India Must Upkeep Scientific Activities in South Asia

With most of India’s neighbours sinking into one economic crisis or another, it behoves us to help them out of their quagmires, including through S&T interventions.

Many countries across the globe are in severe economic distress, and unfortunately for us in India, many of them are in our neighborhood. The economic distress has been generated for a variety of accumulated reasons which include, compromised national polity, unaccounted populist favours, high levels of corruption across governance hierarchy, absence of robust revenue generation, high levels of indebtedness, exorbitant expenditure on vanity projects, skewed dependence on few sectors of economy, and of course the COVID-19 global pandemic and the crisis emanating due to the conflict in Ukraine and fall of Afghanistan.

COVID-19 has a special place in inducing global economic distress. The mitigatory full-scale and partial lockdowns that lasted for several weeks in various parts of the world had crippled numerous sectors, particularly travel, tourism, manufacturing, property, logistics, globally.Although, economic activities have resumed now in 2022, but the world is still reeling with the after-effects of economic lockdowns.Since February this year, the crisis emanating out of the invasion of Ukraine and fall of Afghanistan has sent global geopolitics into a tizzy. The rearrangement of the global order, widening fault lines between the US and Russia, and the US and China, the resulting surge in power prices in Europe, the disruption of agriculture and semiconductor supply chains have created turbulence in numerous resilient economies of the world. However, those countries that had weaker economies are showing signs of defaulting and going bankrupt. The imminent bankruptcies are triggering political chaos and regime change in these countries. And in such circumstances, these countries are vulnerable to non-state actors taking charge of their socio-economic domains.

INDIAN ECONOMY AND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD

Numerous international financial institutions and think tanks predict India to remain an international financial bright spot for the foreseeable future. Its innovation, human development, and other socio-economic indices will perform better than most economies of comparable sizes. These positive forecasts for India have come in the backdrop of a performing middle-class, hard-headed national policymaking and foresighted national leadership. These may also be the reasons why India could be in a position to withstand this looming global economic crisis. However, India has changed immensely in the past few years of the Narendra Modi administration. The nation is no more reclusive and inward looking. It very well realises that its sphere of influence stretches into the far-reaches of East, Central and West Asia. The status of a global manufacturing hub that India is so purposefully working on demands the country to develop and upkeep new connectivity links. However, with an economically weak, politically vulnerable, and socially unrestful neighbourhood, India’s ambitions and the world’s expectations from India cannot be met. Not many in India’s neighbourhood are able to withstand the global economic crisis and their continued fragility may send India’s as well as the world’s long-term interests into a vortex.

The economic situation in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Maldives, Afghanistan, and Nepal is dire to varying degrees and for various reasons. These woes will not go away soon and result from the short-sighted national leadership, sizeable external debt traps, massive trade deficits, excessive dependence on few economic sectors, minimal manufacturing, and excessive political interference of non-Indian entities fueling antagonistic sentiments against India in these countries. As crisis mitigation takes precedence, these factors have pushed science and technology among the lowest priorities for these nations. What does that do to their long-term outlook? Can science and technology not take countries out of crisis? Are they contrivances of only good times?

PRIORITIZE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY DURING ECONOMIC CRISES

Firstly, we must understand that retaining an educated and skilled population becomes a tremendous challenge in times of economic crisis. Large tracts of such a trained population usually are forced to demote to unskilled jobs, while some migrate to greener pastures of economically resilient nations. The governments of these nations, if they have their heart in the right place, are fixated on addressing immediate crises, such as curbing inflation, resuming smooth supplies of utilities and consumables, and making fuel and power costs affordable. These issues are challenging to address, and resuming economic normalcy is a tall order. Therefore, such nations are not in a position to allocate financial resources for science and technology, and whatever little is given is further curtailed drastically. If their heart is not in the right place, the road to normalcy becomes as rare as getting two eclipses in two consecutive days.

Commercial enterprises, militaries, and governments drive science and technology in an economically and socially stable nation. With nearly empty pockets, countries with economic crises looming over them are known to shut off almost all research and development activities. The lack of scientific research and quality tertiary education further sinks such nations into a socio-economic quicksand.

