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South Asia Geopolitics from Afpak to Sri Lanka

London, March 13, 2015

Panel:

Amjad Saleem, Humanitarian and geopolitics consultant;

Global Fellow, PS21

Omar Hamid, Former Pakistani government official; Head of Asia-Pacific Risk, IHS

Rahul Roy Chaudhury, Senior Fellow for South Asia, International Institute for Strategic

Studies

Chair:

Peter Apps, Executive Director, PS21

Peter Apps: Well, thank you very much for joining us on the inaugural London PS21 discussion

on South Asia. We have an excellent panel here to discuss how geopolitics is changing in the

region. We have Amjad Saleem, a veteran aid worker who I met by the side of the road during

the Sri Lankan war eight years ago shortly before I broke my neck, who is now a consultant on

both humanitarian affairs and geopolitics out of Colombo. We have Rahul Roy Chaudhury, the

South Asia specialist at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and probably one of the

leading experts in London on South Asian Affairs. And sitting next to him, we have Omar

Hamid, probably Londons other leading expert on South Asian Affairs, a former Karachi cop

and thriller writer who is now the head of Asia-Pacific at IHS.

Im Pete Apps, I am Global Defense Correspondent at Thomson Reuters and I am also Executive

Director of the Project for the Study of the 21st Century, the worlds newest and probably most

idiosyncratic think tank. Well get back to you with discussion overlooking London in a stunning

conference venue which was more or less exactly fifty-five minutes ago still my bedroom. I want

to start with Amjad. Sri Lanka, a place that the both of us know and love, we had presidential

elections in January removing President Mahinda Rajapaksa after two terms in office. The man

in the views of some, if not most, who won the Sri Lanka war for better or worse, and also the

man who moved Sri Lanka much closer to China and further from India. And how have things

changed in Sri Lanka since that election and what does that mean for the rest of the region where

India has been nervous at best?

Amjad Saleem: Thank you Peter, good evening ladies and gentlemen. Its, to use a South Asian

cricketing term, its hard to kind of be knocked up onto the opening bats when you have two

stars behind you, so Im going to try my best. I think the best way to talk about how things have

changed in Sri Lanka is the fact I can actually sit here and allow this to be recorded, and to talk

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about Sri Lanka. I mean I think that is the first element of the change that has taken place, that

there now seems to be a space that has opened up for just dialogue on issues of reconciliation and

governance whatever that canso, that space has opened up. Theres a will to move the

discussion forward. I think that is the key message. Whether things actually do follow on,

whether people, they accept the hundred-day pledge that President Sirisena came to office with

saying he was going to change, the reforms, I dont think that people are still giving him the

benefit of the doubt that will happen. But I think the challenge for him now is to kind of live up

to the expectations.

Now, what this means in terms of the region, I guess, is that for the last maybe five years in

particular, I think the relationship has become skewed where India, for better or for worse over

the last 30 years particularly during the conflict, had a very interesting role, a very involved role

in Sri Lanka. So from the 80s, it was maybe more support for perhaps the creation and the

training of the LTTE troops on the ground, to then taking a very antagonistic relationship with

the LTTE Tigers, to then kind of working with the Sri Lankan government and supporting them

at the end of the conflict, to being slightly left out of the cold. So what Sri Lanka and the

relationship between Sri Lanka and India, it is mainly of a big brother-small brother, each one

trying to see how.or the small brother trying to kind of step out of the shadow of the big

brother. But over the last five years, you noticed a definite skew towards China in terms of

investmentin terms of social investment, cultural investment, economic investment, the

amount of money that was pumped in to kind of, for major infrastructure projectshas meant

that India was not able to compete at that level. Which meant that what Sri Lanka then did was to

kind of move the axis of influence to another level. And then of course all of this is part of sort of

the New Silk Route that China has been trying to push through the Indian Ocean.

Apps: And has that changed with the election?

Saleem: Well, in the sense that the election has meant that most of the projects that China has

been undertaking in Sri Lanka has now been suspended. So the biggest-talking one was the port

city that was supposed to be built off Colombo. So it was a reclaimed land where it was

supposed to be a gaming hub of South AsiaFormula One race track, casinos, seven-star hotels,

everythingand which the Chinese government had a 99-year lease on 20 percent of the land.

All of this has now been suspended. Of course the challenge for the Sri Lankan government is

that the Chinese Premier actually came and inaugurated the project last year. So, theres a huge

challenge in how they balance that, and sort of saying that there were no tenders, it was done

very shadily. All of these things to kind of then say, okay we need to work with the Chinese

government. The other challenge I think that Sri Lanka has is that last year quote-unquote naval

exercises were conducted with Chinese submarines that came to Sri Lankas shores. Which

again, I think that is one of the alarm bells that rang for Delhi in terms of what does that mean in

terms of Chinese navy and military

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Apps: I want to come to Rahul now. Indias priorities strategically for most of the last half-

century has been facing off against Pakistan. The rise of China obviously changes things in

South Asia. I mean, how worried is India about China, and how much has China really upped its

clout in the region?

