Rebuilding ties with our neighbours

Prime Minister Narendra Modi headlined his address to the Maldives Parliament with an unequivocal pitch on rooting out terror on his first visit overseas after getting a fresh mandate. Next stop was Sri Lanka, where he made common cause with another neighbour that was a victim of big-time terror as over 250 people, including Indians, were killed in serial bomb blasts on Easter Sunday. Modi reiterated that there are no good or bad terrorists, adding all of them must be rooted out. The message apparently was directed at Pakistan, the epicentre of terror in the region. 

Modi’s tough language also gave an indication of how the relationship with Pakistan could pan out in the short term. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has already written twice about his willingness to open talks, but Modi isn’t yet ready to play ball. Both are expected to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit this week at Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan. While the Indian foreign office has confirmed Modi’s summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the SCO, it has explicitly said there will be no such dialogue with Imran. Incidentally, despite the summit talks with Xi, Modi did not pull his punches in Maldives when he told its Parliament that India’s developmental assistance is not meant to bury future generations under a burden of debt.

At the end of Modi 1.0, India’s best relationships in the region were with Bhutan and Bangladesh. Ties with many others, including Nepal, are uneasy. New Foreign Minister S Jaishankar in his first articulation on the Neighbourhood First policy, said India should be generous in building connectivity with South Asia. It should incentivise cooperation by often stepping out to offer assistance, while not over-emphasising on reciprocity. What he meant was India being the biggest power in the region, had a duty to act as an all-weather friend and not a bullying neighbour, indicating that fruits of the outreach would flow in good time. If India walks the talk, Neighbourhood First can make South Asia a beacon of hope.