‘Big Brother’ image hurts

Winning over neighbours

Just as Prime Minister Narendra Modi was wrapping up the much-needed restorative visit to the sensitive island nations of Maldives and Sri Lanka, a cringe-worthy advertisement that was a personification of the deeply perceived ‘big brother’ insensitivity of India in the neighbourhood went online.

The cricket-themed advertisement bore no direct relevance to either Maldives or Sri Lanka, or had anything to do with the government, yet it was reflective of the ridiculing tenor, highhandedness and insensitivity that is attributed to India. The storyline of the commercial posits India as the veritable ‘father’ (baap) of both Pakistan and Bangladesh.

In one stroke, it did untold psychological damage by inadvertently passing this off as the predominant instinct and sensibility of India. The initial campaign, which was only Indo-Pak in dimension, has now ensnared Bangladesh into its jeering construct. Given the heightened reach of cricket (with the ongoing World Cup tournament) and the borderless reach of social media, such campaigns do not go unnoticed, and will surely elicit unnecessary and equally inelegant responses.

While the wounded, unsettled and complex history with China and Pakistan is a matter of fact and often beyond the control or creation of India, our relations with other neighbouring countries like Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives suffers on account of what is routinely described as Delhi’s “big brother attitude”. This is an ironic reputation, given India’s unquestionable status and stated position as a ‘moral’ and pacifist State with no expansionist agenda.

All these countries were colonised by the British, with India emerging first from the clutches of imperialism. Nepalese and Sri Lankan freedom movements had healthy fraternal relations with the leadership of the Indian freedom movement, whereas the independence of Bangladesh had a more direct link to India’s intervention and support.

Importantly even as the larger neighbour, India has never sought any territorial expansion into these countries even in their moments of vulnerabilities. Instead, it has sought a mutually beneficial interdependence.

Yet relations with all these neighbours soured intermittently and it was not just restricted to the political classes, but the detachment had afflicted the masses. The chorus of “big brother attitude” increased and worsened from whispers to public protests, as the inconsistencies, attitude and brazenness of Delhi was felt in neighbouring capitals. Bangladesh is a case study in mismanaging a neighbouring nation that owes its genesis to the blood of Indian soldiers, and yet in less than four years after its independence, the ruling dispensation at Dhaka had a lesser-than-gratuitous relationship with India.

While competitive politics and domestic intrigues are major factors in the sort of governmental and political evolutions, India cannot escape censure from its own missteps, ignorance and insensitivities with these ‘smaller’ states. Over time, Bangladesh more than made up with their initial tormentors, Pakistan, while Nepal, Sri Lanka and Maldives slipped dangerously into the waiting arms of the Chinese.

Blamed for ‘harnessing’ regional sentiment in electoral calculations — for instance, over riparian issues in Bengal, or flip-flops on supporting the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka — the net perception of India across the other side of the border was that of an overbearing, unyielding and intrusive neighbour who was forsaking reasonableness for electoral harvest.

At times, Delhi was openly seen to be preferring one political party over the other, as opposed to posturing a ‘neutral’ stand that allowed the plausible opportunity of keeping the doors of engagement open, irrespective of the dispensation.

The worst impact and accusation was that of a neighbourhood ‘bully’ that resonated across Nepal, during the 2015 economic ‘blockade’, that has left unhealed scars and bitter memories. The official denial by Delhi notwithstanding, the public imagination in Nepal has internalised and recognised the same as ‘Indian blockade’, and this made Nepal raise the issue against India in the UN. Kathmandu soon had a patient, generous and accommodating benefactor in Beijing.

However, Afghanistan has been an outstanding success of Indian diplomacy, as validated by the popular perceptions of India, as opposed to that of other global/regional stakeholders, in the fractured country.

Modi, in his first overseas trip of this tenure, did well to deliberately steer clear of alluding to any position or preference in the domestic politics of either Maldives or Sri Lanka, even though the pro-India and anti-India delineation of parties exists. The dynamics of popular political preferences in other countries can never be second-guessed. It is prudent to take a ‘neutral’ posture, at least publicly.

The previous government in Maldives had done away with the traditional ‘India-first’ approach and tilted clearly in favour of the Chinese. This had followed the earlier taking over of the strategic Hambantota port in Sri Lanka by the Chinese, and the Indian government was faced with the real prospects of having Chinese ‘Pearl Ports’ encircling its Southern coastline.

Today, a more nuanced, mature and ostensibly apolitical ‘neighbourhood-first’ approach has been postulated by Delhi, and this is needed to heal relations with the restive neighbours. In Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Delhi now has a seasoned, professional and experienced incumbent as the External Affairs Minister who, besides being a China-specialist, has served in Sri Lanka and overseen the Nepal ‘blockade’ of 2015 as Foreign Secretary. Conducting foreign policy with a dominant eye on the electoral calculus or populism has been the traditional bane of Indian diplomacy.

Hopefully, the new team at the helm of affairs is wiser and more sensitive to the perception of India across the borders. Often it is not about the quantum of the investments deployed that swing popular perceptions but the ‘softer’ issues, like the tenor and phraseology of the ‘voice’ coming out of India, that matters. This is where the template of the recent commercial failed us, as it perpetuated the perception of a boorish ‘big brother’.

(The writer is former Lt Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Puducherry)