Rahul Roy Chaudhury: Peter, I think to understand the change that has taken place in India

since the last elections, I think it is very important to grasp the fact that for the first time in thirty

years India has a prime minister who actually wanted to become prime minister. And I say this

seriously, I say this seriously. You know in the last thirty years, India has had prime ministers

whove been accidental prime ministers or whove been the lowest common denominator in

terms of coalition politics. But Modi is someone who has wanted to become prime minister at

least for the last few years. He is now prime minister, he has a decisive majority in the Lok

Sabha, the low house of Parliament. He is

Apps: And hes not quite regretting his decision yet?

Chaudhury: No, no, no. In fact I think he is enjoying it, I think he particularly likes foreign

travel. But, I think it is important to understand that theres been a seminal change in the way

that India is going to be looking at foreign policy and security issues. For Modi, and make no

mistake, this is Modis government, this is not a BJP government, for Modis government the

China factor has astute primary issues that it has to deal with. Firstly, China is Indias largest

trading partner. Modi wants to have a peaceful relationship with China because thats the only

way that what he wants for India, which is domestic transformation of India, can take place if

you have a peaceful neighborhood. He wants investment from China as well coming in. I mean,

we saw that in the recent visit of President Xi Jinping to India. At the same time, the right-wing

factions, including of the RSS, are very keen that Modi adopt a hardline position towards China.

Particularly over the Tibet issue because of the presence of Hindu religious sites in Tibet. We

had unprecedented, we had an official swearing in of Prime Minister Modi on the 26th

of May.

We had, in addition to the eight members and leaders of the SAARC countries, we had in official

photograph the Prime Minister exiled of Tibet in the swearing-in ceremony, which is unthinkable

in the past. So for Modi today, and Modis government, China presents opportunities for a stable

neighborhood, but presents severe challenges. And I think in many ways, China is going to be

the death for Modi, whether it is in terms of the relationship with the South Asian neighborhood,

or it could well be on the bilateral issue on the border dispute.

Apps: Omar, as we move from south to north in South Asia, once we look at Pakistan and

Afghanistan, the rise of China is obviously a factor, right? But you also have the other elephant

in the room, which is the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. I mean, how does that

change the picture in the northern chunk of South Asia?

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Omar Hamid: Its been a very frenetic past three or four months as far as Afghanistan and

Pakistan are concerned. Of course, the biggest headline item there was the end of the ISAF

mission and the replacement of that with this overwhelmingly U.S.-led continuing mission, and

the most important aspect of that being that, you know, it had been thought for a long time that

the group would fundamentally be a training and support machine but, it was then found very

late in the day that knowing it was not in fact doing that. Indeed now the U.S. mission will

continue to be a partially combat mission, supporting Iran security forces by air strikes and

indeed on the ground as well. And on the other side of that, in Pakistan we had, what many have

sort of seen as perhaps potentially a paradigm change, with the attack on the public school in

Peshawar that sort of seemed to jog the Pakistan military establishment out of its kind of, you

know, position on militancy and the whole issue of good and bad Taliban, and all of a sudden

you know we found the military, which is now, again make no bones about it, the military is

firmly in control of security policy. You know, there is of course a political government, Prime

Minister Nawaz Sharif who was elected back in May 2013, remains the titular head of that

government, but security policy is coming from general headquarters and everyone else in the

sort of political spectrum across the country is following that. So weve seen movement across

action against groups like the Haqqani network, which was, you know, a long-standing irritant in

relations between the U.S. as well as the governments in Pakistan. Of course, I guess, the

ultimate litmus test will come when the army of the military establishment moves against, or

doesnt move against, whichever happens, these sort of Kashmiri-based groups like Lashkar-e-

Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, and that will really sort of

Apps: Make moves against them within Pakistan?

Hamid: Yeah, the proof of the pulling I suppose will come then. In terms of have they kind of

actually done this paradigm shift, or is it sort of still Iran-centric and centric towards the situation

in the tribal areas.

Apps: The U.S. has always been a sort of secondary player in South Asia. I mean, from your

perspective in Sri Lanka, Amjad, do people think much about what Washington, or for that

matter London or Brussels, does or thinks on South Asia or is the region generally running itself?

Saleem: I think definitely the former regime played on this view, and still plays on this view,

that basically this regime change that took place was mainly because of two elements. One was

the influence from the western world and one was from the Indian intelligence. So, they actually,

and the former president has actually come out and said that he believes its wrong, and the CIA

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and everyone else kind of supported this regime change and pumped in a lot of money, so I think

that there

Apps: Although in truth it is a shift from a sort of pro-China to a pro-Western Indian stance,

right?

Saleem: Yes, yes. And of course, you know with that has come, you know, within the first few

weeks of the election of President Sirisena, you had the Commonwealth Secretary General there,

you hadthe U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, you had Hugo Swire. So you

know, you had a series of people coming in. So, of course it does feed in that effectively there

was this stalemate in terms of dealing with Sri Lanka because of the fact that you had the

previous government there. So I think the challenge now is how do you move beyond this

because the other thing is that the current government, which is a national government which is

mainly made up of members of the United National Party of which the Prime Minister Ranil

Wickremesinghe is the leader, is seen as a very elitist pro-Western party, as well. So I think the

challenge for them is how do they convey this message to the grassroots who still believe that

perhaps that this is a western conspiracy and are still kind of negative about the West mainly

because of the UN Human Rights Council report.

