The Practice of Geopolitics

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Madhav Das Nalapat, a Gold Medallist from Bombay University, became the country's first Professor of Geopolitics in 1998. Previous to that, he had been the Editor of two prestigious newspapers, The Mathrubhumi and The Times of India, both of which he led to major increases in credibility and circulation. Professor Nalapat is the originator of several concepts in geopolitics. BEIJING REVIEW has credited him with being (in 1983) the originator of the India-Russia-China triangle. Other concepts include that of the proxy nuclear state, the danger of "religious supremacy", the need for a "horizontal" rather than a "vertical" system of education, and the core concept of "Indutva". He has lectured at universities across the globe and is a regular contributor to global media channels on geopolitical issues. His more recent predictions include the forecast (made in March 2011) that the Arab Spring would very soon turn into "Wahabbi Winter". He also predicted the post-invasion chaos in Iraq and Libya, besides the folly of seeking an accommodation with the Taiban in Afghanistan.

Foreword

Professor M D Nalapat, the UNESCO Peace Chair and Director of the Department of Geopolitics and International Relations, Manipal University, is an expert in International Studies and writes extensively on security, policy issues and Indian politics. Some of his articles on the contemporary aspects of India's foreign relations have been put together in The Practice of Geopolitics", which presents a vivid portrayal of the public scepticism, anxieties and impatience with regard to national politics in India today.

Is the huge "growing gap" between China and India since 1980 a product of "governance gap"? Has the colonial hangover handicapped governance in India? Given India's strong and shared cultural links, how did the small countries in the neighbourhood drift away and welcome the embrace of China? Does the Indian response to the persistent acts of Pakistan—inspired terrorism suggest the lack of a coherent security doctrine or political cowardice? How does India view the on-going tragedy of Arab spring turning into Wahhabi winter and its economic and security implications for itself? As China becomes belligerent and the US rebalances its position in the Asia-Pacific, will India reassess its role in this region or continue its tradition of ambivalence? These and many other important questions are dissected expertly and lucidly by Professor Nalapat in the following essays. His analysis of geopolitical issues is incisive, candid, provocative and always marked by a mastery of the study questions. The essays cover geographical factors in India's post-independence politics and focus Professor Nalapat's mental search light on the pitfalls and setbacks that characterise India's policies and governance. Flashes of innovative ideas emerge in the narrative such as the NAATO, which add spice to his discussion. Professor Nalapat is seldom prescriptive, confining himself to diagnosis like many political commentators! This may be prudent as many geopolitical issues facing India are complex and defy easy solutions. Examples are legion.

Consider internal security, which is inseparable from geopolitics. Naxalite violence in 200 districts has been pronounced officially to be the biggest internal challenge for India. Nevertheless, Governments have failed to fill the sanctioned strength for police and half a million posts remain vacant. Regionally, despite the attack on the political capital (Delhi) in 2001 and the financial capital (Mumbai) in 2008, India's security and military preparedness to mount a punitive response remains a matter of scepticism if not ridicule. Home grown and imported terrorists strike at will all across India, but India's response is half-hearted, adhoc and lacking in international credibility. In response to 26/11, India took two tortuous years even to approve the setting up of a National Intelligence Grid (Nat Grid), a National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) and a National Investigation Agency (NIA). Five years later, the NIA has become functional, the Nat-Grid is limping, and the NCTC remains a phantom! This is symbolic of much that ails our national security management. Plans and resources abound but the will to get things done lags far behind. In geopolitics, India's apparent lack of vision in framing a strategic role for itself in the emerging security architecture of Asia is another example of dithering which has not escaped global attention. Professor Nalapat's essays echo many of these concerns.

In conclusion, I would like to compliment the Manipal University Press for publishing this anthology of Professor Nalapat's essays which are topical, thought-provoking and interesting. I am convinced that this volume will be welcomed by a wide readership.

Preface

The study a Geopolitics has been hobbled by continued adherence to the earlier classics in the field. The advance of technology and human empowerment has removed the boundaries, which once separated countries from each other on the scale of potentiality. Sea power, land power and air power have been overtaken by mind power, just as mindspace has become much more crucial in the winning of wars than physical space. While the physical war against the Taliban in Afghanistan during 2001-3 was won by the Northern Alliance under cover of NATO air superiority, in Iraq during the 2003 campaign, the United States, assisted by the United Kingdom, succeeded in taking over the territory of the country and defeating the military commanded by Saddam Hussein. However, subsequently a series of clumsy steps led to the Mindwar being lost, with the result that Iran has gained far more from the US-UK Iraq campaign than either of the two anti-Saddam combatants. In the past, it was possible to ignore local populations and to either bomb then, from the skies (as in Iraq soon after World War I) or to step aside as millions died through starvation (the 1944 Bengal famine). Until the advent of cellphone image transfer, embedded news channels could be relied upon to blank out images and viewpoints inconvenient to their sponsors, but such self-censorship is proving more difficult in the age of the Internet. The theory of Geopolitics is still in the era of Alfred Marshall ("Principles of Economics"), and awaiting a John Maynard Keynes ("The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money). However, practitioners of Geopolitics cannot afford the luxury of limiting their findings to the theoretical boxes set up in classical geopolitical theory.

