India will get tougher on territorial disputes with China and in its old rivalry with Pakistan if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, becomes the prime minister in May after a general election, two of his aides said.
Modi, the front-runner to win the five-week election starting on April 7, has taken an aggressive tone against the two neighbouring nations. On the campaign trail, he has warned Beijing to shed its “mindset of expansionism” and in the past he had railed against Pakistan for attacks by militants in India. “I swear in the name of the soil that I will protect this country,” Modi said at a rally in the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh last month, a region claimed by China.
India, China and Pakistan are all nuclear powers. They are also jockeying to take positions in Afghanistan as Western troops start to withdraw from the war-torn nation after a 12-year insurgency.
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The BJP wants a rapid naval build-up and a firmer response to border violations. It also plans to speed up construction of roads and communication lines along the land border to narrow the gap with China's infrastructure on the Tibetan plateau. The advisors, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the BJP's manifesto is still under wraps, said Modi would move quickly to lay out India's core security interests in its neighbourhood, replacing what they dismissed as a reactive policy under the Congress party. Topping the list will be an early settlement of the border dispute with China, an assertion of India's primacy in the Indian Ocean, and a low tolerance of militancy that India believes is often backed by Pakistan. “You will see a more nationalistic approach on issues relating to terrorism in our neighbourhood. It is a much more hard view of these things,” said one of the advisers.
Rajiv Dogra, a former Indian ambassador to Pakistan, expects a more forceful policy under a BJP government, both because of domestic pressure and an uncertain regional environment as the US pulls out troops from Afghanistan. “So far there has been a consensus in India — irrespective of the complexion and change in government — on the broad foreign policy contours,” he said. “But this time, if there is a change in government, I do expect a break from that tradition.”