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I had a strange dream the other night.
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I dreamed that I was in the royal court of the great Indian Empire and India's ruler,
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the mighty Emperor Modi had sent for me.
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I entered his special meeting room along with a handful of his other special advisors.
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Emperor Modi told us to sit down.
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Emperor Modi looked very grim.
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Mitra, he said to us, look at this map here.
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We are surrounded by the Chinese.
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And indeed, on the wall was a map of South Asia and India was like an island surrounded
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The Chinese have taken over all the other countries around us, he said.
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Pakistan, Burma, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, they all belong to China now.
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And they have turned their eyes on us.
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They have sent a delegation here, which is waiting in the next room.
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The moment I meet them, Mitra, they will demand that I surrender.
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They have a better army, a better air force, more nuclear bombs, even though one is enough.
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And they also have better infrastructure, though I don't know why that's relevant.
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Anyway, if I don't surrender, they will just conquer us.
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He looked at me and said, Amit, help me.
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You have always been the wisest man in this kingdom.
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Not just the best looking and the sexiest.
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Not just the most virile and wittiest, but also the wisest.
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Come to my rescue, oh wise Amit.
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You alone can save India.
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He put his head on the table and began weeping.
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I touched his elbow gently in that sensuous way that women can never resist.
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And that gives comfort to all emperors.
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Emperor Modi, I said, don't worry.
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Give me 30 minutes to get ready and then I will walk into that meeting with you.
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He looked up at me with hope shining through in his Labrador-like eyes.
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I always believed in you, Amit, he said.
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You are as smart as you are gorgeous.
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Take your time and save the Indian Empire.
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I got up and left the room.
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Half an hour later, I returned with a tiffin box in my hand.
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Let us go to meet the Chinese.
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I said to Emperor Modi, I am ready for them.
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We walked into the room where the Chinese were waiting for us.
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They were introduced to us and then the main Chinese envoy said to Emperor Modi, I demand
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Wait a minute, I said, first I request you taste this.
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I handed him the tiffin box.
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He opened it suspiciously.
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It's Chinese food, I said.
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He whipped out a pair of chopsticks from his head where they had been holding up his hair
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and his silken tresses stumbled down upon his slender shoulders like the first blossoms
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I had to admit, he was almost as sexy as me.
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He put the chopsticks in the tiffin box and took a bite.
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A look of disgust swept across his face.
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He took another bite and chewed it silently deep in thought.
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Then he drank an entire bottle of water and finally he looked at me.
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What is this monstrosity?
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This is called Gobi Manchurian, I said.
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He looked down at the tiffin box and then suddenly hurled it at the wall, which was
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now splattered with Gobi Manchurian like a Jackson Pollock painting.
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Then he looked at Emperor Modi.
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You win, he said to Emperor Modi.
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We will not invade India, but I have just one condition.
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Emperor Modi was delighted at this news.
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Oh, bulle bulle, he said.
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What is this condition?
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The Chinese envoy looked at me and then back at the emperor.
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And then he hissed, stop messing with Chinese food.
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Welcome to The Scene and The Unseen, our weekly podcast on economics, politics and behavioral
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Please welcome your host, Amit Barma.
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Welcome to The Scene and The Unseen.
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This week's episode is about foreign policy.
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Recently, there's been much talk about China's growing influence in our neighborhood, which,
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it is assumed, comes at India's expense.
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To discuss the scene and unseen effects of this, I have with me on the show Pranay Kotasthane,
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a foreign policy expert from the Takshashila Institution in Bengaluru.
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Pranay, welcome to the show.
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Pranay, these days I'm hearing a lot of alarmist noises about China's growing influence in
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India's immediate neighborhood.
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And people are saying that that will diminish India's influence and in foreign policy terms
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Now, you're my resident foreign policy expert, so to say.
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What do you feel about that?
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Are these fears justified?
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First and foremost, it is true that Chinese influence is increasing.
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China has gotten itself involved in almost all the states in India's neighborhood.
