South Asia | ISC Class 11 Political Science Notes

This note covers India's relationship with its neighbours in South Asia: the region and its conflicts, India's relations with Pakistan through the 1965 war and the Tashkent Agreement, the 1971 war and the Shimla Agreement, the Lahore Declaration and the Kargil war, India's relations with Bangladesh over river waters, the Teen Bigha corridor and illegal migration, and India's relations with China through the Panchsheel Agreement and the war of 1962.

What is South Asia, and why does India matter in it?

South Asia usually refers to Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The region is marked by great diversity, yet it forms a distinct geographical and cultural space. Afghanistan joined the regional association SAARC in 2007, and China is an important neighbour.

India occupies a special position in the region. It is the largest country, it shares borders with most of the others, and the others share few borders with each other. As a result, most of the international conflicts in South Asia involve India.

The most salient and overwhelming of these conflicts is the one between India and Pakistan. Relations with Bangladesh turn on river waters, borders and migration, while relations with China moved from friendship in the 1950s to war in 1962.

Conflicts in the region do not mean that cooperation is absent. India and Pakistan signed the Indus Waters Treaty in 1960 with the help of the World Bank, and it has survived despite the wars between them.

India and Bangladesh signed the Farakka Treaty for sharing the Ganga waters in December 1996.

Why have India and Pakistan been in conflict?

Soon after partition in 1947, the two countries became embroiled in a conflict over the fate of Kashmir, which the Pakistani government claimed. The war of 1947-48 left the state divided into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.

The conflict is also over strategic issues such as control of the Siachen glacier and the acquisition of arms. In 1998 India conducted nuclear tests at Pokhran, and Pakistan responded within days with tests in the Chagai Hills.

Since then the possibility of a direct and full-scale war seems to have declined, but suspicion remains.

The Indian government has blamed Pakistan for helping Kashmiri militants with arms, training, money and protection to carry out terrorist strikes against India. Pakistan in turn blames India for fomenting trouble in Sindh and Balochistan.

The two countries also disagree over the demarcation line in Sir Creek in the Rann of Kutch.

Against this background, three pairs of events mark the relationship: the 1965 war and the Tashkent Agreement, the 1971 war and the Shimla Agreement, and the Lahore Declaration and the Kargil war.

What happened in the 1965 war, and what did the Tashkent Agreement provide?

In 1965 Pakistan sent armed infiltrators into Kashmir, hoping to provoke a rising against Indian rule. When this failed, fighting spread into a full Indo-Pak War in September 1965. Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri ordered a counter-offensive across the Punjab border, and the Indian army advanced close to Lahore.

The war ended with a ceasefire under United Nations pressure, and a UN India-Pakistan Observation Mission was set up. Neither side settled the Kashmir question by war.

The Soviet Union then brought the two leaders together at Tashkent. In January 1966 Shastri and Pakistan's President Ayub Khan signed the Tashkent Agreement, with the Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin as mediator.

Under the agreement both sides agreed to withdraw their forces to the positions they held before the war, to restore diplomatic relations and to settle disputes by peaceful means. Shastri died suddenly in Tashkent on 11 January 1966, the day after signing it.

How did the 1971 war lead to the Shimla Agreement?

Bangladesh was part of Pakistan, as East Pakistan, from 1947 to 1971. Its people resented the domination of West Pakistan and the imposition of Urdu.

In the 1970 elections the Awami League led by Sheikh Mujib-ur Rahman won all the seats in East Pakistan and a majority in the proposed constituent assembly, but the West Pakistani leadership refused to convene it.

Sheikh Mujib was arrested, and under General Yahya Khan the Pakistani army tried to crush the Bengali movement; thousands were killed. This caused a large-scale migration of refugees into India, creating a huge problem for India.

India supported the demand of the people of East Pakistan for independence and helped them financially and militarily. In August 1971 India signed a Treaty of Friendship with the Soviet Union for 20 years.

War broke out in December 1971 and ended with the surrender of the Pakistani forces in East Pakistan and the birth of Bangladesh.

In July 1972 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Pakistan's President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto signed the Shimla (Simla) Agreement. Both countries agreed to settle their differences peacefully through bilateral negotiations and to respect the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir resulting from the ceasefire of December 1971.

Note: The Shimla Agreement made bilateral talks the agreed method for India-Pakistan disputes. India has relied on it to argue that Kashmir is a matter for the two countries alone, not for third-party mediation.

What were the Lahore Declaration and the Kargil war?

After both countries became nuclear powers in 1998, a new attempt at peace followed. In February 1999 Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee undertook a bus journey to Lahore and, with Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, signed the Lahore Declaration.

The declaration committed both countries to intensify efforts to resolve all issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, through dialogue, to refrain from interfering in each other's internal affairs, and to take steps to reduce the risk of accidental or unauthorised use of nuclear weapons.

