25/04/2016
BOOK REVIEW
Yogendra Kumar, Diplomatic Dimension of Maritime Challenges for India in the 21st Century, (New Delhi, Pentagon Press, 2015), Pages: 272, Price: Rs 995.00
Political leaders, journalists and scholars disagree when it comes to interpreting the defining characteristic of the 21st century. It has been depicted differently: ‘China's century’, ‘India's century’, ‘Asia’s century’, and ‘Afro-Asian century’. According to Admiral R.K. Dhowan, Indian Naval Chief, the current century is ‘the century of the Seas’, and India is ‘a maritime nation with a direct relationship to the Seas’.
The author of the book under review would agree readily. He is convinced about the vital importance of maritime challenges faced by India in the present century. He has, therefore, produced a full-length book focusing on the theme’s diplomatic dimension, set in the larger context of global geopolitics and the complex transition unfolding at present. The author is well equipped for the task, having served as the Indian envoy in three different regions – East Asia (Philippines), Central Asia (Tajikistan) and Africa (Namibia). His stint in the Ministry of External Affairs, dealing with multilateral organisations has further helped. This book project has been supported by the National Maritime Foundation (NMF), the premier think tank specialising in naval matters.
The book’s nine chapters ranging from ‘Introduction’ to ‘Conclusion’ cover all possible facets of the chosen subject. Substantively, it begins with analysing the evolution of maritime thinking and diplomatic dimension for the period 1949–91. Thereafter, it moves to shed light on the international security milieu post-Cold War and India's national objectives. It then focuses on the post-Cold War international maritime milieu and the role of our maritime agencies.
In the chapter entitled ‘India’s Mutating Maritime Challenges in the 21st Century’, the author presents informed glimpses of what the world should expect in the future. His analysis of future trends in naval and air warfare, cyber conflict and security, space security, terrorism and a whole host of non-traditional security threats is realistic. His pen-picture of international governance issues is relevant. In the chapter prior to ‘Conclusion’, he offers a set of well thought-out policy recommendations for India's maritime diplomacy in the future.
=>Rajiv Bhatia
Throughout its history, India has enjoyed a close relationship with the oceans. Its sailors, traders and adventurers left footprints in places as far away as the Mediterranean in the west, Africa’s eastern and southern coasts, and Java and Bali in the east. ‘India's maritime history is as old as India's history’, writes the author. He notes, that at independence Jawaharlal Nehru’s wise leadership was available to the nation. He was a statesman, deeply conscious of the significance of the Indian Ocean for India. K.M. Panikkar, a leading strategic thinker, pronounced in 1951 that India's future was ‘closely bound up with the strength she is able to develop gradually as a naval power....’ Yet, a strange ‘sea-blindness’ descended on policymakers for about three decades, with New Delhi constrained to deepen its land-centric focus in view of existentialist threats from Pakistan and China. In 1950, the Indian navy received four per cent of the defence budget and was dismissed as India's ‘Cinderella service’.
The above scene began to change quickly, once the British navy started its withdrawal from much of Asia by the mid-1970s. This paved the way for dominance by the US navy and its rivalry with Soviet naval forces. The Indian Ocean countries, together with India, rode on the bandwagon of the ‘Zone of Peace’ proposal, with very little actual impact. However, New Delhi did see the writing on the wall. It started programmes to strengthen the navy and allowed it to play a notable role during the 1980s in Sri Lanka and Maldives as well as initiating cooperation with Seychelles and others. The author aptly maintains that the country’s ‘sophisticated institutional structure’, created in the first four decades, helped it ‘to grow into a major power’.
The end of the Cold War in 1991, globalisation, improving technology, and the communication revolution combined to transform the world’s geopolitics and geo-economics. It was the dawn of a new era that offered a promising future, but it also brought with it new, unprecedented threats. According to the author, India's traditional and non-traditional security challenges are ‘full-spectrum 21st century threats’. They are ‘a microcosm’ of the threats faced by the world at large. India's policy response has been to strive for a peaceful environment – so essential for its economic development, while gaining in strength and staying prepared for conflict and war. Consequently, the nation is perceived as a stabilising and benign status quo power, especially by the West.
To suggest that, as a rising power, India is interested in all the seas, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, reflects ambition and not recognition of the reality. Nevertheless, the author is well justified in stressing the centrality of the Indian
Book Review......
Ocean in India's strategic priorities. Robert Kaplan’s observation - that the Greater Indian Ocean ‘may comprise a map as iconic to the new century as Europe was to the last one’ – has indeed proved true.
India's focus of interest, as the book points out, is in ‘primary areas’ – the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal and various choke points, and ‘thereafter’ in ‘the secondary areas’ i.e. the Southern Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, the South China Sea and the East Pacific Region. In this broader target region, the presence of the US navy is still ‘overwhelming’. The new trend is the growing naval footprint of China, with its policy to create maritime infrastructure capable of dual usage – civilian and naval. Its assertiveness and aggressive postures are quite unsettling. Japan, dependent on energy supplies and international trade, has also been driven to revise its traditional self-defence policy and expand its influence in the region. The great power competition is apparent in both, the west and east of India, albeit with varying intensity.
The Indian navy and other agencies have to counter and cope with all these geopolitical and naval trends. Kumar points out that the revision of India's naval doctrine after 1991 has been ‘a continuous process’. The navy’s modernisation programme has progressed in accord with the doctrine. Its share of the defence budget has increased from 6.8 per cent in the 1980s to 18 per cent in 2013–14. Increasingly, India is perceived as ‘the net provider of security’ in much of the region.
The above objective can be achieved optimally by not only expanding the navy but also by making our naval as well as other diplomacy much more purposeful. The blossoming web of diplomatic and defence partnerships in recent years is a welcome sign. However, the nation’s internal vulnerability, exposed during the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, Pathankot, and elsewhere, should be addressed far more effectively.
This book presents a thorough review of Asia’s geopolitical contestation and its implications as well as the mutating non-traditional security threats. The former phenomenon sharpens polarisation and competition, whereas the second one induces cooperation. The author’s prudent advice is that India should calibrate its national effort and diplomacy to prepare for ‘both scenarios: creation of an all-inclusive maritime order and the international failure to do so’.
The author lays emphasis on ‘whole-of-the government participation’ in designing and executing a strategy to deal with the challenges. The key instrument would be ‘effective coordination across the multitude of assets and
=>Rajiv Bhatia
resources’. To quote him: ‘…the maritime challenges for India in the 21st century have to be tackled with great foresight and nimbleness’. Success in tackling these challenges will no doubt mould ‘India's own success as a strong economy and a stable, harmonious society’. His recommendations need to be debated and considered seriously.
In his assessment of the existing international governance structures, the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) receives close scrutiny. The author suggests that this institution should be raised to ‘summit level’.
One of the book’s strengths is its rich bibliography that fills 22 pages. It is a treasure trove for future researchers. In a nutshell, this well-researched book is a treat for the specialist, and the lay reader too will profit from it. It deserves to be given as wide dissemination as possible.
Rajiv Bhatia
Former High Commissioner of India to Kenya, to South Africa
Former Ambassador of India to Myanmar and to Mexico
Till recently, Director General, ICWA, New Delhi
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