflation and much slower economic growth.
The apologists for Russia’s aggression are turning a blind eye to this aspect of a slowing domestic Nepali economy.
The global price shocks triggered by Russia’s senseless invasion hit some states especially hard, largely because of pre-existing vulnerabilities: from tourism-dependent economies in Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka to years of economic mismanagement in Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
South Asian governments need to work hard to get their economies back on track, and this will be harder to do the longer Putin’s war in Ukraine continues.
Dr. Achyut Wagle, professor of economics at Kathmandu University writes: “The revenue base is so weak that the revenues are not enough to cover recurrent expenditure” (TKP/The Kathmandu Post, Jan. 3).
Some countries, like Nepal, hope for increased remittance inflows from migrant workers in the Gulf states, which benefitted from higher global prices in 2022.
Bangladesh and Sri Lanka aim to finalize new financial packages from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Pakistan where a debt default cannot be ruled out, wants to maintain the one it received last year, although the IMF is unhappy about continued subsidies.
India will continue importing cheap Russian energy [and also arms and ammunition], and Pakistan has signaled it intends to do so for the first time.
With South Asia preoccupied with immediate economic pressures, governments are unlikely to pursue badly needed but politically risky economic reforms, such as land reform in India and export diversification in Pakistan.
Nepal’s new government faces serious domestic and foreign policy challenges.
Growing Public Discontent
Several South Asian governments enter 2023 in a precarious political environment.
The administration in Pakistan, in power only since April 2022, has struggled to solve economic problems and is deeply unpopular as it staggers towards general elections scheduled for October.
Ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan has a large and growing support base and will try to force early elections—whether through street protests or parliamentary tactics.
In Bangladesh, the ruling Awami League has been in power since 2009, but recent economic turmoil sparked large opposition protests in December.
Sri Lanka’s government took office last summer after mass protests and will try to muddle through until the 2024 general elections.
It hopes that the resignation of former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his clan in July was enough to appease the general public. However, protesters have demanded a clean slate.
Afghanistan’s isolated Islamist Taliban regime, which promised to restore peace and prosperity when it took over power again in August 2021, starts the year amid another economic crisis and rising terrorism threats.
It has instead focused on implementing draconian social policies as millions of people are subjected to deep and extended suffering. Especially for girls and women life has become extremely miserable – a veritable ‘hell on earth’.
South Asian governments challenged by their domestic opposition, may respond forcefully to attacks against their rule.
The government in Islamabad, fearing Khan’s considerable clout, could try to use the courts to get him disqualified from politics. Khan was already disqualified last October – but by Pakistan’s Election Commission, not the courts.
In Dhaka, the Awami League could use its characteristic muscle to sideline protests.
Colombo may be tempted to take a hardline as well, not wanting to let protests distract from crucial economic recovery efforts.
The economy will be the deciding factor this year. If struggling governments manage to bring some relief, it could assuage public anger.
There are other factors that could shape governments’ fates this year.
In Pakistan, it is the new army chief and the political role he plays.
In Afghanistan, to watch will be the internal divisions within the Taliban.
Gotaabaya Rajapaksa is back from exile. How much influence will the Rajapaksa clan try to exert in Sri Lanka?
How susceptible will Bangladesh be to increasing pressure from the West to ease its crackdowns?
Regional Great Power Competition
India-China competition has intensified in the region and will continue to do so.
China has provided submarines to Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar and expanded its naval presence in the Indian Ocean. This is a direct challenge to India which considers the entire Indian Ocean area its backyard.
The two countries have competed to provide infrastructure, financial aid, and vaccines across South Asia.
2022 ended with a reminder of the direct threat that this rivalry poses to India itself. In December, the two militaries sparred along the eastern portion of their disputed border in Arunachal Pradesh [or ‘South Tibet’ to China] – their worst fighting since a deadly clash in the north-west in Ladakh in 2020.
The deepening Sino-Indian competition will make bilateral and multilateral relations difficult.
Aside from Pakistan, which is an ally of China, most South Asian countries seek to balance their relations with the two Asian giants and not get dragged into regional great-power competition.
This year, economic assistance will be an active area of Sino-Indian competition.
Beijing has made major economic and financial inroads in recent years with its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
However, New Delhi could take advantage of China’s current economic slowdown and take the initiative with offers of financial and infrastructure support.
At the same time, with US-China competition also escalating, Washington is also expected to increase its economic engagement in South Asia.
Signs of this are apparent in Nepal, with the US engagement in MCC.
With the exception of Afghanistan and Pakistan, which are in a different league altogether, the other smaller South Asian countries will strive to balance their need for economic assistance with their vital interest in retaining sovereign, independent and non-aligned foreign policies.
