China and Pakistan remain New Delhi’s big external challenges, but MOTN endorse the government’s stance on both, and a harder one on Kashmir
A poster for the virtual 13th BRICS summit, featuring (from left) Brazilian president Michel Temer, Russian president Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese president Xi Jinping & South African president Cyril Ramaphosa
India entered the new year looking at what could be a third year of a military stand-off with China in eastern Ladakh. A 14th round of Corps Commander-level talks on January 12 failed to resolve the military impasse that began in May 2020 when China moved two divisions across Ladakh. Both armies continue to eyeball each other at three contentious spots. And as long as these friction points remain, both sides will continue to deploy close to 100,000 troops at their respective ends at extremely high altitudes, making it the world’s longest such military deployment.
China’s new boundary law signals a hardening of its stance on long-running boundary disputes like the one with India. The permanent structures it is building on the Tibetan plateau signal it is there for the long haul. There have been no violent incidents on the border since the June 15, 2020, Galwan clashes in which 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese ones were killed. Vigilance on the boundary pays, as the government discovered, since it allows them to resolve the boundary flashpoints using diplomacy and military dialogue. Seventy five per cent of the MOTN believe that the central government has handled the border stand-off with China very well—a slight dip from the 78 per cent who endorsed the government’s stance in August 2021.
The escalatory potential of the conflict with China means that New Delhi’s other major foreign policy headache—Pakistan—looks relatively manageable. Given the perilous state of its economy and its hand-to-handout existence, Pakistan seems incapable of being a significant threat in the short term. The country’s newly unveiled national security policy speaks of wanting to improve relations with India, but, from New Delhi’s standpoint, there can be no talks as long as Islamabad continues to foment cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab. Over 55 per cent of the words do not want dialogue to resume.
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The Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir—parts of which remain under Chinese and Pakistani occupation—is thus in greater focus than before. Three years ago, New Delhi bifurcated the erstwhile state of J&K into UTs and diluted Article 370. There is a hardening of the’ stand towards the return to normalcy in the state with a discernible dip from the 66 per cent in the MOTN of August 2021 in favor of restoring statehood to 46 per cent now.
The China-Pakistan axis means India will need the support of friends like the US. India-US relations have been on an upswing for the past two decades. Besides being a major strategic ally, the US is India’s largest trading partner—bilateral trade is set to cross $145 billion (around Rs 10.7 lakh crore) in 2020-21. The steady decline in US president Joe Biden’s MOTN ratings is, therefore, somewhat of a mystery. From a high of 52 per cent who viewed him favorably in January 2021, it slipped to 42 per cent in August and now just 38.8 per cent think he is good for India. This is perhaps one more reason why Biden needs to take up Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s invitation to visit New Delhi.
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