Socio-Political Trends in Southern Asia Security Implications for India
Partha S. Ghosh*

Southern Asia is the most populous region in the world. The total population of the region in 2001 was 1441 million (excluding southern China, the data for which have not been separately computed). If the population of China were added, it could be about 2.7 billion, almost half of the world's population (see Table 2).

Table 2: Population of Southern Asia

Human Development Report 2003 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 250-53.

* Source for Afghanistan: Asian Development Bank, Health Sector Reform in Asia and the Pacific: Options for Developing Countries (Manila, 1999), Appendix 147

From the above table it would be seen that the growth rates of the countries are not uniform. For example, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the two other populous countries of the region, would grow at a faster rate than India and China. This has security implications for the region, which we would discuss later. In the meantime, Table 3 would suffice to emphasise the point.

Table 3: Population Growth Rate

Source: UNDP,>Human Development Report 2003(New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 250-53.

Source for Afghanistan: Asian Development Bank, Health Sector Reform in Asia and the Pacific: Options for Developing Countries (Manila, 1999), Appendix 147.

Religious Composition: Of the ten countries under survey, two are predominantly Hindu, namely, India and Nepal; four are predominantly Muslim, namely, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, the Maldives and Pakistan; three are predominantly Buddhist, namely, Bhutan (Mahayana Buddhism), Myanmar (Mahayana Buddhism) and Sri Lanka (Theravada Buddhism); and China is a mix of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism. India has a large Muslim minority constituting almost 14 per cent of the population and the same is the case with Bangladesh having a large Hindu minority constituting approximately 10 per cent of its population. But while the actual numbers of Indian Muslims as well as their proportion to the population are increasing, those of the Bangladeshi Hindus are systematically declining. Given the fact that during the period 1900-1990, the Muslim population of South Asia has increased from 24.5 per cent to 28 per cent of the population, while the Hindu population together with other India-born religions like Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism has declined from 74.5 per cent to 69 per cent of South Asia's population,9 and given also the fact that this period has witnessed the worst polarization of Hindu-Muslim politics leading not only to the dismemberment of India but also frequent Hindu-Muslim riots, this religious demographic variable needs careful reflection.

Against the background of the militant assertion by some sections of hardcore Islamist groups,

it calls for emphasis that Southern Asia hosts the largest number of Muslims in the world compared to any other region. They number about 450 million. Except a small proportion of them who live in Afghanistan, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka, almost the entire community is shared between Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, in that order. Pakistan is the second largest Muslim country in the world after Indonesia, a position earlier held by Bangladesh. Ironically, however, global Muslim politics is dictated by events in West Asia, more particularly, the Arab world.10

In Southern Asia, as everywhere else, nation building essentially boils down to territorial integrity. How to ensure this is the greatest challenge for all governments. There are two paths to this, one by enlisting the support of major powers, both in the neighbourhood as well as on the global scene, and the other by working out such a political development strategy that would prevent the marginalization of any community to the extent of its asking for secession. In Southern Asia, so far only Pakistan has disintegrated. The reason was that the Pakistani state could neither manage domestic disaffection nor external danger. On the one hand, there was the massive East Pakistani rebellion against West Pakistani highhandedness, and on the other, there was a hostile India willing to take advantage of Pakistan's predicament. The fact that no other country has experienced dismemberment does not mean that they all have done very well and have reasons to be complacent. All nations in the region display symptoms of societal disharmony, which if not contained at the appropriate time, can lead to insurmountable integration crises in the future. As far as India is concerned, the problem can emerge primarily from three directions – communal, Centre-State divergence, and intra-State and inter-State disparities. So far as the communal question is concerned, it has to be viewed from a larger perspective of ascendancy of religion as a political force in almost the entire region.

It is speculated that religion, ethnicity and caste would play an increasing role in the politics of the region. Southern Asia being both pluralistic and poor provides a fertile ground for this undesirable development. Still, what is expected to happen is not the type of clash of civilizations that Huntington talks about but something like civil wars within civilizations that Joseph Nye has recently articulated.11From the trend of politics in recent times in at least three countries of the region, namely, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, it can be seen that, although in all these countries there is an unprecedented ascendancy of religious politics, the forces opposed to it are also strong.12This so-called civil war type situation, however, would have its own hazards, often impelling the state to behave in a partisan manner, thereby hitting at the very roots of rule of law.