Apps: I mean, Rahul how does that play in India? I mean, we have seen a deepening of ties

between Washington and New Delhi, particularly in part over worries over China. Is that

bringing the two countries closer together or is India still very keen to avoid, to keep itself non-

aligned as it has in the past?

Chaudhury: I think with Modis leadership were not going to hear much about the term non-

alignment. I think thats really now the past. But clearly Modi will want to continue to balance

the relations between the U.S. and China as I mentioned, with China as a potential for peace and

security but also a security challenge for India. But what I think in many ways what we are going

to see is going to be a tactical change in Indias perspective towards these countries. With the

U.S. we have seen two things that we havent seen before. The first is that when Modi went to

Washington, New York and Washington, last September there was a joint statement. When

President Obama came to Delhi in late January there was another joint statement. In both these

joint statements, both countries agreed that they were concerned over the freedom of navigation

in the South China Sea, a clear illusion to China, though China of course wasnt mentioned. But

the very fact that the South China Sea was mentioned in the joint statement is something that I

think signals

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Apps: That might antagonize Beijing. Neither country has any presence anywhere near the South

China Sea.

Chaudhury: Exactly. But it is significant that it was there in the U.S. joint statement. So thats

the first sort of shift that has taken place. The second shift I think is that in the U.S.-India nuclear

deal, which really sort of changed their relationship, that was signed in 2008 I think is now

moving towards implementation from the Obama visit last January where the issues about

nuclear civil liability laws have been sorted out, and we will have to see how nuclear commercial

companies act on this. But this again could provide a second, and I think a second clear tactical

shift for India and for Modi in how he is going to deal with the United States. My sense generally

is that I dont think were going to see a strategic shift whereby India is going to become an

alliance partner of the United States, or have military alliances

Apps: Or to become France or Germany, or

Chaudhury: Exactly, exactly, exactly. But the tactical part of it I think itself is very important

because this is not only signaling a clear difference in policy but also in terms of operational

aspects on the ground. Just to end on this, Modi hosted a meeting with all the heads of Indian

missions around the world a couple of weeks ago, and from what little we know what has come

out from that meeting in the public domain, he was basically telling them, Listen, you know,

this whole question of hedging, India has always been trying to hedge. You know, forget it now.

India needs to take a leadership role. Now, I have talked to several high commissioners who

attended that meeting, and it is still not quite clear what the leadership role means. But what is

very clear is that there is a very clear signal now that Modi has given that whole question of

balance and hedging and all, may not necessarily be in the same manner that weve seen it in the

past.

Apps: I mean, when we talk about hedging, Pakistan is the country at the devil gate, if you talk

to officials in Washington and elsewhere. The priority for Pakistan has always been to protect

against India, and Washington has always wanted to do other things whether its been defeating

the Soviet Union in Afghanistan or the fight against the Taliban. In this changing region,

particularly as China weighs in and India changes where it stands, how worried is Pakistan about

India and how much is that driving what it is doing in Afghanistan?

Hamid: I think there was a great amount of concern because theres always been, you know, a

deep-rooted perception within the Pakistani military establishment that at least one factionthe

sort of non-Pashtun faction, political faction within Afghanistan, you know these sort of, whether

it was Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, or people like that, were always too India-centric for

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the sort of taste of the Pakistani military establishment. And indeed, although President Ashraf

Ghani, when the elections were going on last year, it wasnt as if President Ashraf Ghani in the

past had had a fantastic relationship with Pakistan, but for them it mattered that A) he was a

Pashtun, and B) sort of, you know, he was better than Abdullah Abdullah and company. So you

actually had the phenomenon where, of course behind the scenes, Pakistan backed his candidacy

in not only that, but in a lot of areas, especially in southern and eastern Afghanistan, where you

had also some allegations of vote-rigging. A lot of that rigging was actually done by the Taliban

who said, Well you know, hes a fellow Pashtun, so well stuff the ballot boxes for him if thats

what it takes. But that, in this new kind, in the situation we find I think the couple of interesting

things is again, China is taking or seems to be taking a much more interested role. It is sort of

offering itself as

Apps: In Afghanistan?

Hamid: In Afghanistan, its offering itself as an honest broker. At the same time its kind of

green lighted and seems to be going ahead on this sort of massive economic projects in

Afghanistan that would link the regions, this China-Pakistan Economic Corridor which is about

$45 billion worth of infrastructure and energy stuff that will kind of go across, diagonally across

Pakistan into Afghanistan. So that, sort of, I think in many ways that is a reassuring thing for the

Pakistanis. They have their big friend actively throwing its weight in the game. And of course,

you know the other side of it remains that they remain the fundamental bugbear in Afghanistan

and elsewhere has been Indian influence. And

Apps: Is that moderated by greater Chinese influence?

