Akhilesh's Win & Foreign Policy

This is the period when the domestic focus is on the state elections results with UP results getting focussed attention. The election verdict is changing the discourse of national politic with new equations of alignments and realignments.

The external environment and subsequent foreign policy changes needed to be considered at this juncture. In recent past, India witnessed the sub-regional forces asserting themselves in the sphere of Indian foreign (and security) policy, especially the South Asia neighbourhood policy.

Prime Minister Singh’s September 2011 visit to Dhaka, that should have been a major achievement of India’s bilateral relations, went off the tracks thanks to the stance adopted by the newly-elected Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamta Banerjee. The anti-Sri Lanka stand of Tamilnadu parties is forcing the Centre to rethink its long adopted strategy on human rights violation.

The West Bengal-Bangladesh or Tamilnadu-Sri Lanka linkages offer the vision of regional economic integration. Developing better connectivity – road, rail and maritime, including the rivers – will dramatically enhance the prosperity and human security indicators for the entire region that extends from Indian Northeast and Myanmar to the island country of Sri Lanka and Indian Ocean.

However, this cannot happen without strategic understanding in both spheres of  Delhi and Kolkata – Chennai, of the trade, economy, environment, security linkages. Reviving the pre-1947 transport linkages between Kolkata-Dhaka-NE India-Myanmar would help the entire region. But to realise this goal, Kolkata and Chennai must be a willing stakeholder in this vision.

Similarly, the Uttar Pradesh is relevant state in relation to Nepal – whether the issue is connectivity or harnessing hydro power potential. But unless Lucknow become partners with Delhi in this endeavour, these foreign policy objectives are unlikely to be realised. The emphatic win of Samajwadi Party should be seen through this prism. The swearing in of Young CM Akhilesh Yadav offers a rare opportunity. Showing interest in foreign policy can be good demonstration of will and can signify a welcome change in foreign policy formulation in India.  

Illustrations by Hadimani, Outlook Magazine

There is need for individual states to acquire this degree of awareness about foreign policy issues. The necessity is not only for border states but also for other states. The Globalisation is enforcing multiple linkages of states with rest of the world. More so often these linkages are economical in the form of FDI, aid etc. These investments often have strategic angle, which state government may not comprehend. This required special expertise, which is available at the central Ministry of External Affairs.  To bridge the gap, over last decade or so, the Ministry of External Affairs has mooted a proposal to post Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officers in individual states to provide state capitals this expertise. However, this didn’t happen. The issue needs to be revived and state should be encouraged to discuss foreign policy issues in a regular manner.

ICT Power

Some wild thoughts on power of ICT and its impact.

The ICT (Information & Communication Technology) has successfully redistributed the 'power' within the state. Just think of the availability of PM or Amitabh on friends / follower list. One can directly connect to these people. Chat with them, appreciate their actions, show the dissent or even use indecent language. Everything is possible here on SNS. This kind of strange 'empowerment' is destabilizing the existing 'power balance' in the society. The new balance may be still far, but the evolving things underline some important issues -

1. The ICT has created entirely new domain of 'Cyber Space'. The virtual world has its own rules. The state or even the common person / youth are not able to define or comprehend them. The traditional notions of communications are changing and no one knows where those are leading!
2. The 'burst of information' makes it difficult for both giver and receiver about its utility. The mere availability of information isn't serving any purpose. It should be useful and used effectively. We are already experiencing nuisance of it.
3. The ICT poses risk to societies / states. There is risk of ceding spaces to enemies or align in the domain of sovereignty or culture.  As a consequence, we may also be losing the ‘battle for the minds’ of the young who depend increasingly on the internet for their information and opinions.
4. The same technologies also empower the state in terms of its capacity for internal surveillance, interception and so on. But their power and reach raise fundamental issues about the lines that a democratic society must draw between the collective right to security and the individual’s right to privacy. What makes it more complicated is the fact that these technologies are not just available to the state, where laws and policies can control and limit their use. They are widely available in the public domain, where commercial and individual motives can easily lead to misuse that is not so easily regulated unless we rethink and update our legal and other approaches.