This brings us to the fundamental question about the sanctity of political institutions. So long as the institutions of governance are above sectarian motivations, all communities repose faith in them. The rules of the political game are well known and everybody knows his limits. But sectarian politics by definition has the potential to destroy this fabric. The problem is compounded in the Indian type of federalism, which sometimes is too federal although the classical literature on federalism would not take note of that. Let us take two examples. First, most of the political parties are not federal, and second, political idioms are generally national but politics is local. Together, these phenomena can cause serious problems, as we would see below.

One of the best examples of federalism is the United States. The political parties there are federal as a result of which, although States have their distinct identities, on matters of national concern there is seldom any serious divergence between the States and the Federal Government. India presents just the opposite picture. Here, apparently the Central Government is all-powerful and the Governor is supposed to be the watchdog of central interests. But on the crucial question of law and order, the Central Government is virtually powerless even when larger constitutional commitments are in question. To cite an example, although the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were ready in shining armour on December 6, 1992, the day the Babri mosque was demolished, they could not save the structure despite the Central Government's commitment thereto. The assistance of the CRPF can be requisitioned only by the State Government, which the then Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Government in Uttar Pradesh (UP) did not opt for. As a result, under the nose of a huge contingent of CRPF personnel, the mosque was reduced to rubble. The question of police omissions or prejudiced commissions during communal riots, in some of which the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) of UP and the Bihar Military Police (BMP) have earned notoriety, is a partof the same malaise. With the decline of single party rule at the Centre and its replacement by coalition Governments, this tendency is going to be enduring.

Growing regionalism, which would inevitably lead to sub-regionalism in due course, would wreak havoc in the peripheral regions of the country like Kashmir and the North East. The disparity amongst the regions of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, in the State of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), in terms of development aid and investment has often led to acrimony and to demands for the trifurcation of the State into three units.

The Northeast provides a peculiar amalgam of centrifugal and centripetal forces, which creates political complexities of which the growth of insurgency is just one symptom. While the 6^th Schedule of the Constitution deals with the tribal areas, the Panchayat System (73^rd Amendment) deals with the non-tribal areas. But Arunachal Pradesh, though tribal, is not covered by the 6^th Schedule. (It was the North East Frontier Area (NEFA) during the British era. On August 15, 1947, when India became an independent nation, NEFA became an integral part of the Union of India. It was administered by the External Affairs Ministry with the Governor of Assam acting as agent to the President of India. In 1972, NEFA became a Union Territory and it was named as Arunachal Pradesh. In 1987, statehood was conferred on it.)

Administrative complexities and contradictions also characterise the order of local governance in other States in the Northeast, which are highlighted in Table 4.

Table 4: Local Government Structure in the North East

Communalism and its Security Connection

The communal scenario in India, though not so depressing at the moment, is still a matter of concern. The Gujarat anti-Muslim violence of early 2002 is a pointer to the fact that the situation could go out of control at any time, particularly if the Government is not determined to prevent this from happening. That communal riots have their inevitable fallout on internal security is empirically testable. The destruction of the Babri mosque led to riots in Mumbai, which were soon followed by serial bomb blasts that rocked the city. The bomb attacks on the Gateway of India in Mumbai in early 2004 by some ordinary Muslims confounded academics and perceptive policy practitioners, confirming their worst fears that, once the psyche of a particular community is bruised by intermittent violence unleashed on them, it is a matter of time before they organise themselves to take up arms against the state which has been considered as partisan. Political psychologist Ashis Nandy may one day be proved prophetic for his statement that “majority actions are bound to provoke reaction. For instance, Christians were attacked in the Dang and other places in Gujarat in the recent past. A few years down the line, you may see them regroup and organise themselves as Christian terrorists.”13 The former Mumbai Police chief, Julio Ribeiro, expressed a similar anxiety after visiting camps in Ahmedabad where the Muslim victims of the 2002 Gujarat riots were sheltered. He wrote:

I visited the Shah Alam camp where nearly 10,000 Muslims had been accommodated after their homes were burnt and looted and their relatives raped and killed. I had expected histrionics and wailing but I was astounded at the matter of fact manner in which young boys and girls recounted the sordid details of what they had seen and experienced. It gave me an uneasy feeling that these young people were not going to forget the injustices heaped on them. I do not know if the VHP and the Bajrang Dal, who had been gloating over their ‘success' in Gujarat, visualised the danger to which they are exposing their innocent co-religionists somewhere, sometime in the future.14