Hamid: I think there is a hope that that would be the case, especially in Afghanistan because

Indian influence in Afghanistan has come oftentimes in shape of economic activity, so you know

mining, or infrastructure development, and all that. I think there is certainly probably a wish,

whether or not China decides to take it up and to what extent it decides to take it up is a separate

issue, but theres a wish that if that could be sort of replaced by Chinese influence in these

projects, that would be preferable.

Apps: I want to come back down, drag the conversation back down, to Sri Lanka. I nearly got

myself blown up in a Claymore mine explosion that was targeting the Pakistani Ambassador in

2006 about the same time Pakistan was supplying a lot of the weaponry to the Tamil Tigers.

How does Pakistan play in Sri Lanka over the last few years, particularly the new Sri Lanka

where we have a very different government?

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Saleem: Its still too early to kind of figure out where Pakistan plays in because I think, you

know, that it is symbolic that the first state visit that the new president did was to India, and

where he did sign amongst everything else a civilian nuclear deal, and peoples eyebrows were

raised. Well, what does Sri Lanka have to do with nuclear power? It has nothing to do with it, I

mean its a small island. I think its significant that theyve tried to redress the balance. I mean,

Pakistan has had a very interesting relationship with Sri Lanka. To some extent, the dynamics of

Pakistan-India have actually played out in Sri Lanka. And the former government did try to reach

out to India, especially over the last year, after the election of Prime Minister Modi where they

issued for the first time I think in the history of the relationship between Pakistan and Sri Lanka

the need for Pakistanis not to get a visa on arrival. Because Sri Lanka is one of the very few

countries where Pakistanis could get a visa on arrival. Whereas the fear was, that was expressed

from India was, that this was then an easy ground for Pakistani intelligence to come in and start

plotting ways of getting into South India, and then from there into India.

Apps: There was talk at the end of the war of Pakistanis setting up jungle training schools in

northern Sri Lanka and so forth, which India reacted very negatively to.

Saleem: Yes, I mean, you know, if you look at the way that influence, or who were the main

backers for the Sri Lankan government at the end of the war. And part of it, of course you had

India, you had Pakistan, you had China, you had Russia. So you know the Sri Lankan

government really had turned the axis of influence from sort of the west to the east, and Pakistan

I think has been there as part of an ally, but I think over the last year or so, I think even the

relationship with Pakistan was slightly on edge because of this newfound or new pressure from

the Indian government. But what was interesting was that despite Rajapaksa trying to reach out

to the Indian government on issues of terrorism and things like that, you know, the relationship

was not as cordial as it is now. I mean, today Prime Minister Modi is in Sri Lanka visiting, the

first prime minister in twenty-seven years to actually visit Sri Lanka. Hes going to Jaffna

tomorrow.

Apps: Worth pointing out that in the Tamil Tigers day, no Indian prime minister would have

risked themselves within a country mile of Jaffna.

Saleem: Yes, yes, so you know hes visiting. Hes opening up a cultural center. And you know,

India is investing a lot in the rehabilitation in the north. So I think, you know, this is the new

Non-Aligned Movement as the president of Sri Lanka has said that we are now going to be non-

aligned. We are not aligned to China. We are not aligned to India. We are not aligned to anyone

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else. Were just going to chart this territory. But interesting, where Pakistan fits in at the

moment? Were not really certain.

Apps: I mean, Rahul, I just want to broaden the discussion slightly. We havent touched upon

Bangladesh. How does Bangladesh play into the India-China-Pakistan-Sri Lanka paradigm thats

going on in the rest of South Asia?

Chaudhury: For India, Bangladesh is both an opportunity and a concern. The opportunity is that

if India is able to get its relationship with Bangladesh right, then actually this could be a beacon

for a stable South Asian neighborhood. But if it gets it wrong

Apps: Is this an admission that its got it wrong everywhere else?

Chaudhury: Well, you know, I think to be fair, you know, India has had difficult neighborhood

relations with other countries, partly from what weve heard before. There is a concept of big

brother, and its not surprising, I mean look at the map of South Asia. I mean India really

dwarfs other countries. It is also the only country that has links with most of the other South

Asian countries. So, you know, I can understand there is, you know, this concern by Indias

neighbors about Indias big brother sort of perspective. But, for Bangladesh I think if India is

able to sort of move forward on this relationship, then you will have issues like extremism and

terrorism, you know which will be of lesser concern for India emanating from Bangladesh. The

problem is that in the past the foreign policy issues relating to Bangladesh, the Chief Minister of

the eastern province of West Bengal has a key role in terms of a veto over a critical treaty on the

sharing of the river water, the Teesta River. Mamata Banerjee in the past has not agreed to go

along with the Indian Prime Minister on this issue. And my own sense is that it is very important

for India to take a magnanimous view towards Bangladesh, to move forward on the Teesta, get

the parliament approval on the land border enclaves exchange and actually work with the new

government of Sheikh Hasina to combat extremism and terrorism. And that is how really we

would see a tremendous improvement in India-Bangladesh relationship, and as I said, hopefully

a beacon for the rest of the neighborhood.

