How India Sees the World

The following article originally appeared in The Diplomat on April 21, 2016. 

India’s history of Third Worldism and Nonalignment and its traditional overuse of the term “strategic partnership” have long created the illusion that New Delhi treats all foreign relations on a somewhat equal footing. But beyond bland public statements marked by diplomatic niceties, a lot can be discerned about India’s worldview by other means. Organizational structures are often an excellent indicator of a government’s priorities and concerns. Mapping the geographical divisions at India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) paints a rather revealing picture of how India sees the world.

Function over Form

One clear pattern that emerges is that MEA’s geographical organization is primarily functional. Take India’s immediate neighborhood, where whole divisions are devoted to just two or three countries. Landlocked and mountainous Nepal and Bhutan are grouped together, while Myanmar is coupled with Bangladesh, rather than with the rest of Southeast Asia. Sri Lanka and the Maldives are considered as part of the Indian Ocean. And Iran is grouped with Pakistan and Afghanistan, indicating how much India sees policy toward those three countries as interconnected. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has only bestowed a name  – “Neighborhood First” – on what has clearly been a longstanding approach, although the articulation of that policy may have helped give it momentum and direction.

There is often a concern – as at the U.S. Departments of State and Defense – that foreign policy becomes uncoordinated because countries fall under different geographical bureaus. At first glance, this appears to be the case for India in the Middle East (or West Asia, to use India’s preferred terminology), where the region’s major actors – Turkey, Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia – fall under different divisions. However, this structure also confers certain advantages, allowing India to simultaneously advance various objectives with multiple actors, such as defense and space ties with Israel, energy and infrastructure considerations with Iran, and diaspora and counterterrorism priorities with the Gulf Arab states.

The imposition of functional interests over neat geographical divisions is perhaps most readily apparent in Africa. Eastern and Southern Africa are areas that are not just more proximate to India, but also enjoy deeper historical and people-to-people ties. Large Indian communities, including merchants and traders, thrived in South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda, all – like India – former British colonies. By contrast, India had far fewer historical contacts with Western Africa, which falls mostly within the Francophonie. Instead, from India’s standpoint, that region is defined by commodities and resources including energy, of which Nigeria and Angola have become increasingly important suppliers.

The Rajamandala

Just as revealing as how India divides up the world is how much attention it pays to each region. The number of countries in each division offers one point of comparison. The fact that 30 countries in Western Africa receive roughly the same resources and attention at MEA as two Indian neighbors indicates the greater attention that India devotes to its immediate periphery. Another factor is the number of diplomatic missions – embassies, high commissions, and consulate-generals – that India has in each region. Nine missions catering to 25 countries in Western Africa points to Indian diplomatic resources being spread far thinner than, say, the same number in just the United States and Canada. The Lowy Institute’s delightful Global Diplomacy Index, which catalogues and maps the global diplomatic presence of all G20 and OECD countries, helps to generate a pretty clear picture about India’s diplomatic priorities.

Based on the number of countries per division and the number of missions per country, three tiers are readily apparent. In the top tier – the first circle of the Rajamandala, to riff on the Kautilyan term – are divisions that cover India’s immediate neighborhood, encompassing the members of the South Asians Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) plus Myanmar and Iran. The importance India places on relations with the United States and, increasingly, China is also clear. India’s relations with the two biggest global powers are similar but fundamentally unequal. The United States shares space with only Canada, whereas China does with Japan, South Korea, and North Korea, and Mongolia. The presence of five Indian consulates-general in the United States is also indicative of the importance of the Indian-American diaspora. Despite growing commercial relations with China necessitating Indian consulates-general in Shanghai and Guangzhou, people-to-people ties between the two most-populated countries still clearly lag behind political and economic relations.

Beyond India’s immediate neighborhood, the United States, and China, a second tier includes bureaus covering some of India’s most important strategic and defense partners, including Russia, Western Europe, and Israel. It also includes India’s extended neighborhood: Southeast Asia, the Gulf, Central Asia, and Eastern and Southern Africa, regions with historical and civilizational ties to India and large number of overseas Indians. All these regions represent areas where a rising India could potentially devote more resources in the future.

Finally, a third tier is home to a number of important countries such as Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, and Nigeria, but includes regions that are neither strategically significant for India nor home to large numbers of ethnic Indians (excepting, perhaps, the Caribbean). Relatively speaking, India’s diplomatic resources in Central Europe, Western Africa, and Latin America are stretched thin, and in all these areas, India’s diplomatic corps is focused more on commercial relations than on strategic or consular matters.