There is evidence that the BJP, which emerged as a centre-stage party and is going to remain so in the foreseeable future, has not given up its Hindutva agenda. Under the cover of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government it merely put this agenda on the back burner, allowing it to smoulder for the appropriate time to stoke the flames. Even when the slogans of the party for the 2004 parliamentary elections were ‘India Shining' and ‘Feel Good', thereby highlighting the development agenda of the NDA under Atal Behari Vajpayee's leadership, the BJP did not fail to remind the electorate that the party still attached priority to the abolition of Article 370 and the construction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya, both of which had significant pro-Hindutva overtones.15After the defeat of the BJP at the polls, the party has unequivocally returned to its Hindutva plank. It is relevant to mention that, in spite of systematic improvement in Indo-American relations during the NDA rule, in the reckoning of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which submits its report to the US President, the Secretary of State and the Congress for possible policy action, India figured as one of the ‘countries of particular concern (CPC)' where there is ‘systematic, ongoing, and egregious violation of religious freedom that the Governments are responsible for or have tolerated.' Of the 11 countries designated as CPC, three were from Southern Asia, namely, India, Pakistan and Myanmar.16It is common knowledge that, given the religious make up of the region and cross-cultural linkages, communal flare-ups in any part of the region have ripple effects on other parts, which have the potential to turn terrorist in due course of time.

The socio-economic development of India, which has inevitable impact on national politics, is creating two Indias – one developing fast and the other languishing. One important reason for this dichotomy is the differentiated achievement on the family planning front. While some States like Goa, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have reached or are near the replacement level, the States of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, which account for nearly 40 per cent of the country's population, had in 1991 total fertility rates between 4.5 and 5.2. As per projections, by 2016, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and West Bengal would also attain the replacement level. But Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh would reach the replacement level only after 2050.17These inter-State differentials in the growth rates of population could have serious political implications because less developed regions would have larger representation in the Parliament at the cost of the developed regions. No wonder that Tamil Nadu's K. Karunanidhi was up in arms against any move to delimit the parliamentary constituencies, which ultimately forced the Vajpayee Government to agree that, till 2020, no delimitation would be attempted. But the fact of the matter is that the issue is a veritable time bomb, which would explode the moment the question is raked up.

In terms of economic achievement also there are two Indias: While Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab and Tamil Nadu are growing fast as their Economic and Social Infrastructure Indexes suggest, the entire Hindi-speaking belt as well as the entire North East is lagging behind. The remaining States have a mixed record. According to Omkar Goswami, Chief Economist of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the States having the best investment climate are Maharashtra and Gujarat, while the States having good investment climate are Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Interestingly, during the last five years these States have been ruled by five different political parties, yet all of them retained an almost total commitment to privatisation and economic reforms.18

The phenomenon of two Indias has the most telling expression in the rural-urban divide of the country. As the economy gets more and more polarised, the rate of migration of the rural poor to urban centres is bound to accelerate causing all kinds of urban tensions. Urbanisation per se is indicative of political development, but that kind of urbenisation connotes transformation of rural societies into urban centres on account of economic and social developments. The rural migration-fed urban growth, however, brings in its train societal tensions such as crime and inter-communal disharmony. Since sizeable proportions of these rural migrations are into the urban areas of other States, the ‘sons of the soil' syndrome is the natural fallout, with its attendant disintegrative tendencies. The anti-Bihari violence in Assam in 2003 is just a pointer of things to come. In Mumbai, the Shiv Sena polemics against outsiders erupt every now and then.  Demographic studies suggest that, with the growth of population, there would be progressive subdivision of familial landholdings resulting in lack of opportunities for rural folk. Watching the trends during the period 1971-1992, it can be estimated that the number of rural households with less than 2.5 acres of land will increase to approximately 87 per cent by 2012.19The trend is indicative of an increase in the number of households without land and ‘casualisation' of the workforce, in both on-farm and off-farm employment.

There is yet another way of visualizing the two Indias, and that is from the perspective of technology. There is a technology gap between rural and urban India on the one hand, and between political India and corporate India on the other. In spite of the hype about taking computers to the villages, the reality is quite different. In 2002, four major cities accounted for 53 per cent of all the computers sold in India. The next 12 per cent was purchased in another four cities. That means eight cities accounted for 65 per cent of all PCs sold while the rest of India purchased the remaining 35 per cent. Since 650 million people live in rural India one can imagine how little the villages contributed to these sales.20One must not lose sight of the fact that, since the power situation in the rural areas is dismal, this situation has yet another explanation.