Apps: Weve got this far into the discussion of South Asia without barely touching on Kashmir

at all. Kashmir has been one of the sort of battlefronts that has not been as hot over the last

decade, where everything has been going on in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka and various other

places. Is it somewhere that people can afford to ignore, or is it somewhere that we should still

be watching as a flashpoint? I was going to give it to Omar first

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Hamid: I think, yeah, Kashmir hasnt been as sort of prominent on the agenda, and obviously

that has had to do with the fact that over the past ten or eleven years, especially sort of

subsequent of 9/11, Pakistans sort of relationship with various Kashmiri groups was brought

into question. Of course, that further increased with the Mumbai attacks in 2008, after which in

fact ISI, the Pakistani premier intelligence service, clamped down itself because it didnt want to

sort of, you know, accidentally trigger an escalation of things with India. It remains, I mean you

know, its not as if the situation remains at the status quo. I think what has happened, especially

when Prime Minister Sharif was elected, he being a sort of native Kashmiri, its always sort of

been his thing to kind of push past the issue of Kashmir to try to improve relations with India. He

did that and took up Prime Minister Modis invitation to his swearing in ceremony last May and

there was this thing that Sharif would push relations with India himself without necessarily

taking dictation from the military. That did not go down very well with the military to say the

least. I think subsequently with the sort of the domestic turmoil that he faced and domestic

terrorism, weve seen Sharif himself now back away from that. From the point of view of the

military there was a sort of perception to the people that I spoke to that they feel, Well, we for

the past two years or so had tried, and almost been rolled backwards, trying to improve relations

with India but we didnt received any reciprocal intimations on the other side. Now, the

argument there, I would say, is that their timing wasnt great because prior to the elections in

India the last couple of years of the Congress Government was sort of mired in political

paralysis. It was clearly a government on the way out so I wouldnt have expected there to have

been any great initiatives as far as trying to improve relations where Pakistan was concerned and

with the incoming government of Prime Minister Modi, again you know, they had a different

agenda and of course Rahul will sort of speak more on this. It certainly seems to be that my

impression that the Modi government initially wanted to focus on the domestic and wider

relations in South Asia rather than getting stuck with the issue of Pakistan and Kashmir right off

from its first day in. So in terms of timing, Pakistans timing in terms of what they said or felt

was not getting the response, it wasnt great time. Perhaps they should have jigged that a little bit

up. But yeah, its been quiet. I mean, Rahul

Apps: Yeah, Rahul and then I want to open things up to the board of questions.

Chaudhury: Sure. I think as Omar said, for India, the Kashmir issue has far lesser order of

priority than for Pakistan and weve seen this over the last few decades. I think its important to

realize that actually Pakistan has taken a step forward in this issue by, in effect, agreeing with

India that it will hold a dialogue with India despite the absence of a Kashmir resolution. So the

dialogue will be moving towards a Kashmir resolution, hopefully. So I think Pakistan has taken

a step in that direction which I think is not well understood on the Indian side. On the India-

Pakistan relationship, briefly, I think very often we feel that Modi has sort of forged a disfigured

relationship with Pakistan. I was in Islamabad a few weeks ago and there was tremendous

concern over Modis election and a sense from Pakistan that Modi was hostile towards Pakistan.

I think it is important to point out that Modi has inherited tense relations with Pakistan. I mean,

today there is no official dialogue between the two countries but that is because in January 13th

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the then Prime Minister of India said that because of the spurt in violence across the line of

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control said that there could not be business as usual and India stopped the dialogue. Modi, as

Omar said, invited the heads of government to his inauguration and swearing in ceremony so the

idea then was that the India-Pakistan dialogue would resume in August with the foreign

secretaries. Unfortunately a few days before that, India abruptly cancelled that meeting because

of the meeting that the Pakistan High Commission had with Delhi and the issue with Kashmir

grew. The point I want to make is that I would agree with Omar. As I said, Modis focus is

really the domestic and economic transformation of India, but, and the caveat here is that for this

transformation to take place, he has to have a peaceful neighborhood. And for that he needs a

relationship with Pakistan and he needs an engagement with Pakistan. So, a few days ago, in

fact, we a saw the Indian foreign secretary fly into Islamabad and there are talk on how best to

resume the dialogue between the two. To me, my sense is that unless India is able to have this

engagement with Pakistan, Modis key objective of transformation will not happen because there

may not be a peaceful neighbor.

Apps: Does anyone have any pressing questions, otherwise Im going to throw it at Francis?

Q1: When you look at the world, what, if anything, worries you about South Asia? Its not one

of peoples top five or six worries, right. Is that based on an assumption that its fine or that its

doing its own thing, its not too potentially toxic to the rest?

Q2: I have a question for Rahul and Omar. It has to do with the Kashmir state of actions and

PJPs now being part of a coalition with the PDP What do you think it means for the domestic

politics of India and too, what does it mean for the politics of Pakistan?

