With Modi Government coming to power, the country’s foreign policy is neither inward-looking nor xenophobic. If anything, pluralism and inclusiveness are the touchstones of its global outreach
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his second year in office visited the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar and Turkey, taking diplomatic activism in the region to newer heights, including the special outreach to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, it became clear that Modi’s foreign policy was a studied departure from the outdated ideas of former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. With his much-awaited trip to Tel Aviv in July this year, (no Indian Prime Minister has visited Israel since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1992), the Prime Minister is set to challenge the old stereotype that has always viewed India’s Middle-East policy only through the prism of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
A departure from the failed Nehruvian policies is not merely about personally skipping the almost redundant non-aligned summit in Venezuela, but more importantly, about purposefully shifting India’s foreign policy in newer directions, including forging a new partnership with the US as an equal.
The bilateral logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement' (lEMOA) with the US in 2016, for the facilitation of logistical support, supplies and services between the US and Indian militaries on a reimbursable basis, is a case in point. Be it taking a decisive position on the South China Sea dispute in favour of Vietnam and the Philippines, or expanding the US-India bilateral Naval exercises to include Japan, or the Modi Government’s decision to bring the world’s attention to the plight of Balochi people, who have resisted atrocities of the ‘deep state’ of Pakistan, one thing is stridently clear...Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s foreign policy has shed all traces of empty jingoism that marked the 10 lost years under an inept Congress-led UPA.
Three years into office, the BJP-led NDA Government, with the launch of the GSAT-9 satellite, has, in a sweeping move killed two birds with one stone. Besides alienating Pakistan in space diplomacy, GSAT-9 has reined in aggressive Chinese diplomacy too. With GSAT-9 built and launched singularly by India, for the benefit of all South Asian countries, India has signalled that it will use its ‘space diplomacy’ for development beyond its own boundaries.
In sharp contrast, China’s thrust on manned missions reflects Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ill advised obsession to simply foist its hegemony on its neighbours. Talking of neighbours, India’s equation with Bangladesh is on a stronger keel than ever before. This is evident from the recent signing of 22 agreements, apart from the five billion dollar credit line extended to Bangladesh, inclusive of $500 million for arms procurements alone.
Modi’s ‘Act East’ policy has got a further leg-up under the leadership of Pushpa Kumar Dahal in Nepal, who is far more ‘pro-India’ than former Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli. Under the erstwhile Manmohan Singh-led dispensation, India burnt its bridges with Nepal that saw India as a bully and, hence, started tilting in favour of China.
Under Prime Minister Modi, however, India’s demands for giving Indian origin Madhesis who reside in the Terai region of Nepal, their constitutional rights, have been more discreet and calibrated and this change in strategy is working far more effectively.
Modi’s big masterstroke, however, is the soft power he has chosen to court Sri lanka even as the embattled island nation is busy dealing with the fall-outs of the earlier Mahinda Rajapaksa Government, which had a visible fascination for China. Sri lanka, our largest trading partner in South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc), whose port in Colombo receives more than 70 per cent trans-shipment from India, has received more than eight billion dollar funding and investment from China for its Hambantota and Colombo ports. Despite this, it is solely to the credit of Narendra Modi that Sri lanka flatly rejected China’s demand for docking one of its submarines in Hambantota port recently, respecting India’s sentiments and its rapidly growing stature.
After a disastrously interventionist policy by Rajiv Gandhi and subsequent Congress Governments thereafter, ties between India and Sri lanka hit rock bottom. However, it is again Modi’s innovative and refreshing approach to focus not merely on economic integration but to emphasise on people-to-people cultural connect that is paying huge dividends.
Visiting Sri lanka on its Vesak Day celebrations, the most important date in the Buddhist calendar, has reinforced the power of Modi’s ‘soft power’ and cultural diplomacy. From the Brics summit in Goa to inking the civil nuclear deal with Japan to forging sister agreements between Hyderabad and Brisbane on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Australia, the BJP-led NDA has chosen to do both — strengthen old friendships and nurture new ones too.
last but not the least, rebalancing the ‘axis of power’ in the Indian Ocean region and beyond has been the high point of the last three years of Prime Minister Modi’s extremely eventful tenure. Commercially, bodies like the Asean and the East Asia Summit are eager to enhance trade ties with India. In 2014-15, bilateral trade between India and Asean was worth roughly $76 billion. Again, Asean accounts for 13 per cent of all investment flows into India. In the Middle-East, India is Israel’s largest customer in the arms market and Israel is India’s third largest weapons’ supplier. Modi’s scheduled visit to Tel Aviv will only further cement bilateral ties between these two nations.
While Narendra Modi’s ‘soft power’ push is salvaging goodwill which had been lost, thanks to a decrepit foreign policy by the earlier Congress-led UPA Government, equally India is not shy anymore to show its heft where it matters. By shunning the One Belt One Road (OBOR) summit in China recently on concerns over the $50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, the message from India is loud and clear: It will not take kindly to any transgressions of its sovereignty, dignity, territorial integrity and core interests.
The US and Germany have taken note of India’s concerns and already red flagged to Beijing their displeasure on how Beijing has been undermining not only international norms of free trade and fair competition, but also compromising on human rights by ensnaring poor countries into a debt trap by giving loans at exorbitant rates.
Thanks to Mahinda Rajapaksa’s fancy for Chinese financial assistance, Sri lanka today finds itself in the throes of an ugly debt trap. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s leverage in the last few years has snowballed. The much touted CPEC could well be the Trojan horse that sounds the ‘death knell’ for the Pakistan economy that has in any case only floundered from one crisis to another in the last many years.
Suffice to say India’s foreign policy under charismatic Prime Minister Narendra Modi is neither inward looking nor xenophobic. If anything, pluralism and inclusiveness are the touchstones of India’s global outreach to nations that believe in shared values and a common destiny.
(The writer is chief spokesperson for the BJP, Mumbai)