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It is doing big projects.
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In Pakistan, there's something called the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, CPEC.
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Similarly, it has engagements in building a port in Sri Lanka.
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There are military ties developing between China and Bangladesh.
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Nepal is again sort of there.
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The ties are warming up.
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So that is true that China's influence in India's neighborhood is definitely increasing.
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And bigger question for me is, should India be worried?
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And the scene effect is, yes, India's influence might decrease in that country's.
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And that is probably to an extent true.
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Because if you go back in history, a lot of the treaties that were signed, especially
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between India and its smaller neighbors, like say Nepal, Bhutan, the treaties which were
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signed were sort of trying to suggest that these two countries have very close relationships
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and India will help them in times of distress.
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And so India did a lot to these countries.
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And in exchange, sort of it was believed that this is a zone of influence where India is
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So there is a very popular term in foreign policy literature called the Monroe Doctrine,
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which just says that in a particular area, one big power is the predominant foreign policy
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actor and no other big foreign policy actor from another region in the world can play
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a big role here because this area doesn't belong to you.
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So a lot of this idea about India's neighborhood, you know, people, in fact, used to use terms
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like India's own backyard, China is coming in India's own backyard.
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It is not your backyard.
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These are sovereign states.
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These are not your backyard.
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And in fact, it has over the last few years, once economy has opened up, all these small
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states are very free to do engage other big powers.
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And now that there is a close country in the neighborhood called China, which also is a
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It is perfectly natural that these countries will try to engage and they will also try
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to play India against China in their own region.
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In fact, the former NSA Shiv Shankar Menon did say this in one of his famous interviews
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that this is something that India has to get used to.
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And it is very natural for small states to play two big powers against each other.
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And that is exactly what they are doing.
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So we should come out of this sort of mentality that these are countries in India's backyard
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or the India's Monroe doctrine applies, there's nothing like it.
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So that is sort of the scene effect.
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So yes, influence is decreasing, but so what, there's very little we could do.
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Another important point is we did need these countries 20, 30 years back to a great extent
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because the India's primary competitor in our region was Pakistan.
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Back then Pakistan was growing really well.
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And that time, because Pakistan was using violent non-state actors in through these
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countries in India did need to have the relationships much beyond the economic domain so that these
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countries couldn't be used by Pakistan to get terrorism.
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And that's why India did a lot with Nepal, Bangladesh, etc.
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But now times have changed.
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Pakistan is no longer the primary competitor in our area.
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And once China is the big power, it is the economic might that China brings in apart
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from its military strength as well.
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But on the economic count, India is still weak here.
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So there is, if these countries are going to get a better deal with China, they are
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not going to agree to that more than India.
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So until and unless India reaches an economic strength as much as China, we can't do that.
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So to sum up the scene effect, you'd say that yes, China's influence is growing in our
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neighborhood or what we used to call our backyard, quote unquote.
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But A, that's inevitable because all of these countries are opening their economies up
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and China being one of the world's big economies is bound to happen.
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And B, it shouldn't concern us so much because they're no longer of the same kind of strategic
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significance they were when Pakistan was using them as a conduit or, you know, a wire route
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for all kinds of non-state actions.
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What are the unseen effects of China's growing influence in the neighborhood?
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Before that, if I could just add another scene effect of this is.
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So the point that I'm trying to make is it's not that we should cut off from these countries.
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These countries are important just because they are in our neighborhood.
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And again, Pakistan might come back.
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So we don't want to sort of totally cut off, but we don't want to be overly concerned with
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China's growing involvement as well.
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And second important point is that why do we need foreign policy?
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We finally need foreign policy because we want prosperity for all Indians.
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And if that is the aim of all foreign policy, these small states can't do much in terms
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of achieving that aim at this particular moment.
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Probably they might become more strategically important later.
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And a lot of our growth can actually be achieved with getting things right domestically.