Chaudhury: I mean, the Congress Party has turned the PJP/PDP alliance into an unnatural

alliance. Clearly these are two opposing political partied with different ideologies but what is

interesting is that they have actually come together, in a coalition, to rule over [unknown] and

Kashmir and I think its a step in the right direction because it is a very clear message that has

come out. I think that the two important messages firstly, there is a common minimum program

that both parties have agreed to and in the common minimum program actually there is a much

larger role than in the past given to Kashmir for confidence building ect. Across the border. So

that I think is important in terms of engagement. The second aspect are the issues like article

370, its very clear that thats not on the table anymore and the idea of the new coalition

government is to move forward on economic development and raise the standard of living for

people. But of course, there will be problems within these two parties. Weve already seen the

first key problem when the chief minister of Kashmir said that the peaceful elections were owed

to Pakistan and the home minister of India and the prime minister said, Hold it, thats not right.

The peaceful elections in Kashmir were due to the Elections Commission of India and the people

of India and the Army of India. So, you know, there are contradictions between the two, but I

think the very fact that there is a split verdict in Kashmir will require both the parties to actually

work together and I think that is a positive signal.

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Apps: I want to come to [audience member], youre a South Asian person What are your

thoughts after discussion, any questions?

Q3: Yes, I do have a question on Sri Lanka and the Indian Ocean region, feel free to jump in. At

the parliament today, Modi was making a speech and he emphasized how important it is to have

Sri Lanka and India to cooperate on maritime security. Weve seen him go around the region

which is also, you would imagine as someone from India would have done that more often but

no other head of state has done it before that. So, how do you see that? Do you see Sri Lanka

tipping the balance, especially with China in the picture? How do you see that going?

Saleem: I mean I think you have to, you know, have this maritime Silk Road route that China is

trying to push from Seychelles all the way to the Maldives so I think if you look at Modis visits,

apart from the Maldives, hes visited all the islands and the places where China seems to have

been. So I think that there is definitely an interest from India to shift that balance and see where

they can move. I mean Sri Lanka at the moment, you have to realize, is still a transitional

government. So until we have parliamentary elections whenever they take place, scheduled for

next month and they could be postponed, I dont think youll any definite move on foreign

policy. What they have tried to do is focus on the domestic but because of two things, one is the

need to ease the international pressure in the wake of the human rights council report. Of course

India, being a keen observer but also a key player in issues having to do with North Sri Lanka in

terms of the rights and grievances of the common people(?) and I think thats where they

[transition regime] have made an extra special effort to reach out to India and the rest of the

international community. Until now, I dont think until the next election it will move beyond

that and they are just trying to keep everything in balance.

Apps: Rahul, Ill come to you quickly and then Im going to throw another question into the

mix.

Chaudhury: I think its like to answer this. Ive been writing my third book on Indian naval

strategy so this is very important to me. Ive been following [Modis] visits very closely to the

Seychelles, Mauritius, and now Sri Lanka and theres one thing that stands out. I mean, its the

first bilateral visit of any Indian prime minister to Sri Lanka but hes been there before for

multilateral visits. The thing that stands out really is one thing and that is you look at Modis

statements and he talks about the Indian Ocean being part of Indias neighborhood and that to me

is the most significant point of departure between this government and the past. Ive argued in

my first two books that the Indian Ocean is part of Indias neighborhood and it has to be seen

like that and we have today the prime minister saying, whether it is the Seychelles or Mauritius,

that it is part of Indias near or extended neighborhood. That mindset is what is going to be

critical, not only for how India is able to become a net security provider for Indian Ocean islands

that have a stand policy to become, but more importantly we will see a great game emerging

between India and China in the Indian Ocean. Weve seen this in Sri Lanka, actually, where the

contract for the Colombo port issue was cancelled and we had it in the Maldives where the

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Indians contract was cancelled and the Chinese came in. Theyre going to see much more of

this maneuvering. Its an exciting time, actually, for this.

Apps: I want to throw in a question that brought up. If we were able to talk about any other

area of the world, we would be talking about the seismic rise in unrest weve seen since the

2010-2011 Arab Spring syndrome; its important in Russia, its important in China, its

important in UK domestic politics, US domestic politics. Is it not a factor in South Asia, or is it

not playing into these discussions, yet?

Hamid: This has been a question especially because from Pakistans point of view, many

people have often said, Well, Pakistan, by all rights, should be a country ripe for an Arab Spring

type of situation. We havent seen that, I think you of course there is civil unrest of various type

and forms as there is in India and even Sri Lanka, but you havent seen that kind of outpouring

on a single issue that sort of, you know, overthrows a regime. I think part of that perhaps, in

reference to Pakistan, through the fact in 2013 we had a peaceful, democratic transition, from

one party to another when the previous government completed its tenure, the first time a political

government did that, and the second government came in. Elections are good pressure relievers

that let the pressure out and after a couple of years everyone gets angry with the next

government

Apps: These countries are by and large democracies, they have unexpected changes in

government, democratically speaking. Any more questions?

Q4: Yeah, I had one question. It was about the role of Modis leadership role. It seems he is

moving towardsif his focus is on domestic challenges and he needs consensus externally to

achieve that. It seems anywhere he turns for foreign leadership he is going to get trouble. So it

seems his domestic platform is pushing towards continuing the edge. I wonder if there is a

natural tension there and how you see that playing out.