In trying to explain the two serious insurgent challenges to the Sri Lankan state, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP, People's Liberation Front)-led insurgency in 1971 and the Tamil insurgency in the 1980s, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States argued that both coincided exactly with the years when the 15-24 ‘youth bulge' in those communities exceeded 20 per cent of the total population of the community.22  If the same model is followed, it is advisable for India to watch out. According to projections, the total labour force aged 15 and above is likely to rise from 354 million in 1991 to 627 million by 2021 and to 692 million by 2031.23 Since it is unlikely that the Indian economy would be able to absorb this huge labour force in the next two decades because of factors that we discuss below, widespread youth unrest can be expected. How virulent those unrests would be is difficult to predict, but given the demographic scenario, it is likely that these would be more acute in less developed areas, many of which are in the border regions.

It would be instructive to underline the fact that, out of the 28 States that constitute the Indian Union, 17 have international borders: Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttarakhand and West Bengal. The States, which do not have international borders, are only Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Orissa. Out of the 17 border-abutting States, as many as eight are in India's Northeast, which means the entire north-eastern region calls for special attention, particularly because all kind of ethnicity-related insurgencies are already in action,some of which secure support and safe-haven in neighbouring countries.

The economy of India's Northeast is agrarian in character. However agriculture is still in its traditional form with labour intensive methods and low capital investment. The primary sector – comprising agriculture and mining and quarrying – contributed almost 35 per cent of the total Net State Domestic Product (NSDP) of the region, which is significantly higher than the national figure of 28.78 per cent, over the last decade. The contribution of the secondary sector – comprising manufacturing, construction, gas and electricity supply – which provides the essential capital base of the economy, hinges around 18 per cent in the region, compared to the national average of 28.20 per cent. The tertiary sector – which accounts for all the other sectors of the economy not included in the primary and secondary sectors –contribute 47 per cent to the region's NSDP, which is again higher than the all-India figure of 43.02 per cent. It is important to note that the contribution of public administration has been growing over the last decade and accounts for almost 10 per cent to 16 per cent of the NSDP in the States of the Northeast. Another significant growth has been in the sphere of construction activity. However, in the absence of a strong industrial base, the growth of the construction sector presents a paradoxical situation. One plausible explanation for this surge in the construction sector is perhaps the growth of service sector and the real estate across all the States of the region. This growth of the construction sector has its impact in inducing cheap labour flow from the disguisedly employed labour force in agriculture to the urban centres, where the construction activities are located. The resultant effect of the present trend of the growth process has been the casualisation of labour and an increase in urban poverty.

The pace of industrialization in the region is very slow. Assam takes pride in the fact that the first oil refinery of the country was set up in Digboi. However, the petroleum industry in the region has been performing at a considerably lower level in the region than in other parts of the country. Despite the fact that the crude oil reserves in Assam (160,390 thousand tonnes) stand higher than Gujarat (148,020 thousand tonnes), the production of oil is higher in Gujarat. As revealed by the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE) statistics on Energy 2003, the production of crude oil in Assam has not only been below Gujarat, but has also been declining over the years. Statistics on the capacity utilization of the oil refineries reveal a relatively low level of capacity utilization compared to other refineries in the country. The figures indicate that capacity utilization in Guwahati refinery was only 45.9 per cent in 2002-03. The low capacity utilization coupled with declining production is indicative of a decelerating growth process in the most vital industrial sector in the economy of the region. The recent opposition of leading Naga insurgent groups to the Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC)-proposed explorations in Nagaland may cause the situation to deteriorate further.24

The region, which also has the largest reservoir of natural gas among the onshore bases, is also plagued by low production levels. The present trends in the growth process hardly indicate any positive impetus of growth in the next decade. In fact, the present deceleration in the economy of the region is likely to witness further curtailment of investment from term-lending financial institutions and deployment of business funds by the banking sectors. Of late, development thinkers from the region have been advocating cross-border trade as one way of inducing the growth impetus in the sluggish economy of the region, taking their cue from the Central Government's ‘Look East Policy'.25But, the ‘Look East Policy' is unlikely to work for three reasons - first, the insular mentality of the tribes; second, the poor transport and communication linkages, both intra-state as well as inter-state; and third, the lack of entrepreneurship. The last mentioned is a cultural phenomenon resulting out of self-sufficiency and low rate of monetised market forces that dominate the rural and hill economies of the region. Hence the future economic growth of the region has to be generated from the traditional non-farm sectors based on locally available resources. Unless the traditional and local economic strengths are revamped, mere thrusting of policies from the Centre would fail.

