India must watch the new men on the block

In January 2003 India honoured Datuk Seri Sami Vellu at an annual event that celebrates the success of its Indian diaspora.

Vellu is a Malaysian Indian, lionised at such events by the Indian government and politicos in Delhi who keep one eye open on garnering votes - and cash - from non-resident Indians with deep pockets.

Yet, it is he who has asked the voluble chief minister of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu to stay out of the Southeast Asian nation's internal politics.

The undiplomatic spat and India's restrained reaction to the Malaysian crackdown on ethnic Tamils, airing their grievances at being treated like "third class" citizens (why does that sound so familiar) and indeed a Malaysian minister asking Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi to "lay off" is an object lesson in how India must not conduct its neighbourhood watch. Or for that matter its foreign policy.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is a remarkably prescient individual with a sure-fire ability to set his country on the path to economic self-reliance.

Agree or disagree on the benefits of the nuclear deal with the United States and the nuclear club that he sees as the only way to cut India's fuel bill and dependence on West Asian oil, Singh must know that being prime minister of a country like India requires him to grow into some very large shoes.

Except for one uncharacteristically caustic side swipe at his communist allies, the mild-mannered Singh's lack of bite has recast India's growing regional power status in his own quiet mould.

Some even going so far as to say that his reluctance to upset the Washingtonian apple cart was behind the fruitless foray to Moscow and India's reluctance to tie up Russian fuel supplies for its Koodankulam nuclear plant.

India has pussy-footed around Chinese monitoring stations on the Coco Islands and Beijing's sustained encroachments on its eastern border, reluctant to use the powerful Tibet card or the Dalai Lama to pin down an Asian rival walking on to its turf.

India seems set to do the same over the United States setting up a satellite station in Sri Lanka, meant to monitor its nuclear assets in the southern hinterland and its long, maritime border.

In Sri Lanka itself, there is more than a grain of truth to Tamil Tiger leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran's charge that India has given a very long rope to the "chauvinistic Sinhalese" leadership in Colombo, driving the war of attrition against the Tamils in the north.

India's disastrous foray into "peace-keeping" on the island came with a heavy price - the Tigers' assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

But that must not hold it back from safeguarding its own interests. With one South Asian country after another teetering on the edge of a precipice in India's own backyard, and the US clearly putting into play plans to manage Delhi, how long can Singh (or for that matter a successor like Rahul Gandhi or an Atal Bihari Vajpayee redux) afford to continue to play Mr Nice Guy?

Malaysia is only one example of the Indian elephant turning tail at an irksome mouse.

Look at Prachanda, Nepal's feared Maoist leader who has set his own course, completely opposite to India's interests in a country known to have been used by Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence to infiltrate extremists when routes into Indian Kashmir became too hot.

Look at Bangladesh, where Indian aid is pouring in but what has Singh done about the arrest of former prime minister Shaikh Hasina Wajed, the one woman, however capricious, who has remained a steadfast friend of India?

Singing praises

If the US President George W. Bush can continue to sing the praises of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, despite a spotty record in the war against terror, what stops India from naming its friends and shaming its enemies?

Indeed, now that it's "Hallo Mr President, goodbye general" time of year in Pakistan where the January 2008 election ( if it's held on time with or without an opposition boycott) could change the very character of Pakistan's ruling troika India is all too aware that powerful forces are at work in the South Asian region to keep its trajectory in check.

India has placed all its Kashmir eggs in Musharraf's basket without fully comprehending the extent to which the distractions in the North West Frontier Province and domestic issues have helped keep Kashmir on ice.

Has Delhi heard Musharraf's parting shot that Pakistan's future was safe in his own hands and that of his hand-picked successor as army chief, Gen Ashfaq Kiyani?

Barring the "reasonable voice" on the other side of the phone at the height of the crisis generated by India's mobilisation of forces after the attack on parliament, India knows very little about the man who holds the most powerful job in Pakistan today. This is the man that Delhi must watch with the greatest of interest.

Neena Gopal is an analyst on Asia.