Within months the peace effort collapsed. In June-July 1999, the Kargil conflict broke out after Pakistani soldiers and militants occupied heights on the Indian side of the line of control in the Kargil sector.

India's armed forces fought to recapture the posts, and the intruders were driven back by July 1999.

Kargil showed that nuclear weapons had not removed the risk of conflict, only made a full-scale war less likely. A later summit between Vajpayee and General Pervez Musharraf at Agra in July 2001 was unsuccessful, and the two countries continue to negotiate on their disputes.

India and Pakistan: how did the three agreements compare?

The three agreements came out of very different situations, but each tried to manage the same rivalry through negotiation.

The comparison shows a clear shift in method. At Tashkent an outside power, the Soviet Union, brought the two sides together. From Shimla onwards India insisted on strictly bilateral settlement, without third-party mediation, and the Lahore Declaration followed the same path.

It also shows a pattern of war followed by agreement and agreement followed by fresh conflict. Each agreement reduced tension for a time, but none settled the underlying dispute over Kashmir, which is why relations have swung between dialogue and confrontation.

What are the main issues between India and Bangladesh?

Since the liberation of Bangladesh, the two governments have differed over several issues. The most important are the sharing of river waters, the boundary and the Teen Bigha corridor, and illegal migration. Each side has its own list of grievances.

Bangladeshi governments, for their part, have felt that India behaves like a regional bully over the sharing of river waters, encourages rebellion in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, tries to extract Bangladesh's natural gas and is unfair in trade. The two countries also could not resolve their boundary dispute for a long while, until they exchanged certain enclaves in 2015.

India has been unhappy with Bangladesh's denial of illegal immigration into India, its support for anti-Indian fundamentalist groups, its refusal to let Indian troops pass through its territory to the northeast, and its decision not to export natural gas to India.

Despite these differences, the two countries cooperate on many issues. Economic relations have improved considerably, Bangladesh is part of India's Look East (Act East since 2014) policy, and the two states cooperate on disaster management and the environment.

How have India and Bangladesh handled the water dispute?

The dispute centres on the Ganga and Brahmaputra, which flow from India into Bangladesh. India built the Farakka Barrage on the Ganga to divert water into the Hooghly and keep the port of Kolkata navigable.

Bangladesh argued that this reduced the flow reaching it in the dry season, harming its farming and fisheries.

The two countries resolved the main dispute with the Farakka Treaty, signed in December 1996, for sharing the Ganga waters at Farakka during the dry season. The treaty was signed for a period of thirty years.

Sharing of other rivers, especially the Teesta, has remained unsettled. Water is a sensitive issue in both countries because it affects the livelihood of millions of farmers.

The water dispute shows how resources that cross borders tie neighbours together. Just as the Indus Waters Treaty has survived India-Pakistan wars, the Farakka Treaty shows that India and Bangladesh can settle a hard dispute through negotiation.

What is the Teen Bigha corridor?

The Teen Bigha corridor is a narrow strip of Indian land in West Bengal, about three bighas in area. It lies between the Bangladeshi enclave of Dahagram-Angarpota and the mainland of Bangladesh, so the people of the enclave could not reach the rest of their country without crossing Indian territory.

Under the land boundary agreement of 1974, India agreed to lease the corridor to Bangladesh. After long opposition in India, the corridor was opened in 1992, at first for limited hours each day. It was opened round the clock in 2011.

The corridor was part of the larger problem of enclaves: pockets of one country's territory surrounded by the other's. The boundary dispute was finally settled when India and Bangladesh exchanged enclaves in 2015 under the Land Boundary Agreement, given effect in India by the 100th Amendment to the Constitution.

The settlement allowed residents of the enclaves to choose their citizenship and gave them access to schools, health care and other services that their isolated position had long denied them.

Why is illegal migration an issue between India and Bangladesh?

Large numbers of people have crossed from Bangladesh into India, especially into Assam, West Bengal and the northeastern states. Some came as refugees during the 1971 war; many more came later in search of work and land.

India holds that much of this movement is illegal immigration that changes the population of border areas and puts pressure on land, jobs and resources.

In Assam it led to a long agitation that ended with the Assam Accord of 1985, which fixed 25 March 1971 as the cut-off date for identifying foreigners.

Bangladesh has generally denied that there is large-scale illegal migration from its territory. The porous border, poverty and close cultural ties make the problem hard to solve.

Ways to manage the problem are commonly discussed in a sequence:

1. Strengthen border management, including fencing and patrolling of the India-Bangladesh border.
2. Identify people who have entered without valid documents, using an agreed cut-off date.
3. Hold talks with Bangladesh so that those identified can be returned with its cooperation.
4. Expand legal channels such as work and travel arrangements, and promote development in border areas to reduce the pressure to migrate.

What was the Panchsheel Agreement between India and China?