From the national security angle, the situation is complex on account of cultural and political reasons. The Northeast, which was never part of the Indian ‘mainstream', has an inherent sense of alienation. The tribal societies there detest interference in their socio-political institutions, yet do not mind receiving huge sums of money from the Centre as development assistance. This has created a structure of corruption in which even the insurgency syndrome has been roped in. The phenomena of unemployment (see Table 5), insurgency, routine surrender of militants, the extortion business, the unending demands for autonomous district councils, if not separate States, etc., are all parts of one single syndrome – the paradox of northeast's pride, coupled with its perpetual dependence on the Centre for grants, and the latter's sense of frustration in failing to emotionally integrate the region with the national ‘mainstream' in spite of the ever increasing flow of resources. The Partition of India played havoc with the political economy of the region, and unless relations with Bangladesh are improved to the extent of allowing unfettered surface communication through that country, nothing much can be achieved. More than the ‘Look East Policy',it is the Bangladesh policy that is relevant for the region. The ‘Look East Policy' has been floated keeping India's overall economic interest in mind. If the Northeast is made to function as the lynchpin in that strategy or to serve as the gateway to South East Asia, this would be counterproductive because of politico-cultural reasons.

Table 5: Unemployment Rate in Northeast, 1999-2000

Note: As per usual status approach. Unemployment rate is the percentage of unemployed with reference to labour force.

Source: Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 389, dated August 20, 2001.

India's Bangladesh policy, however, has its own share of imponderables. The questions of Bangladeshi infiltration into Assam, the spectre of the rise of Islamist militancy in the region,26 the deteriorating Muslim-Hindu relations in Bangladesh, the potential danger of revival of Assam-Bengali distrust, etc., are all intricately interlinked.  

Alternative Paradigm

The Globalization Context

There are two major dichotomies foreseeable in India's march towards globalization that might make the exercise half effective, if not altogether problematic. Globalization in simple terms means unfettered capitalism, at the core of which is a regime of laws and regulations. In other words: Order – both within nations as well as amongst nations. The way society and politics are moving in the Southern Asian region, this is a tall order. The issue of good governance is no longer an academic exercise; on it hinges the fabric of growth and its international connections. Leave alone communal riots, in many parts of India there is a virtual collapse of the state, making it possible for a small number of goons, both organized and unorganized, to hold trade and industry to ransom. Unless an entrepreneur is willing to pay the so-called goonda tax', his enterprise cannot function. Criminalization, communalization and corruption in politics have been blended into a witch's brew, making the state virtually powerless to arrest the contagion. In Bihar, Marwari entrepreneurs are leaving the State for better pastures; in the Northeast private capital is shying away from investing in the region; the Naxalite (Left Wing extremist)-infested regions of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar, are virtually out of bounds for the state machinery, let alone private investors.

At a deeper level, the nation is hardly preparing itself for the role of a player in the global marketplace, and here, particularly in comparison with China, the gap is likely to increase.

Let us take the variables of education and human capital to drive home the point. It is an established fact that there is a close relationship between the quantity and quality of human capital – the latter being a function of schooling – as part of the development strategy of a nation. The sequence is schooling economic growth. The countries that understood this linkage were the four Asian tigers – Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea – and the results are there for anyone to see. So far as China and India are concerned, both became ‘liberated'/independent more or less at the same time, yet in terms of their human capital achievements, China has left India far behind. While the emphasis in China was on mass education, in India it was essentially on education for the higher strata of society. And as the theory goes: ‘Education of the elite without mass education is unlikely to foster economic growth.27

In the foreseeable future, this trend is unlikely to change, if the present is any pointer. The 1986 National Policy on Education, which was updated in 1992, called for free and compulsory school education. But the fact that the programme has not borne fruit is evident from the statistics that reveal that adult (meaning 15 years and above) literacy rate in India is still at 58 per cent (in China it is 85.8 per cent). Even these statistics on India's literacy rate are not fully dependable. Certainly, many so-called ‘literates' are not actually so. The Delhi Citizens' Handbook, 2003, published by the Centre for Civil Society, Delhi, reveals that more than 40 per cent of children who pass Class V from municipal schools cannot read or write their names. It is not too difficult to explain the phenomenon. If schools do not show the results of the success' of their pupils they would cease to receive their regular grants. Consequently, they doctor the data.