India’s neighbourhood is in tremendous economic distress. However, each of their distresses has native attributes. Afghanistan’s science and technology pursuits have collapsed not only because of the financial crisis but also the socio-political and ideological unwillingness of the current dispensation, the Taliban, to support any science and technology. Sri Lanka’s case is of severe economic mismanagement, and exploitative leadership preceded by years of civil war. Nepal’s research pursuits are limited to a few domains, and despite a select group of universities, there is a stark absence of research culture. Myanmar’s science and technology pursuits are victims of international sanctions imposed on the junta and the low human development indices. The Maldives is restricted by its sparse archipelago geography and over-dependence on tourism and fishing. Pakistan’s military generals primarily control their nation’s science and technology pursuits. They run the country as a client-state, a launchpad of terrorism, as they siphon off the public exchequer with little or no accountability. There is a tremendous dearth of scientific and technological research in these countries.

ENGAGING WITH FELLOW SOUTH ASIAN NATIONS

There are sparse chances that the human development indices of these countries will grow anytime soon. Moreover, in case India fails to attend to the HDI factor in these countries, we will be surrounded by near-perennial chaos and interference from great powers who are not residents of this neighborhood. In a rare scenario, even if these countries tomorrow ask for India’s assistance, New Delhi will have to deal with a cauldron of unskilled workforce arriving on our shores and borders. The real threat is when non-state actors recruit a skilled workforce to meet their nefarious goals.

What does India expect from its neighborhood? The broad answers are peace, stability, prosperity, high human development, environmental performance indices, resilience to climate change, disasters, and national leadership in these countries that are like-minded and similarly committed. However, India will likely not sermonise or dictate terms to these countries. Most of them have been under the influence of non-Indian entities competing with India, who have fed them with the narrative that India is the big brother they must stay away from. This narrative does not affect India; however, India would only assist in defending its interests. India is no threat to these countries but is the second-largest beneficiary of their prosperity and progress. Yet, India cannot wait for these countries to ask for help. It must proactively take a few initiatives; assistance in science and technology is the first step.

On a broad level, India must formulate a strategy to accommodate promising scientists and young researchers from neighboring countries in Indian universities. We can expect a few hundred scientists, especially from applied sciences and technology development domains, from each country to choose India for their career progression. Such scientistscould play ambassadorial roles by assisting in developing capacities in their home countries and strengthening people-to-people diplomacy.

Second, the Indian government must contemplate adopting promising-yet-under-developed research institutions in the neighborhood by offering research grants to domains where the neighbouring country has innate advantages. For instance, India can consider supporting research and development in traditional medicine and biodiversity in Nepal and Myanmar. Likewise, it can support research in marine sciences in the Maldives and Sri Lanka. In Afghanistan, India can contemplate supporting competencies in geology and agriculture.

Third, India must engage in multilateral partnerships, especially with financial mechanisms tied to Global North, to enhance socio-economic indicators in these countries. India can help these countries set realistic HDI targets and aptly use science and technology domains to attain them.

Fourth, and on a defensive front, India’s science diplomacy for the neighborhood must avow to be more equitable than that of an altruistic or possessive ‘big brother’. It must see to it that the hand of science diplomacy it offers to these countries is not only for their benefit but India’s benefit too. India would not want social, cultural, and financial instability in its neighbourhood. To that end, India must set achievable targets, each country achieving tangible goals through mutual assistance. India must be clear that it does not want to suffer from a ‘boiling frog’ syndrome where it is given mentoring charge of the neighbourhood when it is least prepared for it. It certainly does not want a large-scale influx of unskilled population into India but rather their home countries to be the first choice of these potential migrants.

South Asia is in a predicament that only India could troubleshoot. Our ancient civilizational linkages with these countries will play out well. But the times upon us compel us to stop marveling about our shared past but commit to our shared future resolutely. South Asia is nearly 25% of the world’s population and it is India’s responsibility to look after its own interests and that of its neighbours’ as well.

This blog was published in the July 2022 edition of Science India magazine published by Vijnana Bharati.