Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s forthcoming visit to Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand is an indication of growing Indian interest in South-East Asia. But it would be idle to speculate whether this will lead in course of time to a more active Indian role in the region. All that can be said at this stage is that some of the components that need to go into a meaningful Indian policy for South-East Asia are ready at hand.
The intimate connection between India’s and Burma’s security, for instance, is more clearly and openly recognised in New Delhi and Rangoon than ever before. There exists in India a great reservoir of goodwill for Malaysia and Singapore. Kuala Lumpur and Singapore fully reciprocate this desire for friendly co-operation. They appear even more eager to project India in a new role than New Delhi itself. The relations between India and Ceylon have never been better.
Past Policy
Australia does not yet enjoy the same kind of esteem in India as Canada, another white member of the Commonwealth. But this is the result of past differences of policy and outlook and not an expression of current reservations. New Delhi welcomes Canberra’s desire to integrate itself with the region and is anxious to develop ties with it. New Zealand never aroused misgivings here and should therefore experience no difficulty in forging such relations as it deems necessary and useful.
India has a stake in the security of Burma, Malaysia and Singapore. China can mount a regular attack and campaign of subversion against this country most effectively through northern Burma. Hostile regimes in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore would be a cause for grave anxiety in New Delhi and impose heavy burdens on the Indian Navy. There are sizeable Indian communities in Malaysia and Singapore. It is absurd for anyone to suggest that New Delhi has done its duty once it has airily advised the overseas Indians to merge themselves with the local communities and that the relations between New Delhi on the one hand and Kuala Lumpur and Singapore on the other have no bearing on their future.
The identity of interests between India and Australia is not equally obvious. But Canberra played a role in the defence of Malaysia at the time of its confrontation with Indonesia and figures prominently in the security calculations of Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.
The idea of a closer relationship between India, Burma and Malaysia is not altogether novel. Mr. Nehru clearly thought along some such lines in 1948-49 when he took the initiative in arranging the £6 million Commonwealth defence loan for Burma and supplied a certain amount of small arms to the beleaguered Government in Rangoon. He did not condemn either the British bases in Malaya and Singapore or the campaign against Communist insurgency in Malaya. New Delhi, London and Ottawa worked together in trying to arrange negotiated settlements in Korea and Indo-China in the early ‘fifties.
The idea ceased to appeal in the latter half of the ‘fifties for several reasons. Mr. Nehru increasingly developed reservations regarding Britain because in its pre-occupations with the Middle East. London took an openly pro-Pakistan line and identified itself with the concept of forming military alliances for the containment of Communism. The establishment of SEATO and CENTO with Britain as a member of both and the subsequent British invasion of Egypt made it impossible for India to pursue the Commonwealth approach. On its part New Delhi also did not think it necessary to provide for an alternative in case its policy of ensuring its own and the region’s security through friendship with China failed.
The situation now is far more promising. New Delhi recognises the dangers of a single-track approach. Britain has decided to withdraw from Singapore and Malaysia by 1971 and the two countries are on their own looking for friends in the region. A new generation of leaders has taken over in Australia from men like Sir Robert Menzies who were more imperialistic in their outlook than even the British.
New Approach
An even more important change is that the Dullesian pactomania has finally been played out as a result of the developments in Viet Nam. The United States no longer feels as self-righteous and self-assured as it did in the ‘fifties and may now think of a different approach to the problems of the region.
A closer association between India, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia does not by itself provide an answer to the Chinese threat. But this may well turn out to be its strength rather than its weakness.
The Chinese threat, in my view, continues to be greatly exaggerated. Some cold warriors still behave as if China has not been alienated from the Communist world and Afro-Asia, as if the leadership in Peking is still united and capable of pursuing a consistent foreign policy over a long period of time. Also for some curious psychological reason the successes of the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong against the United States have been credited to Mao Tse-tung.
Peking is said to have stepped up its support for white flag Communists and Kachin rebels in northern Burma and to Nagas in India. But this only exposes China’s weakness. It can now operate through only small tribal groups and not through truly revolutionary organisations which can claim to speak for sizeable sections in dominant communities in the region. After all Kachins and Nagas cannot communise Burma and India.
With the exception of Viet Nam and Indonesia, nationalism in Asia has not been markedly anti-West. Viet Nam is a special case because the people there have been engaged in a continuous struggle against one Western power or another. Basically Vietnamese nationalism should tend to be anti-Chinese in view of the record of one thousand years of struggle against China. This leaves only Indonesia. The Chinese leadership recognised long ago that it was vital from their point of view to strengthen the anti-Western bias of Indonesian nationalism. But Peking over-reached itself and the result was the disaster of 1965 when the pro-Chinese Communist Party was decimated.
Anti-Chinese
At least in parts of South-East Asia nationalism is essentially anti-Chinese. In some places it even threatens to take the form of anti-Chinese racialism. How far this trend grows will depend on the behaviour of Peking and the overseas Chinese. If Peking continues to incite so-called wars of national liberation through the use of tribals and maladjusted groups like the one in Naxalbari and if the latter allow themselves to be involved in these foolish adventures as they did in Malaya in the ‘fifties and are doing in the Borneo territories at present the outlook will be very bleak indeed. Indonesia should be a grim warning to hotheads in Peking that if they sow the wind they will have to reap the whirlwind.
For years Indian thinking has fluctuated between passive neutrality and membership of some US-sponsored and US-supported anti-Chinese alliance. This is a false and dangerous choice which must be rejected.
It is now widely recognised in India that it should not sit idly by when the future of the region is being shaped. Also not many will quarrel with the view that the policy of non-alignment has come to serve as an excuse for indifference and passivity. There is in the country a general, if so far only a vague, desire that it must play a more active and purposeful role in South-East Asia.
The futility of joining a US-backed anti-China grouping should be equally obvious in spite of the shock of the Chinese aggression and subsequent hostile posture. China will in all probability continue to conspire with Pakistan and instigate trouble in the tribal North-east India. But primarily this is a challenge India has to meet itself with such aid in terms of military hardware as it can secure from friendly countries.
It will be premature to try to define the form of the new association. It may be years before the idea is taken up, if at all. Meanwhile it may be more fruitful to concentrate on the development of bilateral relations. But policymakers in New Delhi must realise that the region is in ferment and every other capital is trying to produce a plan for regional or sub-regional co-operation. An American withdrawal from Viet Nam will intensify this search. India cannot afford to be a passive spectator.
The Times of India, 15 May 1968