India's sporadic engagement in volatile South Asia

The idea of South Asia is under strain, with political volatility on the rise in Bangladesh, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Later this month, a US-led vote at the Human Rights Council against Sri Lanka is bound to have an impact on politics inside both Sri Lanka and India, irrespective of the way Delhi votes. Only Bhutan remains relatively tranquil, although with elections likely in April or May and five political parties expected to take part, the political temperature is bound to rise there as well.

India's engagement with the region remains sporadic at best, despite the best efforts of Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid. Delhi has played a key role in brokering an understanding in the Maldives and persuading the Mohamed Waheed government to allow the former democratically elected President Mohamed Nasheed to contest elections; except, Nasheed is now banned from travelling outside Male, which means he cannot campaign.

In Bangladesh, President Pranab Mukherjee's visit is expected to further promote the friendship with Sheikh Hasina's Awami League, but the fact remains that if Mukherjee hadn't expressed a desire to visit Dhaka, the Manmohan Singh government would have failed to push the Land Boundary Agreement that is said to have been finally cleared by the Cabinet.

However, the Teesta waters agreement remains as much on the back burner, despite Mamata Banerjee's exit from the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), Mukherjee's elevation as President and the presence of Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Mukul Roy in the delegation to Bangladesh. The real reason behind Banerjee's refusal to come on board in the Teesta agreement in September 2011 can now be revealed: Banerjee is believed to have asked for a much larger Budget share to alleviate the state debt and believed that then Finance Minister Mukherjee, a fellow Bengali, would agree. But Mukherjee argued that if the Centre caved in to her demands, it would send negative political signals across the country. The exit of the TMC from the UPA may have given the government the opportunity to take another bold step to reshape the neighbourhood, but paralysis in policy remains.

With Bangladesh elections scheduled for later this year, the Teesta pact could substantially help calm the ongoing political tension inside Bangladesh, between the pro-Awami Leaguers demanding death for the war criminals of 1971 and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party which supports the Jamaat-i-Islami, that led the anti-independence movement from the front in 1971.

As for Pakistan, the coming elections in May is unlikely to tamp down the confrontation between the military, the judiciary and the political parties. The Shia Hazara massacres in Pakistan in recent weeks, in fact, are a signal from anti-Shia terrorist organisations like the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi as well as their masters in the intelligence agencies in Pakistan that any obstacles on the road to Kabul by the Afghan Hazara community, in the wake of the withdrawal by foreign troops in April 2014, will not be tolerated.

In her analytical piece on "Contextualising militancy in (Pakistan's) Punjab", Ayesha Siddiqa, the well-known Pakistani strategic analyst, points out that links between the intelligence agencies, the police and militant organisations remain. Her article confirms the view that the Pakistani "deep state", a code name for its military-intelligence complex, has refused to break links with militant organisations and hopes to continue to use them when the US withdraws from Afghanistan.

Perhaps the government's allocation of aid outlays in this Budget gives a better idea of how India wants to play its relationships with South Asia: Bangladesh has got Rs 580 crore, up from Rs 280 crore, Nepal Rs 370 crore, up from Rs 270 crore, Sri Lanka Rs 500 crore, up from Rs 290 crore, Afghanistan Rs 648.24 crore, Myanmar Rs 450 crore, up from Rs 125 crore, while Bhutan's allocation has been increased from Rs 3409.06 crore to Rs 3614 crore. Only the allocation to the Maldives remains the same at Rs 30 crore.