South Asia realigning? Really?

India's External Affairs Minister - EAM hereon - Excellency Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in another recent declaration stated that India has three redlines: that she will protect her farmers — read, a trade deal with the US may not ask it to remove tariffs on agricultural products which possibly shuts out American farmers from the India market; that India cannot be asked to cede economic sovereignty — read India will continue to buy Russian oil, refine it and reexport it to make an extra buck short-circuiting American sanctions on Russia; and, that India will not accept any arbitration on Pakistan over issues that cause enmity between the two — read, despite President Trump intervening on behalf of India to force Pakistan into a ceasefire ( Day 4 was a testing day in particular) she will not let Trump mediate to bring the two to the table to resolve the underlying issues.

That is quite a list as President Trump announces a new Ambassador to India with an expanded mandate as his special envoy to South and Central Asia. In fact, it is an announcement of conditioned protocol on arrival of the ambassador-designate. It also dampens any aspiration to bring peace to a conflicted region and encourage prosperity of the unfortunate toiling masses. Almost two billion of them. That is twenty-five per cent of humanity. Add China's 1.4 billion and that almost equals half the humanity on this planet.

China is geographically attached to the over two billion of Central and South Asia. These are serious numbers currently separated by conflict and strife and some stubborn hardheadedness emerging out of misplaced arrogance and hubris. Not based on real logic but essentially, 'I will, because I can.' This makes for misplaced and presumptive vanity which is largely groundless. One hates to remind, but India just had its dignity returned on a plate.

India's EAM is an ideological extremist. There is an astounding similarity in his views and those of RSS. For example, when a Swami suggests that the first 'element' to go into space was not Col Alan Shephard of the US or Yuri Gagarin of the USSR but Hanuman, you know you are dealing with a specie which is unique. When Jaishankar suggests that India is about to regain her civilisational exclusiveness around ethereal myths and then leads Narendra Modi into a dream valley of global South, it remains vacuous misdirection without the substance to support such empty claims. Even if the world had begun believing in India's promise of the 'shine' and its 'rise' it came crashing down in the four-day clash with Pakistan. The world opened its eyes to the fact that a presumptive 'emperor' was indeed without its clothes.

President Trump may have other reasons to denigrate India but that he does not take easily to weaklings is equally true. Right or wrong, India is in that category in his eyes for now. Despite being stung or shamed, she continues her ludicrous grandstanding and continues to stand her ground without a rethink or a review. It is for India to decide how must it respond to Trump or handle the embarrassment or foolishly repeat the slogan of sovereign sentiment as a mantra. Sovereignty does not grant it a sense of entitlement or audacity of choice or action. Both have been suitably circumcised. To the world at large however it has become obvious that the slogans that India tried to sell to the world of its standing were mostly misplaced. It remains a patently developing nation which attempted to reach for the high table rather early with concocted stories of assumed accelerations. She has done well but still belongs to the lower league of nations.

With Trump a lost proposition, India's moves have been to repair damage elsewhere. Primarily with China. Suddenly a greater emphasis on BRICS or bilateral engagements with China have begun. SCO is again in the news where Shri Modi Ji will be making a personal appearance. Which is of course India's sovereign right but if it is to spite Trump and the US for which India had been playing the poodle since mid-90s to checkmate China's rise and influence, it remains a weak hand. Too much bad blood, which includes active wars and skirmishes, and a hot border and unresolved demarcations continue to sullen potential prospects of great hope.

If indeed hope institutes and improvement occur it shall be a welcome sign for South Asia because closely following China is its iron-brother Pakistan to which India will need to show deference too. Especially Pakistan has only recently raised China's four-fold after the four-day war. As recent cataclysmic climate related events show, India and Pakistan are tied by nature in a symbiotic bind where other than working in unison there is just no way for the two nations to survive as newer and deadlier events beckon. With a bit of imagination, the entire triangle of nuclear Asia, consisting of China, India and Pakistan can learn to coexist in harmony.

Similarly, when India for the sake of sovereign entitlement wishes to keep its Russian connection going it could be to spite Trump again, as well reinforce its BRICS connection as an alternate to American hegemony of the global system, as indeed as a bilateral compulsion — seventy per cent of its weaponry is sourced from Russia, and finally of course a commercial venture to which the US had kept a blind eye for India's service to it as a proxy against China. But that may be playing too clever for too long. You finally do get called out as she betrays serious limitations of its real capacity and potential.

India's bid for a special status and assumed influence among nations in Asia stands badly compromised. EAM Jaishankar is continuing to dream of a chimera even as his aspirational entitlement stands grounded after continuing embarrassment on the global stage. Modi is equally stubborn about keeping appearance despite the drubbing on the battlefield and diplomacy. For how long, needs to be seen. Jaishankar may thus be in a temporary reprieve.

Pakistan, on the other hand, has remained and will need to be nimble about its options in foreign policy. It has dealt with and defeated well Indian design to frame it with terror. For India it has backfired as her dalliances in playing the Israeli game of hunting its enemies in global capitals only stands vilified. Pakistan is not expeditionary in its objectives like India and is concerned only with its territorial integrity. Neither does it have global or even regional ambitions. It could thus easily respond with amity to any initiatives which serve the cause of peace — all it seeks is equivalence and dignified coexistence. Central and South Asia are natural fusions for regional aspiration which can easily augment the trajectory of progress and prosperity through constructive engagement. Only a fool will give it away for chimeral aspirations.