In poll season, the perils of scorching bilateral ties

 In poll season, the perils of scorching bilateral ties

Election campaign rallies and media conferences are not the places to be making vociferous statements on sensitive foreign policy issues

Election and foreign relations 

most leaders around the world make foreign policies that ensure that there is no adverse impact on domestic politics, and if possible, even gain them some votes. 

However, rarely do general elections get conflated with foreign policy issues as the upcoming elections in India seem to have become.

Katchatheevu island  and 1974 agreement 

example, the recently Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar calling into question the 1974 India-Sri Lanka agreement. 

Not only did they both castigate / critisize former Prime Ministers and their party for the decision to recognise Katchatheevu island as part of Sri Lankan territory,

 but the External Affairs Minister also went on to say that a “solution” must be found for the continuing “situation” Tamil Nadu fishermen find themselves in as a result of the agreement. 

effects of statements 

While the aim of the statements is to have an impact during the first phase of India’s general election where Tamil Nadu will vote next week, 

the long-term impact that the statements will have on bilateral ties with Sri Lanka, which is headed for both presidential and parliamentary elections later, seem to have been ignored. 

Ties with Sri Lanka 

 Modi government extended crucial support of an estimated $4 billion to help Colombo handle the economic crisis in the country. 

Credibility could take a hit

Opening case ?

government’s hints about reopening the 50-year-old agreement raise other international questions. 

Could other agreements, signed on the basis of the 1974 settlement, also be revised?

 Could negotiations that India is undertaking right now, or has already agreed to

• such as the maritime boundary settlement with Bangladesh that was accepted by New Delhi in 2014 after a United Nations tribunal verdict, 
• the land boundary agreement (India-Bangladesh) to exchange enclaves, be revised by another government in the future? 

UNCLOS) makes any revisions difficult and other example

1 The recognition of maritime agreements by international bodies such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) makes any revisions difficult. 

 2 World Bank-guaranteed 1960 Indus Waters Treaty

 It has been five years since the Modi government threatened to revoke the treaty with Pakistan, and more than a year after New Delhi wrote to Islamabad calling for a renegotiation, but the matter has not yet moved.

On the CAA, transnational involvement

dampener on strong ties with a neighbour

Days before the announcement of the general election, the government’s decision to notify rules for the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, or CAA,

that it had stop from doing since the law was passed in 2019, is another example of domestic moves that could put a dampener on strong ties with a neighbour. 

 government has said 

that the CAA is purely a domestic law, its foreign policy implications are inescapable.

 It accuses India’s neighbours, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, of persecuting minorities. 

discriminatory by countries in the neighbourhood 

The CAA’s exclusionary nature, accepting only people of six faiths other than Muslims from the three countries, has been seen as discriminatory by countries in the neighbourhood. 

Which will most affected 

While ties with Afghanistan under the Taliban, and Pakistan appear to be of little consequence to New Delhi today, the accusation against a friendly government in Bangladesh is significant.

work which create dispute with foreign 

1 implementation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC)

 hundreds of thousands of those believed to have come from Bangladesh could be deemed stateless citizens also has the potential to strain ties with Dhaka. 

2 There were protests against the CAA 

in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, but the most vociferous / sharp   were in Bangladesh — during Mr. Modi’s visit to Dhaka in 2021, 12 people were killed in police action against protesting mobs.

 While there has been no official comment from the Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh on the recent decision on the CAA by New Delhi, India’s diplomats in Dhaka will have their work cut out for them if and when the policies are fully implemented.

 3 India’s standoff with China at the Line of Actual Control 

In recent weeks, the Opposition has been issuing statements at regular intervals questioning the Modi government about India’s standoff with China at the Line of Actual Control, and the fact that the China’s People’s Liberation Army has not yet vacated land that it took control of in April 2020.

The issue of alleged transnational killings by Indian agencies is another thorn in the government’s side 

4 Sikh political activist death  

The trial of an Indian national in the United States for an alleged assassination plot to kill a Sikh political activist is expected to begin this summer. 

The Trudeau government in Canada is expected to do something similar as Canada alleges that ‘agents of India assassinated a Sikh community leader in British Columbia’.

5 killing of 20 other Sikh and Islamist separatist operatives in Pakistan

Meanwhile, Pakistan has also sought to align its claims that Indian agents killed two Pakistani nationals, with the cases in the U.S. and Canada, and has endorsed a British media report that says Indian intelligence is possibly behind the killing of 20 other Sikh and Islamist separatist operatives in Pakistan. 

.

Discretion the key

All of these issues can only be resolved

by closed bilateral negotiations, and not in the full glare of election campaign rallies and press conferences. 

The government must recognise that all statements it makes catch the attention of immediate neighbours, especially when it comes to territorial and sovereignty issues.. 

While the election season is relatively short, the consequences of sacrificing bilateral ties at the altar of domestic politics can, however, linger