The Indo-Soviet Special Relationship and its Relevance to South Asian Regional Security

Abstract

A requirement of the Soviet foreign policy, especially since the late fifties as the Sino-Soviet conflict began, has been to work for peaceful, stable and friendly South Asian region on the Soviet Union southern flank. The "Tashkent Declaration" (1966) and the attempt by the Soviet Union to adopt policy of balance between Pakistan and India, the two most important states in South Asia, during the latter half of the sixties, is testimony to this. In this context, the Soviet Union had encouraged and tried to promote the idea of regional co-operation in South Asia even before the South Asian Regional Co-operation (SARC) was first mooted (1980) by the president of Bangladesh. Indeed, one could say that Breshnev first proposal for a collective security system for Asia, shorn of its military security aspects and the exclusion of the Soviet Union, has matured in the eighties into SARC. For the Soviet Union successful South Asian regional grouping, with India inevitably as its kingpin, represents in the long-term the hopeful potential of loosening Pakistan (also Sri Lanka's and Bangladesh's) close ties with the United States, as well as of reducing the American presence there which cannot but appear threatening to its own interests in Afghanistan in particular and the South Asian region in general. The key aspect of the 'special' Indo-Soviet relationship has been the coincidence of Indian and Soviet regional and global interests. India's
interests and initiatives in South Asia have been to consolidate its preeminent position as the general power, and globally to limit the United State's penetration of Pakistan. Although the post-Indira Gandhi Indian leadership's vision of pulling India into the '21st century' means a much greater Indian dependence on Western foreign capital than hitherto, it in no way contradicts the continuation of India's close ties with the Soviet Union. And in this context, SAARC assumes particular relevance as it may increase the attraction of the region to Western foreign aid and capital investment.