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And so it's better that we focus our energies in that rather than worrying overly about
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Coming to the unseen effect, one sort of the unseen effect is that again, there is enough
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foreign policy literature, which says that the dominant power which gets involved in
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a small state soon gets seen in a negative manner because it's seen everywhere.
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There will be antagonism.
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They'll say, why are these big countries coming into our area?
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So that is perfectly natural.
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And China has an unenviable reputation of making enemies this way.
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And it has done so in Africa, in Pakistan, also there are a lot of people opposing that.
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And I'm sure it's going to do that in these small states as well.
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So until now, India was doing a lot for these countries, but still India was seen negatively.
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So now let China bear the brunt of this.
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And India can lie low for some time in its neighborhood, try to get things right domestically
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while engaging these countries on at least some important issues so that terrorism doesn't
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We don't need to be overly worried.
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So you say unseen effect number one is that China, despite its growing influence, would
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also develop a worse image just by virtue of being the big foreign power.
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And we've even seen that in the context of the USA, where so much of Trump's rhetoric
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was against China and not so much against India because China is simply much bigger
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in the scheme of things.
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And the second unseen effect you would say is the opportunity cost.
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The more we obsess with and focus about foreign policy in our neighborhood, the less attention
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and time we actually have to give to our own domestic problems.
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And you'd say that, look, ultimately it comes down to the prosperity of our people and we
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should look inwards first and sort our own problems out before worrying about China's
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influence in Bangladesh and so on and so forth.
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We need to in fact go a step further and see how can we leverage China's growth for India's
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So what if China is looking for investment, why not use that for our own purpose?
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So illustrate that for me.
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So for example, China is talking about one belt, one road and belt and road initiatives.
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As long as this leads to development of low cost infrastructure, because now the investment
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opportunities in China, the returns are drying up, so they are looking for places outside.
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So that's why the investment in this belt and road and in Pakistan, etc.
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So why not we utilize that for financing our own infrastructure as well?
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As long as it is not critical infrastructure, why should we be bothered about China building
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roads or China building metro coaches, for example?
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So we should be thinking about how to leverage China rather than we being worried about China's
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influence in some of our neighboring countries.
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This is incredibly cunning.
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So China goes out there and gets a bad name because they are the big foreign power.
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And meanwhile, we leverage their entry into our own sneaky little things and build our
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Yes, that is the aim of our foreign policy.
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So why should we get stuck to these old notions of our own backyard?
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China will be the big power in Bangladesh.
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It's a sovereign country.
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Let them do what they want.
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Let them realize and it's not just that China is the big power in this equation and hence
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it will be seen negatively.
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Chinese have proven this over the years in any country they go, the way they engage with
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the country they are in, they make enemies much faster than India or US can.
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So why should we be bothered about this?
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This is what I call both realistic and positive thinking.
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Pranay, thank you so much.
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It's always enlightening to have you on the show and I'm deeply grateful that you chose
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to come into my backyard.
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And we're done for today.
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To read some of Pranay's writings, head over to the online magazine praagati at thinkpragati.com
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where he is a contributing writer and which I edit.
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You can also browse all previous episodes of The Scene and the Unseen at sceneunseen.in.
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My personal blog is indiancutt at indiancutt.com and you can follow me on Twitter at Amit Verma.
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It's Verma with an A, so A-M-I-T-V-A-R-M-A.
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Until next week then, bye bye.
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If you enjoyed listening to The Scene and the Unseen, check out another show by IVM
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podcast, Simplified, which is hosted by my good friends Naren, Chuck and Sriketh.
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You can download it on any podcasting network.
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Good evening ladies and gentlemen.
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This is your captain speaking.
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Sorry to say, but there's been a slight delay due to the apocalypse having suddenly begun.
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As you can see, there's death, destruction and chaos taking place all around us.
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But don't you worry, food and drinks will be served shortly and I would recommend checking
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out IVM Podcasts to get some of your favorite Indian podcasts.
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We'll keep you going till this whole thing blows over.
