Tuesday, May 12, 2009

India in a Ring of Fire

While India has taken advantage of the globalization, its periphery - neighbouring countries have failed to do so. India's neighbours including Pakistan, Nepal, Srilanka and Myanmar are close to being "Failed States".  India now has to make strategic moves to pull its neighbours as China is already knocking on its doors. 

Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram says India is caught in a “ring of fire”. with War and misery blights Sri Lanka, with political ramifications in India; Bangladeshi politics remains volatile and the country eyes India with suspicion; the military junta in Myanmar is pro-China; Pakistan is wobbling under a spell of violence that has a direct bearing on India’s security.


The Economist magazine says a potential challenge to India’s rise is geopolitical (and the Nepal crisis bears that out). It says how successful a global power India becomes will depend partly on its ability to mediate and resolve the rising number of crises in its neighbourhood. 

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is an economic and political organization of eight countries in Southern Asia. In terms of population, its sphere of influence is the largest of any regional organization: almost 1.5 billion people, the combined population of its member states. It was established on December 8, 1985 by India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives and Bhutan. In April 2007, at the Association's 14th summit, Afghanistan became its eighth member.

India needs to leverage on the SAARC organization and bring about a geopolitical reorganization in the region if it has to compete meaningfully with China.

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