South Asia In World Affairs

India’s rise has changed the nature of its relationships with other major players in the Asia-Pacific region. In response, regional states and great powers have moved to “engage” India. But what does “engagement” involve? And which “engagement strategies” – diplomatic, military, economic or public – have worked and which have not? Finally, what do the “engagement of India” tell us about India’s place in world politics and the best means by which it and others can manage its rise?

This book explores the various engagement strategies employed by key international actors, including those used by United States, Japan, Russia and China, as well as the responses these strategies have prompted from India in both its foreign and domestic policies. It draws upon a growing body of theoretical literature that explores the nature and utility of engagement in international relations,  and employs it to make better sense of India’s rise, its causes and its consequences.

The Look East policy has emerged as an important foreign policy initiative of India in the post-Cold War period. It was launched in 1991 by the then Narasimha Rao Government with the aim of developing political contacts, increasing economic integration and forging security cooperation with countries of Southeast Asia. The policy marked a shift in India’s perspective of the world, where the strategic and economic importance of Southeast Asia to India’s national interests is being recognised. The second phase, which began in 2003, extends the coverage of the Look East policy from Australia to East Asia, with ASEAN as its core. The new phase, thus, marks a shift in focus from trade to wider economic and security cooperation, political partnerships, physical connectivity through road and rail links. In this paper the evolution of India’s Look East policy and its recent approach are analysed.

The post-Cold War period witnessed a spurt in regional integration and regional trading arrangements. India’s attempt at regional integration with Afro-Asian countries since the early days of independence was without much success. The economic reforms in 1991 has thrown open the floodgate of its Asianism. This article discusses the trend towards regional integration after the end of Cold War and argues that the Look East policy is the byproduct of India’s attempt at regional economic integration with its Asian neighbours.

The study of the rise of India and China in what has already been dubbed the ‘Asian 21st Century’ is of profound international importance. The resurgence of China and India marks the restoration to regional pre-eminence of two civilizations that dominated their mutual spheres of influence for millennia until Western imperial encroachment into Asia in the 17th Century.  Unsurprisingly, in addition to the re-establishment of strong bilateral economic relations – China is India’s greatest source of imports, for instance – ancient sources of Sino-Indian friction are re-emerging, and are acting as propellants for arms accumulation.  In this context, the April 2012 launch of India’s Agni V nuclear-capable ballistic missile was notable for two related reasons:  first, the missile’s range has rendered all of China vulnerable to an Indian nuclear strike; secondly, if any doubt remained over the Agni V’s intended target set, the Indian Press has universally dubbed the missile the ‘China Killer’, a nickname that seems to enjoy the Indian Government’s tacit approval.  Emblematic of the growing military competition between China and India, the Agni V launch lent credence to the notion that an arms race is evolving between Asia’s most populous powers. 

In assessing the threats and opportunities posed to the West and Russia by a Sino-Indian arms race, this thesis initially examines the applicability of arms race theory to the Sino-Indian strategic relationship, and why it is vital that stakeholders comprehend why unbridled programmes of arms accumulation tend to imperil rather than enhance national security.  This thesis concludes that India is a most desirable economic and strategic partner for the West and Russia, but that hidden threats lie in wait for would-be partners whose principal concern is to enrol India in a de facto anti-Chinese alliance.  Indeed, a China obsessed by the fear of being encircled by enemies is likely only to accelerate its own military advancement should it perceive that India is engaged in an alliance aimed at containing Chinese power.  It is also concluded that domestic factors are just as important drivers for Chinese arms accumulation as strategic competition with India and the USA.

Zedong, speaking in 1951 in honour of the first anniversary of India's constitution, declared that 'excellent friendship' had existed between the two countries 'for thousands of years'. 1 Yet few of the lofty proclamations made by Indian and Chinese leaders over the years truly reflect the reality of relations between the neighbours. It is surprising that two states with such a rich and sometimes fractious history, including a border conflict in 1962, should have what appears to be a largely reactive relationship. But neither has developed a grand strategy with regard to the other. An unshakeable and largely unprofitable preoccupation with the past on the Indian side, and an equally intense preoccupation with domestic consolidation on the Chinese side, have left the relationship under-tended. It might best be seen as one of geostrategic competition qualified by growing commercial cooperation. And there is some asymmetry: China is a more fraught subject in Indian national debates than India is for China. China does not appear to feel threatened in any serious way by India, while India at times displays tremendous insecurity in the face of Chinese economic success and military expansion. To outsiders, India and China show some striking similarities. Both are ancient civilisations reincarnated as modern republics in the mid twentieth

The focus of this article is firstly to examine some aspects of the Kukri (Khukuri) in relation to Col. Kirkpatrick´s mission to Nepal (Nepaul) in 1793. In doing this I´ll attempt to place it in a historical context and briefly discuss the Kukri`s meaning in Nepal.
given is taken from his work published in 1811.

