Is India losing the goodwill of its neighbours?

The rise in anti-India sentiments may have even left the field open for China to take advantage of the situation.

A Bangladesh Nationalist Party demonstration seeking release of BNP activists who were arrested ahead of the 12th national election, in Dhaka in December 2023. Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League came back to power with a thumping majority but there is a perception that her government is too friendly with India. | Photo Credit: MOHAMMAD PONIR HOSSAIN/REUTERS

The “India Out” campaign that roiled Maldivian waters in early 2024 was not an isolated development. Anti-Indian sentiments have been on the rise in the neighbourhood in recent times, in countries ranging from Nepal to Bangladesh to Sri Lanka, resulting in sceptics asking whether India is on the verge of getting marginalised in an area where it has long enjoyed primacy.

In all these countries, the circumstances in which the developments have happened may be different, but in all cases India has been the focus of their anger.

While China’s role in encouraging anti-India sentiment in the region is open to question, there is no doubt that India’s discomfiture has benefited it. Besides, mistrust about India among politicians in South Asian countries has often led them to lean towards China as a viable option against India.

On its part, China has invested heavily in the region to build its image and expand its influence through the Belt and Road Initiative.

“India has been a crucial neighbour with a multidimensional partnership. But over the past few years, it has lost its traditional clout and is now competing with other powers,” said the Kathmandu-based commentator Yubaraj Ghimire. India today fears China’s influence in Nepal, unlike earlier when it believed that Nepal was under its sole sphere of influence, he added.

Seasoned Indian diplomats point out that it is problematic when any country regards a particular area as its exclusive zone of influence. In the past, no exclusive zone of influence could be maintained. Neither the Monroe Doctrine of the US, which regarded the Western Hemisphere as its exclusive zone, nor the countries that came under the Warsaw Pact during the days of the Soviet Union could survive for long. Today, China, Russia, and other European powers have all engaged with countries of Latin America and enjoy substantial clout and influence in the region.

Similarly, many of the countries under the influence of the former Soviet Union are today members of either the European Union or NATO or both.

Therefore, even for India it would be difficult if it were to mark out an “exclusive zone” where other powers are forbidden to enter and engage with its neighbours.

In Maldives, Mohamed Muizzu’s victory in last year’s presidential election, which he fought on an anti-India plank, eventually led to a campaign seeking the ouster of Indian military personnel from the archipelago. The pro-China Muizzu replaced Ibrahim Solih, who had pushed for an “India-first” policy. Muizzu ensured that Indian military personnel and equipment were withdrawn by March.

Return of pro-China regime in Nepal

Before the diplomatic dust from the Maldivian development could settle, political developments in Nepal saw the return of a pro-China regime, causing surprise and apprehension in India. Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal “Prachanda” broke his alliance with the India-friendly Nepali Congress leader Sher Bahadur Deuba in early March and opted to partner with Krishna Prasad Sharma Oli, a staunch pro-China leader.

Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar had travelled to Kathmandu in January to sign an agreement to buy 10,000 megawatts of electricity from Nepal. The next month, his Nepalese counterpart, Narayan Prakash Saud, visited New Delhi to hold talks to strengthen bilateral cooperation. Neither of them had any inkling of the impending political change.

A Rastriya Prajatantra Party rally seeking restoration of the monarchy in Nepal, in Kathmandu on April 9. There is an opinion in Nepal that India lost credibility in the country after it discarded two traditional and institutional allies, the monarchy and the Nepali Congress, and backed the Maoists.  | Photo Credit: NIRANJAN SHRESTHA/AP

Around the same time, a social media campaign that called for a boycott of Indian goods was gathering steam in Bangladesh. It was championed by activists and social media influencers close to the main opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and sections of the Bangladeshi diaspora in the West. A reticent BNP limited itself to calling the campaign a social movement, but many people are convinced that the party was behind it.

The growing resentment against India stemmed from the perception among Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s detractors that her Awami League had managed to win a fourth consecutive term mainly because of India’s support; India was perceived to be meddling in Bangladesh’s politics.

Next came the India-initiated controversy over Katchatheevu that led to a number of former Sri Lankan diplomats and commentators venting their anger on social media and in newspapers over India raking up a 50-year-old agreement between the two countries.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has criticised the Congress and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam for agreeing to cede Katchatheevu, an island in the Palk Strait, to Sri Lanka in 1974. India had ceded the island in order to stabilise relations with Sri Lanka. The fact that the issue resurfaced after so many years, during an election campaign, provoked India’s detractors in Sri Lanka to ask whether India can be trusted to adhere to any agreement it signed.

Highlights

• Anti-India sentiments have been on the rise in the neighbourhood in recent times. While China’s role in this is open to question, India’s discomfiture has undoubtedly benefited it.
• Seasoned diplomats point out that it is problematic when any country regards a particular area as its exclusive zone of influence.
• Indian leaders brush off such concerns and claim that the country’s image in the neighbourhood has improved.