After China's revolution in 1949, India was one of the first countries to recognise the communist government, and the two countries were close in the early 1950s; the slogan "Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai" was popular.

The Panchsheel, the five principles of peaceful coexistence, was set out in an India-China agreement on trade and intercourse with the Tibet region signed in Beijing on 29 April 1954. Its five principles are associated with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Premier Zhou Enlai, who reaffirmed them in a joint statement in June 1954.

The five principles were:

1. Mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty.
2. Mutual non-aggression.
3. Mutual non-interference in each other's internal affairs.
4. Equality and mutual benefit.
5. Peaceful coexistence.

By accepting the agreement, India recognised Tibet as a region of China. Panchsheel became a cornerstone of India's foreign policy and of non-alignment, but friendship with China did not survive the decade.

The five principles reached beyond India and China. They were reflected in the principles adopted at the Bandung Conference of Asian and African countries in 1955, where newly independent states sought a path between the Cold War blocs, an idea that later grew into the Non-Aligned Movement.

What caused the Sino-Indian war of 1962?

Two issues destroyed the friendship. The first was Tibet: when the Dalai Lama fled after a rising against Chinese rule in 1959, India gave him asylum, which China resented.

The second was the border: China claimed Aksai Chin in Ladakh and much of the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA), now Arunachal Pradesh, rejecting the McMahon Line.

Despite long correspondence and talks among top leaders, the dispute could not be resolved. In October 1962 China launched a swift and massive invasion on both fronts. Indian forces were pushed back, and China declared a unilateral ceasefire in November 1962, keeping Aksai Chin.

The war dented India's image at home and abroad. India sought military help from the US and Britain, the Defence Minister V. K. Krishna Menon had to leave the cabinet, and Nehru's stature suffered. It also pushed India to strengthen its armed forces and modernise its defence.

The war showed the limits of Panchsheel: principles of peaceful coexistence could not by themselves settle a territorial dispute. India and China restored normal relations only gradually in later decades.

What do India's relations with its neighbours show?

India's relations with Pakistan, Bangladesh and China show that its size and position shape every relationship in the region. Smaller neighbours often fear Indian domination, while India worries about outside powers and hostile groups operating from their territory. Students of the region often ask whether the difficulties come from India's foreign policy or simply from its size.

They also show that conflict and cooperation exist side by side. The Indus Waters Treaty survived several wars, the Farakka Treaty and the 2015 enclave exchange settled long disputes with Bangladesh, and the South Asian countries signed the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) at the SAARC summit in Islamabad in January 2004.

The lesson most often drawn is that lasting peace in South Asia depends on patient negotiation, sensitivity to the needs of smaller neighbours and the identification of common threats, rather than on force.

Glossary

• South Asia: the region of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
• SAARC: the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, whose charter was signed at Dhaka in December 1985.
• Tashkent Agreement: the January 1966 agreement between Shastri and Ayub Khan after the 1965 war, mediated by the Soviet Union.
• Shimla Agreement: the July 1972 agreement between Indira Gandhi and Z. A. Bhutto to settle disputes bilaterally and peacefully.
• Lahore Declaration: the February 1999 declaration of Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif committing both countries to dialogue.
• Kargil conflict: the June-July 1999 conflict after Pakistani soldiers and militants occupied heights in the Kargil sector.
• Line of control: the line dividing Indian and Pakistani-held parts of Jammu and Kashmir.
• Farakka Treaty: the December 1996 India-Bangladesh treaty for sharing the Ganga waters.
• Teen Bigha corridor: a strip of Indian land leased to Bangladesh to link the Dahagram-Angarpota enclave with its mainland.
• Enclave: a piece of one country's territory surrounded by another country's territory.
• Panchsheel: the five principles of peaceful coexistence agreed by India and China in 1954.
• McMahon Line: the boundary in the eastern sector that India accepts and China rejects.

Common errors and misconceptions

• Misconception: the Shimla Agreement was signed after the 1965 war. Correct: the Tashkent Agreement followed the 1965 war; the Shimla Agreement followed the 1971 war.
• Misconception: the Lahore Declaration ended the conflict between India and Pakistan. Correct: the Kargil conflict broke out within months of it, in June-July 1999.
• Misconception: the Teen Bigha corridor was transferred to Bangladesh as its territory. Correct: it remained Indian land, leased to Bangladesh to give its enclave access to the mainland.
• Misconception: India and Bangladesh have no cooperation because of their disputes. Correct: they signed the Farakka Treaty, exchanged enclaves in 2015 and cooperate on trade and disaster management.
• Misconception: Panchsheel prevented war with China. Correct: the 1962 war showed that the principles could not by themselves settle the border dispute.
• Misconception: nuclear weapons ended all conflict between India and Pakistan. Correct: they made a full-scale war less likely, but Kargil and continuing tension followed.