Reallocating Diplomatic Assets

The decisions taken over the years at MEA to divide of the world into certain units and establish a physical presence in various parts of the world may have been organic, but has not been arbitrary. While there is a clear logic and sense of priorities, certain shortcomings in India’s global diplomatic presence are also apparent.

One obvious weak point is Pakistan and Bangladesh. It is faintly ridiculous that India should have wider consular networks in Indonesia, Vietnam, South Africa, Turkey, Iran, Japan, Germany, Brazil, and Thailand than it does in two of its most important neighbors. The diplomatic principle of reciprocity means that just as India has no consulates-general in Pakistan, Pakistan has none in India. Despite repeated provocations against India supported by Pakistan’s military and no indication that Pakistan has stopped sponsoring terrorism, both Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif have indicated a clear desire to normalize bilateral relations between their countries. Establishing consulates-general in both countries would be an obvious place to start. Despite some evident challenges, such as security considerations, Indian consulates in Lahore and Karachi (with reciprocal Pakistani consulates in, say, Mumbai and Amritsar) would help expand commercial and social engagement between the two countries, strengthening the constituencies that favor normalization. Meanwhile, there is even less of a reason for India not to have a wider diplomatic presence in Bangladesh, particularly given that relations are set to improve following the conclusion of the historic land boundary agreement between the two countries.

A second possibility involves rethinking Europe, which has rapidly fallen in India’s list of priorities, but is also undergoing monumental changes of its own. The old divisions of east and west are no longer particularly useful. Germany, given its economic performance, its growing leadership role in European affairs, and its importance for India’s development, is deserving of greater attention, along with France – with its competitive defense, nuclear, and space sectors – and Britain, which enjoys longstanding cultural and economic links with India. In other words, it makes sense to give priority to Europe’s Big Three. Meanwhile, other bilateral relations in Europe, as well as those with the European Union, could be consolidated, to the benefit of India’s uneven relations with the EU.

Third, despite India’s Act East policy, the Southern division – which covers Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Southern Pacific – appears increasingly unwieldy, and involves the largest number of diplomatic missions, with 21. The division oversees relations with several countries that are of growing importance to India, such as Australia, Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia. MEA does have a dedicated ASEAN division focused on multilateral affairs but, nevertheless, hiving off Southeast Asia from Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific would nicely complement Act East.

The final area to possibly consider is Eastern and Southern Africa, a region that has been developing greater strategic and economic significance as part of the Indian Ocean basin. Currently, South Africa is the only African economy with which India has broad diplomatic dealings and a diversified economic relationship. But given their geography and traditional connections to India, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia could be bigger priorities in the future, India’s gateways into what is already the fastest growing continent.

While a lot has been made of the small size of India’s diplomatic corps – an important problem, but one being addressed – few appreciate the reach of India’s diplomatic presence. Only nine countries (the P-5, Germany, Japan, Brazil, and Turkey) currently have more foreign embassies and high commissions than India. Identifying weaknesses and priority areas deserving of greater diplomatic attention will be necessary if India is to strategically expand its diplomatic footprint, and thereby leverage its commercial relations, widen its strategic ambit, and provide better consular and other services to overseas Indians.

Can India's Think Tanks Be Truly Effective?

The following article originally appeared in The Huffington Post India on April 15, 2016.

I have worked for much of the past decade in, or with, think tanks in both the US and in India, and am regularly confronted with misperceptions and misapprehensions about the sector. What is the purpose of think tanks? Who sets their agenda? What do they do on a day-to-day basis? The answers are, unfortunately, not so simple.

These questions are particularly important today because significant changes are afoot among New Delhi's think tanks. The opening of Carnegie India means that one of the world's leading think tanks on international affairs will now have a permanent presence in India. Carnegie joins its Washington neighbour The Brookings Institution, in many ways the archetypal think tank, which established Brookings India in New Delhi a few years ago, and recently moved its offices in the diplomatic enclave of Chanakyapuri.

Meanwhile, in March, the Observer Research Foundation concluded the Raisina Dialogue, giving India a major international policy conference. And the appointments last year of former Ambassador to Nepal and Afghanistan Jayant Prasad as Director General of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) and Nalin Surie, ex-envoy to China and the UK, as head of the Indian Council on World Affairs (ICWA) means that accomplished diplomats now head the two premier government-funded foreign policy think tanks. Taken together, these developments offer a good opportunity to revisit think tanks' role in the Indian policy establishment.