Chaudhury: For Modi, in terms of foreign policy, he has two advantages. Firstly, because he

has majority in the lower house of parliament, he know he is there for the full five year term.

Prime Ministers [of India] have always led on foreign policy but there is a sort of comfort level

in what he does and what he says or how he implements it, he will be there for the next five

years. Equally important, the second thing is that he has no coalition partners to worry about.

Unlike in the past where weve seen the UPA coalition where foreign policy toward Sri Lanka

was dependent on what the DMK alliance in Sri Lanka, policy toward Bangladesh, and whole lot

of other issues For Modi, there is no dependence on any political party so what he decides, in

many ways will be what he looks to implement. In a way, the foreign policy part becomes

critical because the foreign policy aspect becomes an enabler to the priority he has set himself.

Unless he is able to ensure he has stability in the neighborhood, youre going to have problems

on a host of issues. To me, I think Modi has the advantage whether he actually acts on them is

something we will have to see. Weve had nine and a half months of the Modi government and I

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mean he has met forty leaders of foreign governments but were still waiting to see some of the

implementation aspects.

Saleem: Peter, on the Arab Spring, I think one of the things the former governments tried to do

is they tried to manufacture some kind of Arab Spring and protests that would have then justified

them trying to stick on to power and keep the security apparatus intact. I think what happened is

the reverse, that the Sri Lankan population by whole actually got out and voted and used social

media to get the people out and to talk about the campaign, to talk about corruption, and that is

what at the moment is keeping at least the current government slightly afloat is that as story of

corruption, the immense amount of corruption that has taken place under the regime, Sri Lankan

on the whole kind of expect their politicians to be corrupt anyway. I think there was a line that

was crossed in terms of corruption that I think that even the people couldnt tolerate.

Apps: Even India has had a rise in this like the protests over the New Delhi Rape and so forth.

We have seen this but theyre generally been on topics that have been more against the

establishment in general rather than saying that lends itself to a political backlash. I also want to

see if anyone else has any other questions

Q5: So just a follow up question. I know you were part of the Indian government in an advisory

position. Do you see a new BJP or Modi, I imagine there is a lot of talk about it, and also a

question on the India-China Great Game youre talking about. The point still is that in terms of

investment and money, India is far, far behind China. China has already put in that money. As

you said, Modis key foreign policy issue is the economy so on the one hand, you want money to

come into the country but then he needs to be also investing in order to have a strategic

influence. How do you see that?

Apps: I want to take another question at the back as well because its always good to leave

people wanting more and I fear that might be the food.

Audience Question: Speaking of the great game, how do you think the great game in

Afghanistan will play out? Will Pakistan be as visibly strategic as it was in the past decade or so,

although this new relationship with China and the new co-operation with the US and

Afghanistan. Will that lend it itself to a more invisible and how do you think India will feel about

that?

Apps: Rahul first and then we will come to Omar and then finish with Amjad.

Chaudhury: Sure, I think yes clearly there will be a Modi doctrine that we will talk out. We

don't know yet what its like. We are seeing the contours of such a doctrine. All I can say is that I think one part of the Modi, of what will become the Modi doctrine, I think. I believe it is his

focus on the neighbourhood. I think Ive seen in the last 10 and a half months that this government, Modi government, has focused much more on the neighbourhood than any other

government in the past. We've talked about his visit to Sri Lanka. You know, I was shocked

when Modi went to Nepal soon after he became Prime Minister, it was a first visit of an Indian

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Prime Minister in 17 years. It was ridiculous! I mean shocking and Sri Lanka bi-lateral visit 28

years, etc. The neighbourhood is, I think the key element of the Modi doctrine will be the focus

on the neighbourhood, and I think in terms and I believe the most important country, the two

most important countries in the neighbourhood are going to be China and Pakistan-Afghanistan

kind of issue as well as the Indian Ocean. On the Indian Ocean, yes I mean China has deep

pockets. I mean, I was talking to the Maldives, actually the high commissioner in London, and he

was telling me that in the hotels in the Maldives are packed with Chinese tourists. There are

about several flights a day from different parts of China coming into the Maldives because high-

end tourist market. I mean, obviously for Indians it is very difficult to afford you know $500-

$600 a night for a hotel. But, I don't think India is going to compete against this. So its not going to be a financial sort of funding versus an economic funding sort of issue. India is going to

leverage its key strengths. What are those strengths? Those strengths are proximity. Firstly, to

the Indian Ocean island states compared to China. Very clearly in terms of its distance but also

its naval capabilities. It will be on issues for example, maritime domainal awareness, electronic

surveillance, exclusive economic zone co-operation for these countries, counter terrorism,

counter extremism. So you know, there is a whole lot of issues, security relations, and maritime

security. You had asked about where actually India will have automatically a far greater role to

play. Today, you have radar stations on the Maldives that are connected to India. You have a tri-

lateral agreement between Maldives, Sri Lanka, and India. An amazing one on counter terrorism

and operational aspects which very few people know about. But, this is the sort of way India is

going to be there. So its leverage is going to be on security issues rather than economic.

