PM Modi addressing 69th UN General Assembly
Source: Wikimedia
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s foreign policy has been characterized by great energy, a desire to break the mold of the past and a penchant for risk-taking. Given the vigour he has imparted, foreign relations should have yielded more significant results. They haven’t. This is not only the fault of poor conception and implementation of some initiatives, but to the fact that in foreign policy there are external variables outside your control.
Even before the Modi government assumed office in May of 2014, certain trends in foreign policy had hardened. 1) The Special Representative process of resolving India’s border issue with China had reached a dead-end. 2) The same had happened with the composite dialogue with Pakistan. Actually, minus a Pakistani effort to punish the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai terror strike of November 2008, the very basis of a bilateral dialogue to resolve issues had been undermined.
What has Modi sought in his foreign policy ?
The Modi government has, through its publicized Raisina Dialogues, put forward themes it wishes to pursue in its foreign policy. In its first iteration in 2016, “Connectivity” was the overarching meme, associated with its desire to push neighbourhood ties. In January 2017, the dialogue was under the rubric of “Multipolarity and Multilateralism,” signaling a larger vision of India as a regional power.
These do not, however, tell the whole story. India can have only one major goal in its grand strategy –to promote economic growth and secure its periphery. In this, integrating the South Asian economy through enhanced connectivity is logical, though pursued fitfully, primarily because of India’s poor ties with Pakistan.
Read also | Globalism, radicalism, populism on Raisina Hill
To secure its periphery, New Delhi must deal with its biggest foreign policy challenge—moderating, if not breaking, the China-Pakistan alliance. Short of this, it remains limited to managing its relationships with the two in a sub-optimal manner. As of today, however, the Modi government appears to be faltering even in this task.
Early momentum
Modi came in with a terrific drive. In just the seven months that he was in office in 2014, he had made nine foreign visits. In his two-and-a-half years, he has visited 36 countries, a handful of them twice, and the United States four times. A remarkable aspect of his visits was that, in many instances, he was the first PM to visit a country, even key neighbours, in years—the first in 17 to Nepal, 28 to Sri Lanka, 34 to UAE, and the first ever to Mongolia.
Modi came to power with a “neighbourhood first” agenda. He signaled his commitment by inviting all the leaders of SAARC nations for his inauguration as Prime Minister. His very first bilateral visit in June 2014 was to India’s “best friend” Bhutan and the second in August was to Nepal. He returned to Kathmandu in November to attend the 18th SAARC summit, where he conducted an important outreach to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
The neighbourhood pattern was repeated in 2015, but this time focusing on the Indian Ocean when there were visits to Seychelles, Mauritius and Sri Lanka as well as to Bangladesh and Afghanistan. A second important cluster was all the five Central Asian “stans” in July 2015.
A third set of priorities became visible through Modi’s 2016 visits to Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Qatar. He had already visited the UAE in August 2016, and the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan became the chief guest at the Republic Day parade in 2017.
Underlying all these were visits to Japan and various European countries with a view to enticing investors and aid. The visits to the US were a special category, aimed at shoring up ties with the only country that could help India offset Chinese power, and whose friendship opened the doors to many other countries and institutions.
The best laid plans…
Somehow things have not worked out as well in the neighbourhood as they could have – and we aren’t even speaking about Pakistan. It was evident in the 18th SAARC summit in Kathmandu that Islamabad was not willing to go along with the connectivity projects being mooted, and Sharif had been domestically hobbled by the Army. By 2016, the India-Pakistan situation had reached a point where a New Delhi-led boycott led to the collapse of the 19th SAARC summit to be held in Islamabad.
Ties with Nepal nose-dived in 2015 following the promulgation of a new constitution that militated against the interests of the Madhesi or plains people. New Delhi woke up at the last minute and sent Foreign Secretary Jaishankar to retrieve the situation, but it was too late. Eventually a road blockade softened the Nepalese, and thereafter a New Delhi-backed constitutional coup led to a break in the CPN(UML)- CPN (Maoist) alliance in Nepal, and the replacement of K P Sharma Oli by Pushpa Kamal Dahal (Prachanda) as Prime Minister. But the damage has been deep, and Oli is now fanning the flames of Nepali nationalism with some Chinese encouragement.
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