Geopolitics, if it has to have value to human populations, is a practical science, the objective of which is to discover both the synergy and the faultlines within a country as well as between it and others. Assessments of potential points of convergence and conflict need to be linked to ways in which the second can be transformed into the first. While in the past, it was the state - civil and military - that was the only play in the game, and not simply the major factor, in the 21th century there is an empowerment of the individual caused not by political constructs but by technology. Satellite television has, for instance, brought policy debates to the attention even of those unable to read or to write, while their cellphones give them the ability to caII up a radio station or a television studio to register their views in a manner impossible when the sole means of such dissemination of input was the printed word. In Beijing, young people can be seen outside pricey restaurants, ready to record on their mobile telephones the images of high officials coming to super-expensive restaurants. Subsequently, these get uploaded onto the internet, thereby bringing such transgressions into vulgarity and extravagance to the attention of millions. While the foundational layer of the 2011 Arab Spring was composed of the underclass rebelling against higher and higher prices and the lack of adequate work or compensation proportionate to effort, the use of social media platforms enabled youth from the middle classes to piggyback onto this mass of people, their tweets and blogs ensuring media attention in a way which would have been impossible in the absence of such techniques of information dissemination.

Just as the classical economists were to a man not professional economists to start with, the imperative of bringing Geopolitics into the 21st century requires an eclectic group of thinkers experienced in multiple fields of activity, including science, business, military and the media. The student of geopolitics has to navigate between these different fields of endeavour in order to locate from within them the fusion of conditions, which in totality create geopolitical changes or accelerate or decelerate existing trends. Just as a submarine has to repeatedly come up for oxygen, the student needs to constantly refresh himself or herself with excursions into the "real" world, beyond the classroom and the library. The weave of conditions, which operate as the medium within which geopolitical changes mutate, needs to be understood and even experienced, such as through bursts of practical sessions or internships. Just as modern economy has transformed through technology and human empowerment much beyond the narrow constructs relied upon by classical economists for their theories, so has the practice of Geopolitics. Moreover, until theories that are related to present-day conditions use formulated, the student needs to be constantly aware that the models relied upon relate to periods and to societies very different from that he or she finds himself in. Applied Geopolitics — the practice of geopolitics — needs to be anchored in the geographical space of the country in which the application is taking place, rather than on countries with entirely different characteristics.

It is this theorem of exclusivity which motivated Manipal University to come up with a syllabus and system of teaching for Geopolitics and International Relations Course that is as different from the courses taught in the US or the EU as these locations are from India. In Manipal, students are encouraged to look at global trends and potentialities from the prism of the special needs of India, rather than continue with the fiction that what is good for the US (and taught there) is also good for India, a fiction which unfortunately is prevalent over much of Management and Financial teaching as well, thereby leading to in-house policy prescriptions for India that in effect serve the interests of the geographical entities whence the training originated. From the unquestioning acceptance of the British colonial model of administration to other examples of what V S Naipaul has termed India's "Craze for Foreign", the modern history of the country has been replete with examples of the way in which local interests have been disregarded in the name of theories which further interests other than those of India. Two decades after George Tanham pointed to the absence of a "strategic culture" in India, a course was designed which makes precisely such a culture the basis of its operations. That the founding fathers of post-British Empire India had scant knowledge of geopolitical potentialities and the pitfalls associated with ignoring them can be seen in example after dismal example. Despite Tibet being core to the water resources of upper India, the special privileges, which had been enjoyed by Delhi over that territory were permitted to lapse without demur. Having given away the initiative to Beijing, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru made a bad situation worse by sharply escalating tensions with China after his effusive welcome to Tenzin Gyatso, the XIV Dalai Lama of Tibet. Earlier, there was the declaration of a ceasefire in Kashmir effective 1 January 1949 before Indian forces had retaken the strategically vital areas now forming Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK). Had the military liberated these areas as well, the strategic depth and reach of India would have been significantly greater, as would have been the case if the Sultan of Oman's 1951 offer to sell Gwadar port to India for about a million US dollars were accepted. It was refused, and soon afterwards, Gwadar was sold to the Pakistan government for a much higher price. The 1966 withdrawal from Haji Pir and the return of 93,000 Pakistani prisoners of war in 1972 without gaining any advantage vis-a-vis Kashmir are further examples of the damage that the lack of a strategic vision can cause to the national interest. It may be noted that the 1971 surrender of Lt-General A A K Niazi's forces was only to the Indian army, while the small but significant Free Bangladesh command, which was Delhi's official military partner in the conflict, was excluded from the ceremony and from any role in the subsequent decision by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to repatriate every Pakistani PoW back to his own country, including those guilty of egregious crimes against Bangladeshi civilians. After such indifference to the wishes and the self-respect of the Bangladeshi partner, it ought to have occasioned no surprise when Dacca became almost as viscerally negative towards India as Islamabad.

Intended to be a Practioner's Guide to Geopoltics, the book provides a look into the thought processes that generate correct and timely analysis of global events. Geopolitics needs to weave within its analytical grasp economics, society, strategy and even culture, as the science deals with overall national capabilities as well as the mutal synergy and frictions between nations. Although a broad range of subjects has been covered in the book, each is anchored in the ground reality of events having a profound impact on the lives of citizens and on world events. The growing interconnectedness of the globe has resulted in a need to do away with the popular "West-centric" models of international relations and to view events not through that single prism but from a holistic viewpoint that accepts the relevance and maturity of different histories and geographies. What the book provides is an alternative Weltanschauung to the dominant models of geopolitical analysis, so that the science is enabled to cross beyond the narrow boundaries which have confined the scope and applicability of its analysis. The rise of Asia needs a geopolitical vision unique to the continent, and this is what has been provided by Professor Nalapat.