The World Bank has recently acknowledged that South Asia is one of the least integrated regions in the world in terms of trade and people-to-people contact. It further says that ; “Putting aside traditional concerns and taking joint action can develop cross-border solutions to shared issues, strengthen regional institutions, improve infrastructure and connectivity, and advance trade policy. Regional cooperation has the potential to produce significant gains across all countries of South Asia. Intraregional trade now stands at just one-third of its potential with an estimated gap of $23 billion annually. An electricity market of the BBIN countries -- Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Nepal -- would save an estimated $17 billion in capital costs. And improvements in transport and logistics can reduce the 50 percent higher cost for container shipments in South Asia compared to OECD nations”.
The SAARC also could not achieve much and proved to be ineffective because of the bickering amongst the member nations. The India-Pakistan rivalry, the border disputes with Bangladesh and lack of trust between India and Srilanka has largely made this ineffective and irrelevant now.
And surprisingly, these smaller nations instead of trusting democratic India and trying to resolve differences through bilateral negotiations, they started looking elsewhere to corner India and thus increasingly preferred to have more faith on a communist expansionist China. As a result , today some of them are not only bankrupt but have become vassals of China.
So, gradually all Roads from these nations are leading towards China. Pakistan is looking towards China and towards West for its energy and security requirements. Recently, Pakistan’s energy minister announced that negotiations are underway with Russia to build a gas pipeline from Kazakhstan to Pakistan. Last year, Pakistan finalised a railway development agreement with Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. Bangladesh and Srilanka have already leased out a port to China, Myanmar and Nepal and Pakistan are now having a black top metalled road connected to China. . Although, CPEC lost momentum last year due to security and financing concerns, but it still nremains a HIGH priority for Islamabad, which hopes to expand CPEC to Kabul.
As a result, India also started looking towards its East and formed BIMSTEC.
This Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (Bimstec) includes five South Asian states except Pakistan along with Myanmar and Thailand. Recent agreements have envisaged connecting National electricity grids. India has also approved the use of its grid by other countries, resulting in electricity-sharing deals with its neighboring nations ; Bangladesh and Nepal.
The capture of Kabul by Pakistan through Taliban has once again placed Pakistan in a geo strategic advantageous position , that provides it access to Central Asian Republics and West Asia. This will enable Pakistan to develop closer relations with Russia that will provide Pak access to Central Asia, where Moscow exerts great influence and this will help Pakistan to outsmart India.
Now with Afghanistan gone out of hands of India and Pakistan not allowing India the transit route, its connectivity plans to the west are constrained and so India has nothing left but to look towards its East.
A serious border dispute with China and no security pact with even countries in far east India is in a precarious situation. The Quad is more or less redundant because its members have already signed a bilateral security agreement, leaving India alone to fend for itself.
The Chinese economy is more than five times the size of the Indian economy, China’s defense capability far superior to that of India, in addition to this, China is also amongst the leading countries in developing cutting edge technologies ; hypersonic missiles, artificial intelligence and robotics, while India is nowhere near.
In view of these vast differences in terms of capabilities India is poised at a great disadvantage in its own back yard.
The current Foreign Policy of India of EKLA CHALO REY and using volatility in international relations to serve its geo political aims is not likely to work without something to offer. In 1950s India and its leadership was a role model for numerous poor nations who stood against the colonial masters, right now India is just a developing nation and a huge market and not a role model, more over when its Govt is seen as Hindu Nationalist Party, the road ahead to win back its status as a power in South Asia is going to be tough.