It is said that India bashing by its neighbouring countries is directly or indirectly linked to their internal social conflicts. Explain with the help of developments in Indo-Pak and Indo-Srilankan relations. (1995)
The proposition is a regional version of the diversionary theory of conflict: rulers facing internal division look for an external enemy to unite their societies. Jack S. Levy‘s 1989 critique showed that the theory is plausible but conditional. In South Asia, asymmetry makes India the obvious target. Brantly Womack‘s asymmetry theory (2006) shows why: the smaller state is preoccupied with a larger one that attends to it only intermittently, so misperception is structural and anti-India positioning cheap.
The mechanism
- Identity building: states with contested national cores define themselves against the large neighbour.
- Displacing blame: revolts are attributed to Indian intrigue, not domestic grievance.
- Cross-border kinship: where a minority has kin in India, India’s concern looks like interference, and resisting India becomes a test of loyalty.
Pakistan: an institutionalised version
- Ethnic fault lines: Punjabi dominance of the army and bureaucracy has alienated Bengalis, Baloch, Sindhis and Muhajirs. Pakistan treated the 1971 Bengali revolt as an Indian conspiracy and blamed Karachi’s mid-1990s violence on Indian agencies.
- Praetorianism: the army’s budgetary and political primacy needs a permanent existential threat; Ayesha Jalal (The State of Martial Rule, 1990) traces how that primacy shaped state policy.
- Present evidence: Islamabad blamed India for the Jaffar Express hijacking (March 2025) and now officially labels Baloch militants “Fitna al-Hindustan”, although the insurgency comes from Balochistan’s own grievances. After the May 2025 crisis the army’s standing rose: Asim Munir became Field Marshal and then Chief of Defence Forces under the 27th Amendment (November 2025).
Sri Lanka: majoritarianism and the Tamil question
- Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism made Sinhala the only official language in 1956 and later restricted Tamil university entry. These measures turned a linguistic minority into an insurgent one.
- Tamil Nadu’s kinship with Sri Lankan Tamils made India look like an outside sponsor of the minority; S. D. Muni‘s Pangs of Proximity (1993) traces how that proximity entangled the two states. The JVP‘s 1971 indoctrination lectures included “Indian expansionism“, and its 1987–89 revolt was fought against the Indo–Sri Lanka Accord. President Ranasinghe Premadasa won office on an anti-Accord platform and demanded the IPKF‘s withdrawal in 1989.
- Later, Sinhala nationalist politics used fishermen’s arrests, Kachchatheevu and resistance to a trade pact (CEPA, then ETCA) as anti-India themes, while the Rajapaksas turned to China. Only in August 2026 did the two agree to resume ETCA talks.
Limits of the proposition
- Real grievances exist. India trained Tamil militant groups in the 1980s, and Pakistan’s Kashmir claim predates any particular internal crisis. Not all hostility is diversion.
- It cuts both ways. Tamil Nadu politics and India’s own domestic incentives also shaped Indian policy, for example on Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council in 2012–13.
- Internal crisis can also produce outreach. Sri Lanka after its 2022 collapse accepted about US$4 billion in Indian help. Anura Kumara Dissanayake, whose JVP once preached against “Indian expansionism”, signed a defence MoU with India in April 2025.
Conclusion
The link is real but conditional. Anti-India rhetoric rises when a neighbour’s internal cohesion is weakest, most clearly and permanently in Pakistan, where the army needs India as an enemy. It is episodic in Sri Lanka, where it tracks the Tamil question and elections. India’s answer is to deny neighbours a pretext: be sensitive about asymmetry, stay out of their internal politics and offer help that visibly helps their people.