Exam-style questions with model answers

Q1. Which agreement did India and Pakistan sign after the 1965 war? [1 mark]

1. The Tashkent Agreement of January 1966, signed by Lal Bahadur Shastri and Ayub Khan.

Q2. State two provisions of the Shimla Agreement. [2 marks]

1. India and Pakistan agreed to settle their differences peacefully through bilateral negotiations.
2. They agreed to respect the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir resulting from the ceasefire of December 1971.

Q3. What is the Teen Bigha corridor? [2 marks]

1. It is a narrow strip of Indian land in West Bengal between the Bangladeshi enclave of Dahagram-Angarpota and mainland Bangladesh.
2. India leased it to Bangladesh so that the enclave's people could reach their country; it opened in 1992 and round the clock in 2011.

Q4. State the five principles of Panchsheel. [4 marks]

1. Mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty.
2. Mutual non-aggression and mutual non-interference in each other's internal affairs.
3. Equality and mutual benefit.
4. Peaceful coexistence.

Q5. Explain the issues of river waters and illegal migration in India-Bangladesh relations. [4 marks]

1. The Farakka Barrage on the Ganga reduced dry-season flow to Bangladesh, which harmed its farming and fisheries.
2. The dispute was largely settled by the Farakka Treaty of December 1996, though sharing of the Teesta is unsettled.
3. India says large-scale illegal migration from Bangladesh has changed the population of Assam and other border states.
4. Bangladesh generally denies this, and the porous border and poverty make the problem hard to solve.

Q6. Trace India's relations with Pakistan from the 1965 war to the Kargil war. [8 marks]

1. The 1965 war began after Pakistan sent infiltrators into Kashmir; India counter-attacked across the Punjab border.
2. The Tashkent Agreement of January 1966, mediated by the Soviet Union, restored pre-war positions and diplomatic relations.
3. In 1971 India supported East Pakistan's struggle; the December war ended with Pakistan's surrender and the birth of Bangladesh.
4. The Shimla Agreement of July 1972 made bilateral, peaceful negotiation the agreed method and respected the line of control.
5. Both countries tested nuclear weapons in 1998, raising the stakes of their rivalry.
6. Vajpayee's bus journey led to the Lahore Declaration of February 1999, promising dialogue on all issues including Kashmir.
7. The Kargil conflict of June-July 1999, after Pakistani soldiers and militants occupied heights, broke this peace.
8. The record shows repeated cycles of war and agreement, with Kashmir still unsettled.

Q7. Why did India and China go to war in 1962? [4 marks]

1. India gave asylum to the Dalai Lama in 1959 after the rising in Tibet, which China resented.
2. China claimed Aksai Chin and much of NEFA and rejected the McMahon Line.
3. Long correspondence and talks among top leaders failed to resolve the border dispute.
4. In October 1962 China launched a massive invasion on both fronts, declaring a ceasefire in November.

Key takeaways

• Because of India's size and position, most conflicts in South Asia involve India, above all its conflict with Pakistan.
• The 1965 war ended in the Tashkent Agreement of January 1966, mediated by the Soviet Union.
• The 1971 war created Bangladesh and led to the Shimla Agreement of July 1972 on bilateral, peaceful settlement.
• Vajpayee's Lahore Declaration of February 1999 was followed within months by the Kargil conflict.
• India and Bangladesh differ over river waters, the boundary and illegal migration, but also cooperate.
• The Farakka Treaty of 1996 shares the Ganga waters, and the enclave exchange of 2015 settled the boundary.
• The Teen Bigha corridor is Indian land leased to Bangladesh to link its enclave with its mainland.
• Panchsheel's five principles of 1954 could not prevent the 1962 war over Tibet and the border.

Test yourself

Which countries make up South Asia?

Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are usually counted as South Asia.

Who mediated the Tashkent Agreement?

The Soviet Union, through its Premier Alexei Kosygin, brought Shastri and Ayub Khan together at Tashkent.

When and how was Bangladesh born?

In December 1971, when the Indo-Pak war ended with the surrender of Pakistani forces in East Pakistan.

How did Vajpayee travel to Lahore in 1999?

He undertook a bus journey to Lahore, where he signed the Lahore Declaration with Nawaz Sharif.

What does the Farakka Treaty deal with?

It deals with sharing the waters of the Ganga at Farakka between India and Bangladesh during the dry season.

What did India and Bangladesh exchange in 2015?

They exchanged enclaves under the Land Boundary Agreement, settling their long boundary dispute.

When was the Panchsheel Agreement signed, and which leaders are associated with it?

It was signed on 29 April 1954; its five principles are associated with Jawaharlal Nehru and the Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai.

Which two issues damaged India-China friendship before 1962?

India's asylum to the Dalai Lama in 1959 and the border dispute over Aksai Chin and NEFA.