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Challenges and opportunities for South Asia

M.B. Naqvi

To cite this article: M.B. Naqvi (1992) Challenges and opportunities for South Asia, , 1:1,
143-146, DOI: 10.1080/09584939208719673
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09584939208719673

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Contemporary South Asia (1992), 1(1), 143-146

Commentary

Challenges and opportunities for

South Asia
M. B. NAQVI

The destruction of both communism and the Soviet state in what was the USSR
has profoundly changed the geopolitical environment of South Asia. It is a sea
change. Familiar landmarks created by the cold war have not merely disappeared,
but what might replace them remains uncertain. What seems sure is the devolu-
tion of power and authority of the dead Soviet state and, at least initially, the 15
republican capitals will be the new power centres—on the assumption that new
coup(s) would not re-establish an old-style-dictatorial regime over what was the
USSR. Interaction between the erstwhile Soviet Asian republics and the states of
South Asia (and others in Southern Asia) poses both new challenges and offers
opportunities for South Asia.
South Asia, almost coterminous with historical India, continues to have many
unhappy distinctions: mass poverty with its attendant evils of ignorance, ill health
and technological backwardness, territorial disputes among the major states of India
and Pakistan, internal polarizations that threaten peace and integrity in almost each
state, and the lack of mutual trust among its constituents. Of all the regions, South
Asia happens to be rather well defined geographically, historically and thus
geopolitically. Its internal divisions, deep mistrust among its states and internal
incoherence within its larger states have prevented the region from realizing its
potential of economic progress, political influence and the cultural enrichment of
its teeming millions. It is true that, ultimately, internal drives and passions would
very largely shape its fortunes. But this unique juncture may make the external
environment a crucially important factor. The external situation can clearly pose
dangers as well as present attractive possibilities for forging useful new links with
new central Asian entities for the common good.

Inter-state disputes
Well known internal divisions within South Asia need no emphasis. Briefest of
mention should suffice and that, too, for showing what may prevent or facilitate
the exploitation of new possibilities. Grave trouble spots lie among the long Indo-
Pakistan borders, extending into Kashmir's Line of Control (LOC). Two large
armies, both fairly well equipped, face each other menacingly. The old Kashmir

M. B. Naqvi, B-116, Block 'I', North Nizimabad, Karachi 74700, Pakistan.

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M. B. NAQVI

dispute, that had spawned three wars, has, after 18 years of relative quiet, again
exploded into a new crisis. A clash between the two armies is being postponed
almost daily, through mainly American good offices. Indeed, the Kashmir dispute
has given birth, over the years, to several sub-disputes: the Siachin glacier, that
has become the world's highest battlefield (between 14 000 and 21 000 feet above
sea level) and Simli, Sallal, and, not least, the Indian Punjab.
Ill-will between India and Pakistan is not restricted to specific disputed territories
like Kashmir. Internal polarizations in each country also have a tendency to involve
the other, a tendency also found in other regional states. Thus Indian Punjab's
Hindu—Sikh polarity has graduated into an Indo-Pakistan quarrel, with India
alleging that Pakistan is aiding and abetting the Sikh militants just as it is alleged
to be extending moral and material support to the Kashmiri insurgents across the
LOC. Pakistan too has its own quota of internal polarizations, mainly in Sindh.
Pakistan attributes both the confrontation between Urdu- and Sindhi-speaking
Sindhis and disaffection among Sindhis, at least in part, to Indian encouragement
and interference. In both countries domestic political troubles tend to spill over
and add to the unresolved agenda between them.
Thanks to the region's geography and demography, most inter-state disputes
take the shape of a series of bilateral disagreements with India. Also, the
phenomenon of internal polarizations graduating into international disputes is not
confined to Pakistan and India. The ethnic divide in Sri Lanka has long had an
Indian dimension. The story of the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan agreement, leading to
a rather unsuccessful campaign by Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) for
suppressing the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, is well known. Indeed it is a complex
ongoing story, although both governments are straining hard to prevent the LTTE's
war against Colombo being once again written into the bilateral agenda. The issue
is nevertheless explosive, both in its domestic and international dimensions, in
both countries. Recent events in Tamil Nadu, beginning with the assassination
of Rajiv Gandhi and changes in the electoral fortunes of several Tamil Nadu parties
among them, illustrate the point.
Bangladesh has fewer internal issues likely to figure on the bilateral agenda with
India, except the hardy perennial of the Hindu—Muslim divide, common to all
states in the Indo-Gangetic—Brahmputra valleys and more recently the influx of
Chakma refugees to India. There are territorial disputes between Bangladesh and
India, if also smaller in size: the disputes centre on a small piece of territory in
the Berubari Union, a tiny new island thrown up by physical changes and the
delimitation of economic zones in the Bay of Bengal. Fortunately these disputes
have been treated by both governments with restraint and no great mistrust has
sprung up over them so far. At least one of them, the Berubari Union, is reported
to be on its way to being finally resolved to Bangladesh's satisfaction. But dividing
the waters of the River Ganges between India and Bangladesh, following the comple-
tion of Farrakha barrage, remains disputed.
As B. G. Verghese has shown, there are several issues pertaining to international
rivers where a regional approach would be invaluable. Nepal and Bangladesh have
agreed to the scientific principle of developing all eastern rivers as systems for