The Kukri & Kora (Kohara) in Col. Kirkpatrick`s work is the very first illustration of a Kukri knife and the Kora sword,  we
have record of and  could for the first time in history
be seen in a book. It thus allowed the British public and of course the World at large to gain knowledge about some of the weapons of the hill mean that have since then been strongly associated to Nepal and thue Gurkha/Gorkha soldier (and regiment/brigade).

"Opposing the neoliberal rhetoric of a shining middle-class India, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) has, since 2004, called for a New Democratic Revolution. Indian Maoists dismiss parliamentary democracy as a sham insofar as it fails to address the concerns and aspirations of the majority of its citizens, nearly four-fifths of whom live below two dollars a day. In their party programme, Maoists characterize the postcolonial Indian state as ‘reactionary’ and ‘autocratic’ and seek a ‘worker-peasant alliance’ to overthrow ‘imperialism, feudalism and comprador bureaucratic capitalism’ via an armed revolutionary struggle. The CPI (Maoist) politburo, which constitutes its ideological leadership, is thus supported by an underground People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The party’s long-term objective is to establish a ‘people’s democratic state under the leadership of the proletariat’ that will ‘guarantee real democracy for the vast majority of people while exercising dictatorship over a tiny minority of exploiters’.

The CPI (Maoist) is active mostly in eastern and central India, where human development levels rank among the lowest in the world, forest cover and rugged terrain facilitate guerrilla tactics and protracted low-intensity insurgency, and tribal and lower caste groups are preponderant. According to the Indian prime minister, Maoist rebels pose the greatest internal security threat to India since independence. In reality, however, Maoist cadres are estimated to be anywhere between 10,000 and 40,000 in a country of nearly 1.2 billion people, though this number does not include sympathizers and non-combatants. These thinly-spread cadres are concentrated chiefly in what journalists, policymakers, and scholars call the Red Corridor, running from the Nepalese border through the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, and Andhra Pradesh. In these areas, regular elections are held, state and non-governmental organizations routinely participate in rural development, and state police and forest officials coexist with armed rebels and their rural supporters. Since 2005-06, the state has deployed paramilitaries to supplement state police forces in combating Maoist guerillas, which has intensified state-sponsored violence and led to widespread human rights abuses, yet it has been incapable of establishing anything akin to a monopoly of legitimate violence. Shared sovereignty is thus the norm, not the exception, as in other insurgent zones in India such as Kashmir and the northeastern frontier. This state of affairs also suggests that the everyday realities of Indian Maoism are somewhat different from its ideological self-image as a vanguardist revolutionary movement."

The article is an analysis of India-Myanmar foreign relations which are marked by both paranoia and bonhomie. Myanmar is strategically important for India, especially in achieving its objective of a Look-East Policy. India has to maintain a cordial relationship with Myanmar’s non-democratic military junta to extend its influence in Southeast Asia and due to internal security concerns of its north-eastern states which are under continuous threat from various insurgent groups. This article discusses the pragmatic shift of India’s stand on Myanmar where the growing presence of China in Myanmar and India’s quest for energy are the major drivers. In economic terms, China is a major investor in Myanmar and its military relations with Myanmar are causes for concern in India. The article also discusses concerns raised about India’s Myanmar policy, keeping in view widespread scepticism about its military junta.

Mr. Kamala Kanta Dash, a policy analyst and now a PhD Candidate from Monash University, presented a paper on Public Policy and Advocacy: Understanding Indian Diaspora Advocacy. He argued that public policy and advocacy go together. He defined Policy advocacy as a process that represents specific or broader community interests, identifies existing loopholes to strengthen policy provisions, shapes policy discourses and facilitates its effective implementation and feedback. Mr. Dash focused on the nature of policy advocacy and methods & effectiveness of Diaspora advocacy. He further discussed whether Indian Diaspora Advocacy in United States has impacted Policy Making in United States and India and if they have influenced India’s bilateral trade and security ties with the United States. Taking the case of US India Political Action Committee (USINPAC), Mr. Dash discussed the important role of USINPAC in Indo-US Civilian Nuclear Energy Deal.

