US deep state’s involvement in Nepal, Bangladesh is an absurd conspiracy theory

The air is heavy with grief as funeral rites of young protesters are held at the Pashupatinath crematorium in Nepal’s Kathmandu. | Manisha Mondal | ThePrint The air is heavy with grief as funeral rites of young protesters are held at the Pashupatinath crematorium in Nepal’s Kathmandu. | Manisha Mondal | ThePrint

Domestic political chaos in Nepal follows troubles in Bangladesh. With two neighbours in turmoil, and others none too stable either, India faces some challenges within the region. But while these troubles might signal the need for resolute action by New Delhi, sometimes the best response is no response at all. It is to wait until the situation sorts itself out to provide greater clarity. 

The neighbourhood is a region of potential risks for any regionally dominant power like India, but regional dominance also carries some advantages. India is more capable of influencing smaller nations both through incentives and potential punishment. The neighbours know this, often better than New Delhi. Thus, not acting in haste and waiting for clarity to develop in the confused domestic politics is not as much of a risk in the region as it can be in other circumstances. 

This is particularly true because, though a turbulent region is potentially a problem, it is not quite clear whether India can do much about it. Precipitate action may actually do more harm than good. The key point to remember is that foreign powers, even dominant regional powers such as India, can’t do much about domestic political mismanagement, which is the problem in both Nepal and Bangladesh. 

Deep state conspiracy theories

It is often suspected that these regional troubles are being engineered by forces inimical to India, the favourite being the American liberal deep state. This is an absurd conspiracy theory for more than one reason. First, it makes little logical sense: every one of the last several US administrations from Bill Clinton onwards was keen on building up India and ensuring that Indian power grew as a counter to China. Undermining India would have meant undermining their own strategy. While it was very likely that some of the US administrations would have possibly preferred a less ideologically troublesome India, the idea that this would lead them to subvert their own strategic interests vis-à-vis China suggests a somewhat crude understanding of how Washington pursues its priorities. 

Second, of course, is the equally absurd notion of any “deep state”. Those who talk about it are either entirely ignorant of the complexity of bureaucratic politics or are seeking refuge in popular conspiratorial nonsense even when they should know better. It is ludicrous to imagine that there is some determined and synchronised core in any government that can direct national power to such specific objectives. This has always been the ambition of statesmen and even bureaucrats who set up coordination mechanisms such as the National Security Councils in many countries. Such agencies were set up precisely to coordinate policies because bureaucracies pull in different directions. But the experience of even such coordination agencies has generally been poor, and such coordination was rarely achieved in practice. 

There are indeed some celebrated successful cases of external intervention, such as the CIA operation to overthrow Iranian PM Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953 or the Soviet invasions of various Eastern European countries at several points. But these successes are few and far between. Despite years of effort, the US couldn’t get rid of Cuba’s Fidel Castro, just a few kilometres off the Florida coast, who thumbed his nose at Washington for decades. At other times, efforts to control other polities went horribly wrong for all parties. Think of the repeated US experience of nation-building in various parts of the world, from Southeast Asia to the Middle East and, most recently, Afghanistan. Despite the Cuban experience, the US has had greater success in the Western hemisphere, even though this is largely the result of sullen quiescence rather than active support of US goals. But this speaks to the advantages of regional dominance, an advantage for India too. 

Similarly, the Soviet client states in Central Europe chafed under Moscow’s control only for as long as its power was sufficiently fearsome. As soon as Moscow weakened in the late 1980s, Eastern Europeans and then even constituent Soviet nationalities voted with their feet. Loss of regional dominance meant that Russia faced problems even in its own “near abroad”, but that is not a problem India faces today. 

The final absurdity of such conspiracy theories is revealed by the fact that their proponents blame both the US and China for the development. In other words, the authors of such theories couldn’t decide who to blame and so took a tout azimuts view rather than consider the more likely possibility that political and economic mismanagement by the Sheikh Hasina (Bangladesh) and KP Oli governments (Nepal) led to their overthrow. The results were bad for Indian interests, no doubt, but such bad outcomes are not always the result of deliberate designs by others. It is often the outcome of complicated political processes that no one controls. Seeing this as a planned outcome is giving one’s adversaries far too much credit. More importantly, it ends up sometimes creating unnecessary adversaries.

Ideologisation for foreign policy

Equally important to remember is that opposition to India is natural because it’s the regional power. This is not India’s fault, though that is obviously of little comfort to the strategists in New Delhi who have to deal with the fallout. New Delhi can make the situation worse if it makes mistakes, such as advertising its preferences within the political turbulence in the neighbourhood. This is unhelpful. In Bangladesh, while its official policy is to wait and watch, clearly the semi-official Indian media went after the new regime with considerable bitterness, blaming the overthrow of the Hasina government on an anti-India conspiracy, citing various Indian agencies as sources. This no doubt suggests a reflection of an official viewpoint that the government itself is unwilling to state publicly. 

Others in the region aren’t fools, of course, so they’ll take this as reflecting government views because it surely does. The problem is that this will undermine India’s official hands-off stance, which is the correct and pragmatic view considering that we cannot predict how and in what way the situation will evolve. Neither New Delhi nor anyone else has the means to direct such political movements. External and even internal actors are basically passengers in a driverless vehicle and can only hope that the vehicle moves in a direction they want to go. 

Part of the reason for such unpragmatic actions is the growing ideologisation of foreign policy. Pragmatism requires dealing with all sides, including those one might disagree with, whereas a deeply ideological approach sees the world in terms of rigid friends and foes. Whether in dealing with US President Donald Trump or the Indian subcontinent region, such ideologised foreign policy is a danger because it introduces blinkers that limit one’s strategic perspectives. This only makes an unpalatable situation worse. 

Rajesh Rajagopalan is a professor of International Politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He tweets @RRajagopalanJNU. Views are personal.

(Edited by Ratan Priya)