Ramya wants to live peacefully in her life, but she does not have the appropriate surrounding to do so. “What is the reason behind that?,” thought Ramya. She has worked hard to maintain peace within herself so that she could develop herself completely and have a rosy environment in the family. But, alas! She could not find it. Once she was deep in the thought of finding the reason behind her annoyance and deprivation of good life, she found that she and her family do not have good relations with her neighbours. They were quarrelling with them every now and then, and this was the reason for her unhappiness with herself and lack of peace in her mind.
So, with this, we can understand that for inner peace and development, it is important not only to have all the resources for development, but also to have friendly neighbours so that you can have inner peace within yourself. This applies to the familial as well as the national and international level.
Now, an question comes in our mind here: how can good relations with our neighbours help us in our national development as well as for peace in society? Here is an example of peace and development of a nation due to peaceful and friendly nations. If we take the example of Pakistan in our neighbourhood, it is one of the most important parts of our neighbourhood. India’s peace and development depends on its good relations with Pakistan.
As this is not hidden from anyone that we don’t have as cordial relations with Pakistan as we have with other nations, it has become our major hindrance in the development of our country. Frequent attacks on our armed forces and parts of Jammu and Kashmir have led to a major loss to our country as it squeezes our economic as well as human resources to maintain the tranquillity in the region. Hence, Pakistan can be seen as a major partner for peace and development of India.
Now, here, the question comes as to how we can maintain good relations with one of our oldest foes in international relations. Here, India can have two Fs, i.e. Firmness and Flexibility on the issue. We can be firm on certain aspects such as “Talks and Terror cannot go Together”, but we can be flexible on some issues such as the Indus Waters Treaty. We can also have some unofficial dialogues with them and people-to-people contact so that if the government is not co-operating, people can pressurise the government to have cordial relations with India.
As we have seen about Pakistan, we can also look at the example of Nepal. Initially, we had good relations with Nepal, especially with regards to people-to-people relations due to shared mythology and historically, we had cordial relations with the state. But, as time and international relations are changing, we are facing certain issues with it, as we have seen with respect to the Kalapani issue. As times are changing, the needs of both the countries are also changing. Therefore, it is the need of the hour to maintain good relations with Nepal to maintain peace in the country and also to save human as well as economic resources.
When we talk about neighbours, we cannot forget our mightiest neighbour, China. It is the most powerful in our neighbourhood, both from the societal as well as economic point of view. Clashes in Galwan Valley and the Doklam standoff indicates that we need to find a middle-way for our relations to maintain peace and tranquillity in the nation.
We also need to maintain good relations with the other neighbours including Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. As for international relations, it is important to have good friends to have good space in the comity of nations as well as for the development of the nation.
So as it is clear that development leads to the good or bad destiny of the nation, development also depends on the good or bad relations with our neighbourhood. Therefore, it is said that “A Nation’s Destiny is linked to its Neighbourhood”.