How to make good neighbours

India seems to be in the eye of the storm perpetually — be it related to geographical tensions or around the issue of climate change or even vis-à-vis the trade negotiations. Of course, the key Indian stakeholders, as expected and as is probably right, are protesting loudly about the unfair accusations and the vulnerability of their population but seem less than successful in putting their point across. While the jury is still out on whether China’s “String of Pearls” strategy is working, India needs to develop a more proactive strategy of its own to counter China and not merely be a beneficiary of circumstance. The String of Pearls strategy, according to geo-politicists, aims to provide strategic control to China over key ports and other access infrastructure in the Indian Ocean region so as to protect its connections to vital energy resources in West Asia and Africa. India has the advantage of being the ‘bridge’ between all countries of the South Asian region as also between West Asia and East Asia. Unfortunately, neither do we seem to have a strategy to leverage this advantage nor do we seem to hold any promise of doing so in the short-to-medium term. As such, there is little that our immediate neighbours can look forward to with regard to India helping alleviate their insecurities or facilitate their economic growth. In a recent study for the Asian Development Bank on the subject, it was apparent that the energy-starved South Asian region has little to offer in terms of energy cooperation, except for the hydropower resources that are in abundance in the Himalayan region. However, India can offer a number of options in terms of jointly owned energy infrastructure as well as providing the anchor load for the sub-continent to leverage imports from outside the region. India has done extremely well in developing a thriving power market when there seemed to be no excess electricity to trade in. The same principles and regulations can easily be extended to the South Asian region to provide win-win solutions to participating countries. Even in the areas of biomass and other distributed renewable energy sources and technologies, the synergies and, therefore, the opportunities for cooperation, are tremendous. In terms of jointly owned infrastructure, the study points to the possibilities and desirability of setting up a Saarc (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) refinery or a liquefied natural gas terminal or a power plant that would help the smaller countries of the subcontinent to leverage India’s market size, financial strength and technical capabilities. Undoubtedly, India would stand to gain nothing or very little from these investments, but it would not lose anything either. On the other side, the indirect benefits could be significant and the message that such initiatives would provide to signal new beginnings in relationships with our neighbours can be effective. India’s substantial private sector can also be leveraged to let economic and business considerations take precedence in our bilateral and multilateral relationships while leaving the political baggage of the post-Independence era behind us. The Tatas made a good beginning in trying to locally exploit Bangladesh’s natural gas resources to create value-added products. Their investments would have made the house of Tatas the single largest investor in the country. The progress they made, including the sense of disappointment when things stalled, demonstrated the potential of building relationships through the private sector. Today, two other big corporate houses in India — Bharti and Reliance Communications — are seeking a corridor through Bangladesh to connect India’s north-eastern region better. In the process, they have offered an alternative communications channel to Bangladesh’s sole submarine cable for international communications as well as the promise of substantial revenues. While the outcome of this offer is as yet unknown, similar negotiations on energy cooperation between the governments of the two countries over decades have failed, possibly because of the intense political scrutiny on the benefit sharing mechanisms that a governmental programme would be subjected to. The government of India must take a larger view of such cooperation initiatives, as it has begun to do in more recent months and evidenced in various Saarc meetings, and be supportive of both private initiatives as well as public-private partnerships. Containing the increasing sense of vulnerability along its borders is within the control of the government.