As India copes with a domestic political storm, it is tempting to gloss over the deepening structural crisis — centred on civil military relation — in Pakistan and Bangladesh. In Pakistan two former prime ministers, Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, are about to return from their long exile and put an end to President Pervez Musharraf’s unchallenged political dominance. Bangladesh is going the other way. Two former prime ministers — Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia — are cooling their heels in prison as the army expands its hegemony.

Many political forces in our neighbourhood are frustrated at

India’s obsessive pursuit of great power status and an inability to lead the region towards peace and prosperity. Barring Nepal, where New Delhi was forced to intervene in favour of democracy, India in recent years has turned its back on the civil war in Sri Lanka and the struggles for democracy in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Maldives and Myanmar. Our foreign policy establishment appears to have convinced itself that there is no point in expending the nation’s diplomatic energies on solving the problems of an intractable neighbourhood. Underlying this view is the premise that India, with its 9 per cent growth rate, can soar above the troubles of the region. This is a dangerous illusion.

To be sure, there is the counter- example of Japan. After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Japan turned its back on Asia, developed itself rapidly and put itself on par with the western powers. But unlike Japan, an island nation, India cannot escape from its neighbourhood. The unresolved problems — domestic and external — arising from the partition of the subcontinent continue to link India’s destiny with those of Pakistan and Bangladesh. India, then, has no option but to persist with simultaneous transformation of relations with the great powers and smaller neighbours. Even as the clock ticks on the current Parliament, Manmohan Singh must seize the few opportunities that might come his way. Bold initiatives towards Pakistan and Bangladesh might also help the PM to remove the misperception that India’s current diplomacy is all about America. That the charge is wrong doesn’t mean it doesn’t have some political traction. So countering it is profitable. There is good political incentive in becoming neighbourly.

... contd.