Source: GRFDT Newsletter, May 2012, p.5
http://grfdt.com/Upload/Attachment/5_GRFDT%20Newsletter.pdf

India keeps growing – economic power, nuclear power, military power and presumably in the middle of the millennium the country with the largest population in the world. There is no doubt: India is on its way to become a future world power. Through this it gets increasingly interesting as a political ally. But where is India positioned as a declared Non-Aligned Nation? And even more important: Where will it look for allies in the future?



Since its independence in 1947 India has declared its support for the principles of non-alignment that India’s first prime minister Nehru developed. Neutrality, non-interference, peaceful coexistence and the renunciation of any kind of aggressive action were to become principles in foreign policy.



Since the end of the Cold War it seems, however, that this concept of Non-Alignment is slowly being pushed into the background, making way for a complete reorientation. Is this the result of a radical rift?



Carsten Rauch has been investigating Indian foreign policy since the independence regarding the adherence to the principles of Non –Alignment, and demonstrates that from the beginning deviations from this ideal occurred consistently. Even Nehru always considered it the main goal to keep India’s independence and to increase its sphere of influence.

The author shows that India will gain more and more importance in setting up the world order and recommends Europe and Germany to quickly intensify its relations with India, because India, as a global player, will, with newly acquired self-assurance, keep all options open and will not necessarily consider Europe the best of all possible allies.

The India-China relationship: a tempered rivalry? by Rod Lyon Asian geopolitics in coming decades will be shaped by the rise of two new regional great powers: China and India. As those powers assume larger roles in regional security, alongside the United States and, likely, a Japan that aspires to strategic and not merely economic influence in Asia, the security environment will become more complex. But the rising powers won't merely be fighting for strategic space against incumbents: China and India have their own relationship to sort out-a relationship marked by elements of both convergence and divergence. That the two are neighbours seems to contribute as much to the rough as to the smooth of the relationship, geographic proximity providing both a focus for tension and an important driver for crisis management.

Since the early 2000s, in keeping with India’s rise on the world stage, the scholarly and policy communities in India and abroad have witnessed a steady increase in writing on India’s soft power. Many of these assessments are optimistic, placing faith in India’s potential as a civilizational great power with considerable resources arising from its culture, domestic ideology and diplomacy. However, in terms of impact, Indian soft power has fallen far short of expectations. Significant sections of public opinion in the West and in Asia are still not favorable toward India. Moreover, one is hard pressed to identify a significant role played by soft power in India’s diplomatic gains since the early 1990s. This paper argues that India’s inability to capitalize on its soft power resources is the result of three factors. First, the overestimation of these resources by analysts. Second, the lack of sufficient hard power to undergird India’s soft power ambitions. And finally, unresolved elements of India’s identity that tend to undermine its efforts at soft power projection through public diplomacy.

For quite some time now, India has been committing one blunder after another in its approach towards the tiny but sensitive southern neighbour, the Maldives. That country now presents a complex challenge for India’s diplomacy and needs deft handling.

Among all of New Delhi’s policies towards its immediate neighbours, the one that appears to have moved in the right direction without a hitch is that with Myanmar. With a transformed Myanmar, New Delhi’s steps have been bold and decisive. The four-day visit of Myanmar’s opposition leader Aung San Syu Kyi to India starting November 13, albeit a delayed one, provided another opportunity to reaffirm such assumption.

El escritor y periodista indio naturalizado estadounidense Fareed Rafiq Zakaria, ha reflexionado en su último libro sobre la naturaleza cambiante del sistema internacional en la primera década del siglo veintiuno. Su tesis es sencilla pero controvertida: el “ascenso del resto” llevará a un mundo pos-americano más que a un mundo anti-norteamericano en el que los valores occidentales no serán combatidos sino incorporados selectivamente. Zakaria asemeja la denominación “resto” a China e India pero tiende a identificar al “resto” con el mundo no-occidental

One of the places where Gilani people have been a wide settlement is India subcontinent. Since they found India as a safe place for themselves, they migrated to there and have eventually reached to high religious and political growth. Fertile lands of India with unlimited treasures were a motive for migration of famous Gilanies faces such as Abdulrashid Deylami and Ali Gilani to India. However, the chaos during the reign of Mongolians, Turkmens and Safavies resulted into the extinction of Gilani throne. The author in this article through analytic-descriptive method tries to show the provided services by Gilanies immigrant to India that caused into extending of Iranian art, and also political and business relations between both countries.