How think tanks work

The primary purpose of think tanks is to generate ideas and debate on matters of public policy. In that sense, they are both research institutions and conveners, bringing together different viewpoints and facilitating an exchange of views. In terms of research, what think tanks do is not dissimilar to business consulting, intelligence analysis, investigative journalism, or academic research in the social sciences. The difference, however, is that the research produced by think tanks is meant to inform and influence public policy. Their target audience is therefore either policymakers in government or the broader public.

Think tanks also serve as a venue for political leaders, bureaucrats and military officers to exchange views and interact with other actors: foreign counterparts, the media, academics, corporate representatives and the wider public. Having neutral venues for these kinds of interactions is particularly important given the changing roles and growing clout of some of these stakeholders in public policy formulation and implementation.

Despite these broad shared characteristics, there is considerable diversity among think tanks in terms of their mandates, priorities, and structures. Some focus narrowly on specific aspects of public policy, such as foreign relations and defence, domestic politics and governance, economic and trade policy, or education, migration, and environmental issues. Others are broad, covering a range of topics. Some, such as ICWA and IDSA, are government-affiliated while others are entirely autonomous and privately managed. While some Indian think tanks function almost exclusively as research institutes, such as the Centre for Policy Research, others prioritize convening, such as the Observer Research Foundation.

Think tanks such as IDSA and the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) have been active in India since the mid-20th century. But the last 25 years have witnessed a tremendous growth and proliferation of Indian institutions, including privately-funded entities and military service-specific think tanks (the Centre for Land and Warfare Studies, the Centre for Air Power Studies, and the National Maritime Foundation). Location matters, given the need to be proximate to policy makers. There is a reason that global think tanks have congregated in major capital cities such as Washington and London, Brussels and Beijing. So it is only natural that the majority of Indian institutes have been established in Delhi. However, newer initiatives like Gateway House in Mumbai, the Takshashila Institution in Bangalore, and the Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy in Chennai now provide platforms beyond the capital.

Glorified talk shops?

If there is one big challenge that all think tanks face it is measuring their effectiveness. Ideas coming out of think tanks, even when adopted as government policy, are rarely credited as such. Some of the most effective work done by think tanks--in the form of private briefings and inputs to government policy makers--is often, by necessity, not publicly acknowledged. It becomes easy, then, to dismiss think tanks as ineffective talk shops. But at their best, they can play a big role in advising governments on sound policy, enabling increasingly important dialogue with a variety of stakeholders, and interpreting obscure policy issues for the broader public. They can also help build expertise, and perform in-depth or specialised research that government do not have the time or capacity to do. Despite its healthy growth in recent years, the Indian think tank sector today suffers from certain shortcomings. These have prevented them from competing for talent with academia, the private sector, and competitors abroad. They have also been inhibited from being fully effective.

Making Indian think tanks more effective

A few measures, if taken, could rapidly revitalize the Indian think tank industry, to the benefit of these institutions, government policy and public discourse.

1. Research needs to be given priority over convening

There is today no shortage in India of policy conferences, panel discussions, and Track II dialogues (which involve non-official participants from different countries). On almost any given evening in Delhi, there are book launches or speeches by visiting dignitaries hosted by one or another Indian think tank. But there remains a paucity of authoritative, in-depth, ground-breaking research. Book-length studies on such topics as the evolution of India-Southeast Asia relations, Pakistan's contemporary political dynamics, India's trade policy, defence acquisitions, the 1965 war, or India during the Narasimha Rao years--to list just a few topics--would be immensely useful. Op-eds and policy papers remain useful vehicles to disseminate ideas, but think tanks provide the luxury of time for truly detailed and path-breaking work.

2. Quality needs to be given priority over quantity

Think tank scholars ought to be among the most knowledgeable experts in their fields, and that means that institutions must be able to compete for talent with the private sector, universities and foreign organizations. At present, India's think tanks often function as homes for retired civil servants and military officers. These former officials can--and do--offer a wealth of experience, enabling them to document issues on which they have had first-hand experience and reflect on lessons learned. But generating new ideas and fresh perspectives will require tapping a wider pool of talent. This means investing in regional and topical expertise, a variety of disciplines (history, economics, and area studies, in addition to political science), and a mastery of languages. We currently lack the requisite expertise on our neighbours: China, Myanmar, Iran, and even Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan. Economic expertise, in particular, is missing at many Indian institutes. Establishing an external peer review process for publications will also help improve the quality of output across the board.