This is especially crucial for Nepal, sandwiched as it is between India and China. There is no escaping the cardinal doctrine of political equidistance between New Delhi and Beijing. In the era of intense Sino-Indian rivalry, Nepal cannot have the luxury of a “special relationship” with India [akin to the British-American relationship].
Against All Odds, Russia is Failing in Ukraine
When Russia began amassing its troops along the border with Ukraine nearly a year ago and then started the invasion, most Western military experts and politicians expected a quick victory for Russia (DW/Deutsche Welle, Dec.27).
This was also Russia’s assumption.
Kyiv did not fall within a few days of the invasion. With time, Moscow failed miserably to prove its superiority.
When Russian troops advanced to the outskirts of the capital Kyiv in the first days of the war, they were halted by the Ukrainian army and forced to withdraw. Russian miscalculations continue to be repeated again and again to this day. Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to be preparing his country for a long war, hoping against hope that “General Winter” is on his side, as with:
- Tsar Peter the Great who repelled the formidable forces of Charles XII of Sweden, 1708-09;
- Tsar Alexander I and his commanders vanquished Napoleon’s Grande Armee in 1812;
- During the Russian Civil War (1917-21), the Bolshevik onslaught or “Red Terror”, extreme winter conditions led to massacre of all opponents without let or mercy;
- General Winter played a major role in the ignominious defeat of the German Wehrmacht at Stalingrad in February 1943 and the final victory of the Soviet Red Army in 1945.
“After 1945, the Red Army’s achievements in winter warfare gave it a fearsome reputation in the West” (Antony Beevor: “Russia’s New Winter War,” Foreign Affairs, Dec. 29, 2022).
It was not until the Soviet Union’s ill-timed invasion of Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1968 that Western analysts started to suspect that they might have overestimated the Soviet’s military prowess.
Finally, in the late 1980’s, the implosion of the Soviet empire was marked by its doomed struggle to control Afghanistan, especially in winter.
And in Ukraine, all indications point to the fact that it may be Russia, rather than its adversary, that suffers the worst consequences.
Russia’s Air Sovereignty Has Been Deflated
After the February invasion, it was expected that Russia would quickly gain air sovereignty by quickly eliminating both the Ukrainian Air Force and air defences.
The Russian Air Force is clearly superior in terms of size and technology.
However, Ukraine still maintains intact aircraft and helicopters despite numerous Russian missile attacks on military airports and combat operations on the front lines.
Thanks to Western supplies, its air defences are growing stronger too.
Being bogged down on the ground, Russia is using an increasing number of drones and missiles that are being intercepted more and more effectively.
Faltering Russian Fleet on the Black Sea
Russia also clearly outmatches Ukraine at sea.
However, it has not been successful in training amphibious landings in the annexed Crimea Peninsula.
It was also driven out of the strategically important Snake Island southwest of Odesa.
Russia officially abandoned its naval blockade of Ukrainian ports to make the grain deal brokered by Turkey and the United Nations possible.
After the attack on Russian warships in late October, Moscow backed out of the deal, but returned after receiving guarantees from Kyiv that its Black Sea fleet would not be attacked from a specific corridor.
Ukraine Boosts Cyber Defences
Before the invasion there were also fears that Russia would target Ukraine with massive cyber attacks given the fact that Ukraine had been a hacking target for years (DW).
Kyiv, therefore, seems to be well prepared.
As with military aid, years of Western help with cyber defences has paid off in Ukraine.
Russia’s digital warfare is faltering as badly as its troops on the battlefield.
Failing in battle, Putin, the warmonger is determined to make life for his brotherly Eastern Slavs as miserable as possible and to crush them utterly – so that they may give up in despair!
Russia’s devastating airstrikes on civilian infrastructure continue unabated. Millions of people are temporarily without power, and often have no gas or water either. They face a harsher and more horrible winter.
A Wartime President for the Peace Prize?
It is early days yet, but some CNN-writers have suggested that the prominent Russian political activist Alexey Navalny deserves the top peace prize for his relentless efforts against autocracy.
Navalny has fought both “injustice and corruption” within Russia while denouncing Putin’s senseless war in Ukraine.
Others point out that nowhere is the democratic struggle more pronounced than in Ukraine, where President Volodymyr Zelensky continues to lead a valiant effort to combat Russian aggression.
For his tremendous sacrifices, TIME magazine named Zelensky “Person of the Year”.
CNN-contributors argue that for his “courageous” leadership and “tireless efforts” against Putin, the Ukrainian leader is definitely the most deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize.
However, it would not only be a supreme act of poetic justice, but a Solomonic solution if both Navalny and Zelensky were so honoured!
The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com
Login to add a comment