Against this dismal state of affairs on the Indian education scene, can the country really take advantage of globalization?

The real problem with a low educational attainment in India is that it hampers the country's drive towards its integration into the world economy. The integration of India into an emerging technologically-centred economic system, where cost competitiveness is increasingly being replaced by “non-price” competitiveness based on quality, information and knowledge intensity, calls for a serious upgrading of skills, and therefore of educational performance at all levels, and particularly at the primary level. The integration of a country into the world economy, where half of its population is still illiterate, is indeed difficult to achieve. The new business opportunities rely increasingly on a workforce who can master ‘tacit' as well as ‘codified knowledge'.28

Here a comparison with China may be instructive. One may argue that the Indian middle class is too large and reasonably well educated to fail to take advantage of the emerging situation. But in that case, the Chinese middle class is even larger and is going to outpace its Indian counterpart several times over in the near future. The following information would be instructive.

Since India's competition is with China and not with India's smaller neighbours, these negative phenomena cannot be ignored.

There is yet another factor that would come in the way of taking advantage of globalization. It is the problem of lawlessness, which we have referred to above. The critics of globalization argue that it is going to minimize the already small job market because of automation, which is the inevitable result of globalization. To this the champions of globalization argue that every job in BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) creates three new jobs in catering, transport and allied services. But, they say, the problem is that anachronistic municipal laws come in the way.30 One may, however, argue that, in addition to the outdated municipal laws, the law and order situation and the lack of supportive infrastructure is another big obstacle. The particularly disadvantaged areas would be those which are already backward, like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and the entire Northeast. All these places have enormous tourism potential but can take only limited advantage of the situation because of the law and order problem and deficient infrastructure31

So far as India is concerned, it is only of late, thanks to Amartya Sen's emphasis on health and education, that the cause of poverty and its elimination are being given a new analytical thrust. Earlier efforts to estimate the numbers of poor primarily concentrated on economic variables (based on per capita expenditure or household income) and nutritional intake (based on the 2,400 calorie norm). For the sustenance of anti-poverty programmes, what is most essential is human resource development: the two significant components of which are education and health. Insofar as health is concerned, more than its curative aspect, the preventive and promotive aspects are salient. Once these two aspects are taken care of, population problems would be automatically addressed.32

In India's Northeastern context, it would be relevant to speculate whether China can pose a threat to Indian security in terms of fomenting troubles by stoking tribal disaffection, if not extending outright assistance to the local insurgents with logistic and moral support, as had happened during earlier periods. There are two identical developments in both India and China that tend to suggest that such a possibility may not arise in the near future. These similarities are: one, that both are trying to integrate themselves with the global system with a particular type of extra-territorial nationalism;33 and two, that both are in the process facing the same kinds of problems with their ethnic minorities in their respective bordering regions.

With globalization high on their agendas, which means rapid progression to economic prosperity, neither China nor India would risk any confrontation that may endanger their anticipated affluence. The pragmatism being shown by both in settling the border row is the most visible indication of the process.  But since globalization actually boils down to capitalistic competitiveness, it is likely that the Han majority in China and the Hindu majority in India would take the maximum advantage at the cost of the minorities. Since the service sector, a prominent component of which is tourism, is likely to grow very fast, these dominant communities would penetrate into the bordering tribal areas, which are generally attractive for tourists. In China, the Han tourism promoters operate in large numbers in the Tibetan Autonomous Region.34 In India, because of the Inner Line Permit and the Restricted Area Permit systems in large parts of the Northeast, this is not yet happening; however, other capitalist entrepreneurs are functioning in forest and cash crop related industries in the region. Both these developments are causing resentment amongst the locals, in China's Tibet and in India's Northeast. As such, both China and India are evenly poised to neutralising each other's nuisance potential. If China tries to be difficult with India by assisting the northeastern insurgencies, India can as well make things difficult for China through Tibetans living in Arunachal Pradesh and other parts of India. In short, the comparative advantage the Chinese enjoyed earlier is no longer available to them. Still, India needs to be watchful of the potential danger and as such keep the Northeast under its microscope.

