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THERE is a saying that we can choose our friends but we can’t choose our neighbours. It implies that for a peaceful living, we have to have cordial relations with our neighbours. This all the more applies to any group of neighbouring countries for peace in the region. This book analyses India’s relations with Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka during the regimes of the NDA and UPA governments. It contains four different chapters on each of these countries. Of these countries, the relations with Pakistan have been of constant trouble. Accordingly, this neighbour has taken more space (140 pages) of the book than the other three ones. The two Indo-Pak wars in 1965 and 1971, Kargil conflict and many other incidents were the manifestation of Pakistan’s hostile attitude towards India. Unfortunately, the same still continues unabated as witnessed by the December 13, terrorist attack on India’s Parliament House and 26/11 attacks in Mumbai. Pakistan-based terrorist outfits like the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Hizbul Mujahideen are daily creating havoc at will in the country. All these episodes have been candidly noticed by the author.
The victory over Pakistan in Bangladesh in 1971, Pokhran nuclear tests in 1974 and integration of Sikkim into the Indian Union had conclusively established India as a dominant power in the subcontinent. It made our neighbours apprehensive. The successive governments later on had to take pains in dispelling fears of the neighbouring countries. After signing the Simla Agreement with Pakistan in 1972 and thereafter in 1977, the Morarji Desai-led Janata Party government tried to banish the fears of interference in the internal affairs of its neighbours. And it got positive response. However, the dispatch of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to Sri Lanka by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi gave an impression that India was behaving like a regional bully. Then again the National Front government of V. P. Singh tried to dispel the earlier "big brother’s attitude" of India. Therefore, relations with Bangladesh and Nepal improved considerably. The I. K. Gujral government took further positive steps for ameliorating the relations. The Vajpayee-led NDA government in 1998 and thereafter, the author feels, remained sympathetic and soft in action towards Pakistan despite the Kargil conflict, Kandhar episode and terrorism in Kashmir. The government showed willingness to strike but shelved its plan, which perhaps was due to government’s commitment to Washington as not to escalate diplomatic or other tensions with Islamabad. The UPA government led by Dr Marnnohan Singh in 2004 replacing the NDA dispensation continues with the efforts for good relations with Pakistan initiated by the previous governments. In the fast changing global scenario, India has been concentrating on improving its relations with big powers and all its neighbours. A significant feature of India’s foreign policy is that apart from its basics remaining the same of non-alignment, non-interference and coexistence, foreign policies are singularly Indian and not peculiar to the BJP or the Congress, the dominant political parties in the country, the author notices. The book presents a
comprehensive account of India’s relations with its immediate
neighbours. China has been left out probably because of its emergence on
the world scene in a big way; therefore, it needs to be dealt with
separately. it is a must-read for students of history and foreign
affairs.
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In
fact, the cause of Pakistan’s continuous bitterness against India lies
in Pakistan’s very formation. A smaller geographical part of the
undivided whole (India) formed Pakistan. It has since then been in a
paranoid condition, vigorously fighting with itself, and frantically in
quest for parity with that original "whole". The change of
rulers has in no way altered this condition. In fact, a tirade against
India has in a way become the stock-in-trade for Pakistan’s political
parties and they use it as a big instrument to elicit economic
assistance from the US, Saudi Arabia, China, etc.