All well, say Indian leaders

Indian leaders brush off such concerns and claim that the country’s image in the neighbourhood has improved significantly in the last 10 years. According to Jaishankar, India’s ties with all its neighbours except China and Pakistan have improved significantly. “Please go to Bangladesh and ask people what they think. Please ask in Sri Lanka. During their deepest economic troubles, who stood by them? Go to Nepal and ask them during COVID, where did you get all the vaccines? Who gave you fertilizers and fuel when the Ukrainian trouble happened,” he said.

Jaishankar said there might be forces in the neighbourhood who create problems and there might be people in India who like to play up these problems. “I think our relationship with neighbours is in fact much better than what it had been for a long time.”

Traditionally, India has been the first responder to any crisis in South Asia, more so in recent years under the government’s “Neighbourhood First Policy”. India was the first country to help out neighbours during natural disasters such as earthquakes and the tsunami, the COVID-19 pandemic, and during the financial crises in Sri Lanka and Maldives. Yet, anti-India sentiments have often come out in the open, and political leaders have used these to push their own agendas.

Ghimire says India lost its credibility in Nepal, especially after it discarded two traditional and institutional allies, the monarchy and the Nepali Congress, and backed the Maoists.

Others believe the sheer size of India creates problems with smaller neighbours. “It is an asymmetrical relationship between India and its South Asian neighbours both in terms of size and economy or population, where India looms large,” said Ranjit Rae, a former Indian ambassador to Nepal. “We have often tried to describe it as a relationship between an older and younger brother. But a Nepali leader once told me, we’d prefer you treated us as a neighbour than as a younger brother, as that makes the relationship more equal.”

Coast Guard personnel seizing a boat of Sri Lankan fishermen who had sailed into Indian waters, off the coast of Chennai; a file photograph. Fishermen of the two countries trespassing into each other’s water has long been a sticking point. | Photo Credit: PTI

He said India’s looming presence casts its shadow on domestic politics in neighbouring countries, and politicians, especially when they are in the opposition, use India to highlight their criticism against the government of the day. This happens in Bangladesh, for instance, when opponents of the government want to corner the ruling party.

Shahab Anam Khan, a political commentator in Dhaka, argues that the Awami League government sees India as its best bet. Sheikh Hasina sees India as her closest ally and cooperates with it on a range of areas from connectivity to trade and investment to security and from health and politics to culture.

“But one has to understand that the Awami League’s political views on the BJP do not necessarily reflect the views of a large chunk of the population; people are highly agitated about the relentless anti-Muslim views aired in sections of the Indian media and social media,” says Khan.

Imtiaz Hussain, a professor of international relations at Dhaka University, expresses similar views. He says the image of India often depends on who one talks to. “It is a highly polarised polity, and the views on India are also divided between the Awami League and its opponents,” he says.

According to him, most people realise the importance of India as they are dependent on it for essential goods, fuel, and healthcare. “The fact that the boycott of Indian goods met with a lukewarm response from the people showed the importance of India.” However, he is concerned about the anti-Muslim and anti-Bangladeshi rhetoric that emanates from India from time to time.

Raising economic stakes

The Indian leadership is aware of this and tries to dismiss such remarks as part of domestic politics and not a reflection of the government’s views about the country.

Jaishankar said: “India-Bangladesh relations are very good, very strong. When I look at our relationship with Bangladesh, I am confident that in every area our relationship is growing. So, I have a very positive assessment of what is happening there.”

In order to stabilise and strengthen relations with its neighbours, India has decided to increase the economic stakes of the neighbouring countries. This will ensure that even with a change in government, attitudes towards India do not change drastically.

In recent years India has implemented a number of schemes to safeguard geopolitical interests in South Asia by strengthening geo-economic relationships with neighbours. For instance, it has built a pipeline that supplies gas from India to Nepal, reducing the earlier uncertainty of supply. It has signed an agreement under which Nepal will sell India 10,000 MW of electricity for a 10-year period.

India has invested heavily in Bangladesh and is in the process of finalising a free trade agreement with the country that will increase bilateral trade and investment substantially. India was the first country to lend over $4 billion to Sri Lanka to help it tide over its economic crisis, besides supplying the country with fuel, essential items, and medicines. India is also the largest trade partner of Sri Lanka and is the single largest source of tourist footfalls there.

Similarly, India has invested heavily in Maldives and supplied it with financial loans on easy terms to help it through the economic crisis in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic and the Ukraine war.

The Indian establishment believes that irrespective of changes in government in the neighbouring country, India has nothing to worry about as long as its core interests are safe. As an acknowledgement of India’s role and importance to the country, Maldivian President Muizzu, despite his anti-India stance, has sought financial help from India. “India will continue to remain Maldives’ closest ally; there is no question about it,” he said in an interview to a local Maldivian publication recently, indicating that India’s relevance in South Asia persists despite the presence of other powers in the region.

Pranay Sharma is a commentator on political and foreign-affairs-related developments. He has worked in senior editorial positions at leading media organisations.