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the common benefit of the peoples of the entire valleys in India, Nepal, Bangladesh
and Bhutan. Here India has balked. There was a time when some of us, this writer
included, favoured a whole region-wide river training programme, such as was
implied in an offer of technical and economic aid by the US President John Kennedy
in the 1960s. But both India and Pakistan were then lukewarm about the idea,
and, perhaps not surprisingly, nobody had tried to understand the potentialities
of what could be achieved.
Bilateral issues and demographic compulsions within each state, insofar as Indo-
Bhutan and Indo-Nepal relations are concerned, criss-cross. It is a pattern that
obtains throughout the region. In theory this could be turned to advantage by
adopting a regional approach. The fact, however, is that a felt regional identity
is strangely conspicuous by its weakness. Perhaps the passion aroused by recent
history still clouds vision: most peripheral areas of historical India worked loose
from the centre. Inheritors of the centre are wary of those who broke away and
fear their ganging up against themselves—an unhappy possibility implied in a
regional approach. Hence India's preferred bilateral methodology seems to
emphasize divisions rather than unities.
For the rest, old India's frontiers have moved in all directions. What is directly
relevant is the interplay of two forces: a series of felt internal disunities among
ethnic identities in each successor state of the British Indian Empire are getting
mixed up in intra-regional disputes. This threatens both (inherited) modern state
structures as well as regional harmony. Ensuring stable regional peace requires
much hard work to resolve these polarities. The other element is the intellectual
appreciation of the benefits of the regional amity and cooperation. The example
of the EC has inspired so many regional cooperation experiments. But SAARC
in South Asia remains a stunted growth, inhibited by strong emotions.

South Asian trends

The changes in the USSR, especially in its Asian republics, are tantamount to a
veritable earthquake. Successor states in central Asia are likely to do two things—re-
establish cultural, political and economic links with South Asian states, as well
as with others in the Southern rim of Asia. Second, they would reorient their
economies as autonomous units, diversifying their sources of capital, technology
and raw material as well as markets. These economies' demand and supply alike
will be huge. As circumstances are now, few South Asian economies can offer
substantial partnership to them. The only notable surplus in South Asia is manpower,
mostly unskilled and illiterate, which is unlikely to be needed. No doubt, India
has certain capabilities for providing capital and machinery to new central Asian
states. But the level of technology offered by India in terms of both cost and quality
is unlikely to have an edge over what the major industrial countries can offer.
Second, the new states may need longer-term loans and credits that may virtually
exclude South Asians as possibly large trading partners. Pakistan may also have
some capability to provide a few of the needs of those states. But its export surpluses
are puny and mostly earmarked for dollar-earning markets. Its capability, in contrast

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with major industrial powers, to be a substantial trading partner of the new states
is much smaller than even India's. As markets for the new states, the capability
of South Asian states is quite as small due largely to: (a) the poverty of the masses
throughout South Asia; and (b) most of their markets being already dominated,
if not cornered, by big industrial powers. Nevertheless, there is likely to be much
talk about new possibilities of economic cooperation and trade, inspired by memories
of ancient trade links between central Asia and parts of South Asia.
The immediate future is likely to see a political and cultural opening out of the
central Asian states. They will naturally seek to forge links with South Asian states,
especially with those that are in the extended South Asia, ie Iran and Afghanistan.
Cultural and political rhetoric of emphasizing the new links is sure to run smack
into hard economic facts. Central Asia's more substantial economic links are sure
to be with leading western powers—Japan, the EC, the USA, and other European
powers. The four Asian tigers, Australia and some of the ASEAN states would
also offer competition and the outcome could be mixed, unless strong political
action by a great power pre-empts economic forces.
This juxtaposition of two separate tendencies may produce anomalies and frustra-
tions. A varying amount of competition among major industrial powers to secure
a favourable position in these new states, if not to corner their markets or raw
material, would pose new political problems—both for the central Asians and South
Asians. International relations in Asia may not run a smooth course, since no one
knows what political passions will dominate the new emerging powers in central
Asia. It seems likely that their current ethnic prejudices and emotions based on
race, religion, sect, language and nationality would, in fact, define their politics:
they would naturally want their own armies and air forces the better to assert their
separate identities and conduct their own rivalries, if not wars. That would offer
plums on a platter to established arms manufacturers, and roller coaster politics
in the region will ensue. It will inevitably exert rather nasty pulls and pressures
on South Asia—a region comprising states that are internally strife-torn and unhap-
pily at sixes and sevens among themselves. Things may only get worse in the region.
Indeed, even the harmony within the western powers, so far maintained by G7,
CSCE, OECD, EC, GATT, IMF etc, may quickly get eroded. None of it bodes
well for South Asia.

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