3. More autonomy and transparency

Institutions affiliated with the government are in constant danger of becoming extensions of ministries: rigidly hierarchical, risk-averse, bureaucratic, status conscious, and driven by patronage. The entire raison d'être of think tanks is to overcome these constraints. Meanwhile, privately funded think tanks have to show they are not beholden to their benefactors if they are to retain their credibility. Transparency about sources of funding allows people to draw their own conclusions about the nature of any research.

4. Think tank scholars need more interactions with government

This can be mutually beneficial. Unlike in countries where a revolving door enables experts to migrate between think tanks and government positions, in India, a career bureaucracy inhibits such career paths. Quite often, the lack of interactions with officials means that think tank experts in India are badly misinformed. Many of their recommendations--while well-intentioned--are simply impossible to implement, failing to take into account bureaucratic processes, political realities or resource constraints. By taking on more government advisory work, think tanks would increase the expertise available to officials while becoming better-informed about government priorities and processes.

5. Research needs to be usable

Finally, one big difference between policy research and other fields is that it cannot simply dwell on the past, but must have implications for the present and future. Far too much work being done by think tanks - and not just in India - tends to be descriptive, rather than analytical.

Additionally, for policymakers pressed for time, only certain kinds of information are useful. New conceptual frameworks that function as shorthand for policies (such as "Look East" or "Digital India") can enrich public discourse, while specific domain knowledge (such as language or area studies) and data compilation are useful contributions for babus pressed for time or requiring specialized expertise. Policy research must also be easily accessible if it is to inform officials pressed for time or shape the public debate, a particular challenge in an era of information overload. Rethinking outputs, both their form and their very medium, is a necessity for all think tanks today. Many are branching out into online content and multimedia presentations, such as podcasts, videos and interactive information platforms. Even with traditional written outputs, verbosity is too often equated with erudition. Presenting information in a manner that is easily digestible remains a challenge.

If it were to take some of these considerations into account--more research, higher quality standards, greater autonomy and transparency, more interactions with government, and higher-impact outputs--there is no reason that the Indian think tank sector cannot flourish. We are witnessing a period of increasingly acrimonious and often ill-informed public discourse. Now is the perfect time for India's think tanks to come into their own.

Deepening Security Ties With the US a Sign of India’s Growing Confidence

The following article originally appeared in The Wire on April 6, 2016. 

Next week’s visit by US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter to India has raised the prospect of deeper security cooperation between the two countries. Rumours about impending defence sales may be unfounded, as might the expectation that several bilateral defence agreements – long under negotiation – will be concluded. The agreements in question include the Logistics Supply Agreement (LSA), the Communication and Information Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA) and the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA). These are modest, and largely operational and technical agreements that would facilitate information sharing and the provision of supplies between the Indian and US armed forces. Being reciprocal, both militaries could potentially benefit from these agreements. The US has also expressed a willingness to tailor them to Indian circumstances and address certain Indian concerns. As with all important international agreements, the devils are in the details, and an argument can be made that some of the agreements (e.g. LSA and BECA) provide India with greater benefits and have fewer latent risks than others (e.g. CISMOA).

The probability of these agreements being concluded during Carter’s visit is low. However, regardless of the merits of these specific agreements, they have become a proxy for a renewed discussion on whether and to what extent a defence partnership between India and the US is desirable. The Modi government has indicated the outlines of strategic cooperation with the US in the Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean Region, agreed in January 2015. But there are reports of opposition to the foundational agreements from within the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Analyst Bharat Karnad, similarly opposed in principle to closer cooperation with the US, has called the signing of these agreements “disastrous”. Meanwhile, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, India’s foremost public intellectual, has also questioned the wisdom of moving forward with these agreements without further debate. While the arguments being made by the MoD and Karnad appear to be circular – that closer partnership with the US is fundamentally undesirable, and thus arguments must be found to oppose the agreements – Mehta’s concerns are worth addressing. Indeed, they must be addressed because his arguments, and how they are framed, implicitly imperil a healthy debate on India’s national security interests.