Just on the Afghanistan issue. You know India has spent 2 billion dollars of aid and blood also,

you know, in terms of Indian diplomats being killed and others being killed in Afghanistan over

the last 10 years. This has been largely due to the NATO-ISAF presence that provided the

ability, the aid to sort of go across. For India, Pakistan and President Ashraf Ghani have, Ashraf

Ghani as we've heard from Omar has made the outreach towards Pakistan. In many ways, I think

for India a stable Afghanistan is key. If President Ghani is able to get the Pakistani security to

bring the Taliban to the negotiating table and also clearly threaten the end of safe havens for the

Afghan Taliban in Pakistan, I think thats a win-win for India as well. For India stability of Afghanistan is key. If you don't have stability, thats where the concern comes in. I dont see a zero sum game between Afghanistan, between India and Pakistan in Afghanistan. Pakistan is a

neighbour of Afghanistan and India is not. India is a near neighbour. Pakistan has tremendous

leverages and a very strong relationship with Afghanistan. India has the ability to provide

tremendous soft power in that sense, but I think the key will be to see a stable Afghanistan. My

own sense is that India would be the first to try to assist in trying to bring about stability, but this

becomes one issue between Afghanistan and Pakistan primarily.

Hamid: I want to add to what Rahul is saying. I think the difference has become that all of the

major stake holders realise that regionally a stable Afghanistan is paramount. Whether it is china,

wanting to sort of expand into Central Asia or looking at it from the Shanghai co-operation

organisation. Afghanistan is key, or rather stability in Afghanistan is key. As far as Pakistan is

concerned, there has been a definite change in the thinking in terms of they believe that, you

know, its not. Its, perhaps, not even in their interest as was definitely the thinking in the past to have sort of you know for lack of a better word a puppet government or a....

16

Apps: Just to stop you there you know the idea that Afghanistan should be stable is one that

everyone has agreed on for a long time. Looking at poor Tom who had to wander around in

circles in the country, not in substantial period of time attempting to make it so. Does that mean

that now the West is gone, the actual powers that invaded, and they are now sorting it out among

themselves?

Hamid: I think the difference is that in the past everyone's version of stability of Afghanistan

was exactly that. They insisted that it was only their vision for Afghanistan would bring in

stability. Whereas I think now perhaps we probably will see is a greater give and take so you if

there is a coalition government that includes people like Abdula Abdula.

Apps: An Afghan coalition government.

Hamid: An Afghan coalition government in Kabul. It will not be unacceptable to Pakistan if

potentially India has commercial interests and they remain there. It will not be a sort of deal

breaker. The same thing on the Chinese side. So I think that is the direction we are going. Even

in terms of the Taliban I think they've changed as an organisation. They've become far more

pragmatic in their approach, you know, and like everyone else they want to share in the potential

bounty that maybe, if there is a stable Afghanistan, whether it is mineral resources or whatever.

Apps: Amjad, I mean as we get to the end, are you a South Asia optimist after everything we've

talked about today or where do you think we're going?

Saleem: I mean we have to be an optimist otherwise we won't be able to survive in places like

Sri Lanka. I think that you know Rahul hit the nail on the head when he said that China has very

deep pockets. So I dont think India can afford the type of investment that China has made in places like Sri Lanka. I mean youre not talking just about infrastructure investment you're talking about tourism, you're talking about the cultural exchanges, scholarships, cultural centers,

you know all sorts of things casinos, and everything else. So I don't think that's it, but what India

has tried to blend, particularly in Sri Lanka, is that it has offered a multi-dimensional aspect. So

if you look at the agreements that were signed today in Colombo, you have waivers on visas,

student exchanges, things that are more cultural, more soft that probably need to be, will help Sri

Lanka. Of course, the perennial question for Sri Lanka is this issue of the North. How do you

engage on a political solution that brings the Tamils into the picture? And I think from that

perspective, I think India is the key ally in this and how it deals with the South Indian issue. The

challenge I think for Sri Lanka and India, I think is two. One I think is the fisherman. I think

that's something we haven't really discussed in terms of the Sri Lankan fisherman and the Indian

fisherman and this space between India and Sri Lanka which is contested in terms of who is

allowed to fish where and perhaps I think one other challenge is, again we haven't really

discussed is, where does the SAARC (the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation)

fit and how can that be strengthened as a regional institution that allows the different parties to

play. And the challenge for that is unlike other institutes, like ASEAN where ASEAN countries

play a very non-interventionist role, I think you know the challenge you have in South Asia is

while people, while their very happy to respect the territorial status quo, they're also quite

interested in interfering in other countries. So I think that's where I would say the challenge is

and that's where we need to be looking at.

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Apps: Thank you very much indeed! We are continuing this conversation over alcohol and food

without requiring money. But, thank you very much for coming. Its always good to finish with Sri Lanka as the favoured result that issued due to a rather nasty war, that I broke my neck in and

still feel largely bitter about. But, thank you very much for coming. Amjad, Rahul, and Omar

excellent discussion on South Asia. Thank you very much and join us again soon. Take care. Bye

now!

Transcript by Yaseen Lotfi, Rhea Menon and Amanda Blair