Sri Lanka has a new president in nationalist outsider Anura Kumara Dissanayake.
Image: Bloomberg4 min read Last Updated : Sep 26 2024 | 8:07 AM ISTBy Mihir SharmaSri Lanka has a new president in nationalist outsider Anura Kumara Dissanayake.
His victory is a testament to the vitality of the countrys democracy: Two years after demonstrators forced the resignation of the islands president and prime minister, protest leader Dissanayake prevailed against two well-connected centrists.For regional behemoth India, however, the results cap a troubling trend.
Dissanayake has worried New Delhi because his party, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, made a name for itself in the 1980s with an anti-India terror campaign.
While the new president has tried to mend fences, including during a visit earlier this year, India will consider him a poor exchange for his predecessor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was distrustful of China and supportive of Indian investment.Similar political transitions have transformed South Asia.
Just last month, Bangladeshs long-serving prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, was overthrown and fled to India for refuge.
Earlier in the summer, K.P.
Sharma Oli, who has always been close to Beijing, returned as Nepals prime minister.An India out campaign in the Maldives swept its current president, Mohamed Muizzu, to power in 2023.
And its likely Indian officials would prefer that Imran Khan, who remains wildly popular with the Pakistani electorate, stays in the jail where most believe his countrys military has put him.New Delhi began the year secure in its relationships with Kathmandu, Dhaka, and Colombo; the only neighbor it can now mostly count on is the tiny monarchy of Bhutan a decades-old treaty ally that manages its security and foreign policy in close cooperation with India.While internal developments obviously drove most of these political transitions, Indian policy has done the country no favors.
While Indians like to remind people that theirs is the worlds largest democracy, their neighbors complain that New Delhi doesnt always promote and support democratic values in the region.Indeed, pro-government commentators openly boast that Indias foreign policy has succeeded by shaping democratic verdicts in its neighborhood and turning a blind eye to democratic deficits.Sometimes, though, realpolitik is just short-sightedness.
Hasinas exit in Bangladesh followed elections a few months earlier that most including the US did not view as free and fair.
India overlooked that and appeared taken by surprise when she turned out to be massively unpopular after all.Similarly, New Delhis courting of the military junta in Myanmar which memorably led then-US President Barack Obama to upbraid Indias parliament in 2010 for shying away from the defense of democracy might soon turn sour.
Indian officials were incensed at the time, insisting that the strong hand of the Burmese military was needed to manage the volatile border.
Now anti-government rebels control large parts of that same frontier, making ties to the junta more of a liability than an asset.It didnt have to be this way.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi was first elected in 2014, he invited leaders of neighboring nations to his swearing-in.
He had an opportunity to reset relations with all of them and to create new partnerships based on economic integration and mutual respect for democracy.In the years since, diplomats ceded control of relations with those countries and with China, with whom India shares the longest of its borders to the security establishment.
That has turned out to be a crucial mistake.
If you see your neighbors primarily through a security lens, you risk picking allies and condoning behavior that together alienate large swathes of the electorate.
When political winds shift, such bets can turn rapidly.You might think that Indias extraordinary soft power would make up for some of these missteps.
But the influence of its movies and media, which are followed closely across South Asia, can be unhelpful.
After the Maldives election, popular Bollywood stars declared they would stop vacationing there.
And the hyper-nationalist news media focuses relentlessly on stories that citizens of these smaller neighbors feel portray their countries unfairly.India would be wise to study Chinas relations with its neighbors.
That would give policymakers some idea of what not to do, as well as what might work.
Economic integration is essential: As the regions biggest market, India needs to be a source of prosperity for its denizens.On the other hand, expecting smaller countries to kowtow is a mistake.
Indias rise might be as inevitable as Chinas.
Neither would-be superpower, though, can afford to ignore the aspirations of its neighbors.Disclaimer: This is a Bloomberg Opinion piece, and these are the personal opinions of the writer.
They do not reflect the views of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaperFirst Published: Sep 26 2024 | 7:51 AMIST