A first criticism is that the Indo-US defence partnership is progressing without a sufficient debate on its merits. This overlooks the fact that a robust debate has taken place on this very issue in India for years – in fact decades. (Indeed, Mehta has even contributed to it.) Beyond ties with Pakistan, relations with the US are among the most frequently discussed issues concerning India’s external relations in parliament. Newspaper op-ed pages reflect a wide-ranging debate on the nature and extent of Indian security cooperation with the US. And, as the MoD opposition suggests, there are healthy internal differences within the Indian government as well. It is all very well to call for more debate; nobody has ever prevented one from taking place.

A second line of criticism is that India is deepening cooperation with the US – and against China – at Washington’s behest and not in accordance with Indian interests. “The US is making no secret of the fact that it wants to position India in its plans for China,” Mehta writes. “But it is not in India’s interests to become a frontline state in that emerging faultline.”

There are several problems with this line of reasoning. One is that a privileged relationship with Washington in no way thwarts cooperation with Beijing. In fact, over the past twenty years, as Indo-US defence relations have strengthened, India has also deepened military contacts with China, as part of important confidence building measures. More recently, India has also joined a number of Chinese-led multilateral initiatives, from the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Additionally, the Indian government has increasingly sought investment from China, widening the bilateral economic relationship. There is no reason to believe that the foundational agreements with the US, which even the likes of Singapore and Sri Lanka have signed, narrow India’s options with China. Quite the opposite.

Besides, India may not want to be a “frontline state” against China, but it already is one, not because of Washington’s exhortations, but because of Beijing’s intentions and actions. These include China’s building up of defence infrastructure on its border with India, its occasional attempts at altering the territorial status quo, its military support – including its history of providing nuclear and missile technology – to Pakistan and its growing military reach in India’s neighbourhood. In fact, the situation is rather reminiscent of India’s position in the evolving international system of the late 1960s and early 1970s. At the time, it was not India’s desire to create a rift with Washington, but the US’ instrumental relationships with Pakistan and China that necessitated the 1971 Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Cooperation. Today, China’s opacity, military modernisation and strategic intent mean that India must reconsider its security posture rather than persevere with much-vaunted but illusory notions of great power neutrality.

Third, preserving neutrality or equidistance between the US and China will in no way contribute to Indian security. One need only look at the recent experience of Indonesia, perhaps the only large country more wedded to antiquated notions of Cold War-era non-alignment than India. Despite remaining steadfastly neutral and currying favour with Beijing by awarding it high-value infrastructure contracts, Indonesia has seen growing tensions with China over the presence of fishing and coast guard vessels around its Natuna Islands. Neutrality, it turns out, is a false comfort blanket.

Finally, the notion that a closer Indian defence relationship with the US is a mark of “defeatism” is particularly confounding. That very fear of weakness or defeatism prevented India from seizing opportunities for cooperation with not just the US, but many of its allies, such as Japan, opportunities it is now seizing squarely, with barely a squeak from Beijing. The argument about defeatism also underestimates India’s own agency and its ability to make decisions based on its own interests. The progress in India’s relations with the US has never been motivated by naïve sentimentalism. The idea that these agreements are some sort of “parting gift” to US President Barack Obama is ludicrous. In the past few years, India has responded severely to the treatment of an Indian diplomat by US authorities, condemned the administration’s support for the Pakistani military, and criticised the US’ public calls for joint military patrols. India has also locked horns with the US recently over its solar program and US immigration policies. Any number of American officials would attest to the fact that South Block can hold its own in any negotiation with Foggy Bottom. Far from defeatism, India’s ability to shake hands with Washington is a sign of growing confidence in its own abilities.

There is a dangerous subtext in much of this criticism. Those implying that deeper defence cooperation with the US, by its very nature, cannot be in Indian interests and is a product of American pressure, are narrowing the space for any rational arguments in its favour. This is a slippery slope. Mehta, of all people, should appreciate its possible implications.

By all means, elevated defence ties with the US – and the specific foundation agreements under question – must be considered very carefully, even if they are unlikely to be concluded in the near future. But a security partnership with the US should also be discussed and debated on its merits rather than on sentimentalism, whether in favour of the US or based on nostalgia for a principle that was unceremoniously discarded 45 years ago. It is worth keeping in mind that a healthy debate on defence ties with the US has taken place for a long time in India, and continues; that such cooperation in no way makes India a frontline state against China at Washington’s behest; and that defence agreements with the US are neither a sign of weakness nor of defeatism, but are instead reflective of India’s growing confidence in its own capabilities.