Bangladesh, as noted above, also needs careful watch. The economic development and security of the North East cannot be ensured without a free and uninterrupted communication network, both land and riverine, through Bangladesh. As such, at some point of time, India will have to either work out a cooperative strategy with Bangladesh or use some highhanded tactics; otherwise it is not possible to ensure the development and security of the Northeast. One way of achieving this is through military means, which may not be desirable in the present global milieu and can evoke hostile international reactions both from within the region as well as from outside. The other strategy of achieving this is through a complicated process of proactive demographic invasion. Make the Indo-Bangla border totally open, making it possible for any Bangladeshi to migrate to any part of India. If there is an exodus of Bangladeshis to India it would destroy the very of Bangladesh to remain as an independent country. In that situation India could create a political climate within Bangladesh to ask for its merger with India. But to achieve this, the secular and civilisational dimensions of India would have to be played up, not the Hindutva dimension. For otherwise, not only would it not be possible, it would lead to further chaos, resulting in Hindu-Muslim riots strengthening the case for the perpetuation of an independent Bangladesh. Once this is achieved, Nepal's incorporation into the Indian Union would be just a matter of time and the same would be true with Bhutan. The eventual reunification of India and Pakistan could as well be contemplated in due course. This would restore the British India without Myanmar. Of course, China and other powers would not be sitting idle when all this would be happening. China would certainly react sharply if military means are employed to achieve this goal. But if the civilisational and proactive demographic invasion model is employed, it really cannot do much to block the process. There is nothing sacrosanct about national boundaries, and the 20^th Century alone witnessed many of these being changed radically.

With respect to social problems, it is anticipated that many of these would be driven by job-related-stresses. The considerations that govern 21^st Century corporations mark a shift from those of their 20^th Century counterparts. Thus, since the growth trend will be from wealth to wealth creating, job expectations will shift from job security to employment security. People in corporations will be rather than ; strategy will move from top-down to bottom-up. Most large corporations will have many part-time and contract jobs and only a smaller number of full-time jobs. In the 20^th Century, people joined companies for secure jobs. In the Indian context, the scramble for Government jobs has always been there because they provided job security and status. The authority of the company and management was accepted because, in return, people got secure jobs. In the 21^st Century milieu, job security is more threatened due to constant changes in the mode of business transactions. Given India's social milieu, where familial bonds matter so much in respect of old age care, social dependence during joblessness, etc., employment uncertainties would, at the socio-psychological level, be extremely destabilizing.

It is necessary that India develop the ‘Integrated Assessment Approach' as a methodological tool for this kind of futuristic analysis. This would enable, to some extent at least, a reduction in the problem of predictability in social sciences. The acquisition of knowledge is not merely for the sake of knowledge, but it has to be also utility-oriented. We must be able to know not just in order to learn but also to be able to act such knowledge, to outline problems and prospects, in order to use them as tools for development strategies that have an impact on the future.35

Conclusion

There is an old adage: strive for peace but keep your powder dry. It can be improved so as to mean: keep your powder dry but strive not to require it at all. India's security can be best served if its internal problems are contained, thereby giving no excuse or opportunity to its enemies to take advantage of them and to outmaneuver the nation. At present whatever the ruling elites in India's neighbouring states may say in order to impress their domestic galleries, at the mass level, everywhere in the region, India's reputation as a thriving secular democracy is growing systematically. Hindi films and Hindi Television soap operas, and through them the Hindi language, are not only contributing remarkably to India's own integration process, but are also selling a positive image of India in its neighbourhood and beyond. The role of India's civil society in protecting and buttressing the nation's democratic institutions is being emulated everywhere in the region, often to the embarrassment and chagrin of the regional ruling classes. All these are the greatest guarantee to India's national security.

But complacency is a disease. There remain several possibilities in India's socio-political profile, which are potentially disruptive. The biggest challenge that is knocking at the door is the unprecedented incidence of terrorism and insurgency, which have significant domestic roots. While it is important to deal with their international connections, it is equally important not to do anything at home that could enlarge their appeal within their respective communities. At the same time, while the multiculturalism of Indian society does call for celebration, the state apparatus must remain vigilant, and guard against the possibility of its excessive romanticisation, which could transform it into a threat to India's integrity. India's security concerns have to be holistic and so should be the strategy to prepare the nation to confront these.