The Pragmatic Globalist

A COUNTRY’S FOREIGN POLICY flows from its geography, who its neighbours are, how it defines its interests, the need to adapt to the changing international environment to safeguard core interests, the influence of outside powers in the region, the global order in which it has to conduct itself, its economic situation, its political and military capacities, its historical experience, cultural moorings and the image it has of itself. Its system of governance, the thinking of its elites and the general public sentiment also influence foreign policy. Decisions taken at one time in presumed self-interest and later proved mistaken become difficult legacy issues that constrain choices.

To assess Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s foreign policy all these complex factors have to be taken into consideration and a judgement made. No prime minister makes foreign policy on a clean slate. They can redefine to some extent the national interest in the light of international developments, adapt to those, change priorities as considered necessary, explore new opportunities and partnerships, give more attention to areas and issues viewed as hitherto relatively neglected, show more boldness and imagination and infuse the country’s foreign policy to a degree with the leader’s confidence and self-assurance.

All countries give priority to relations with neighbours so as to build a cordon of friendly countries, prevent them from being used by external powers to create tensions and pressures, and to avoid getting bogged down in firefighting in its periphery and get distracted from pursuing larger regional and international goals. Modi too emphasised the Neighbourhood First policy when he became prime minister in 2014, inviting all the leaders of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to his inauguration and, later during his premiership, visiting more than once the neighbouring countries, including an informal visit to Pakistan as a personal gesture to then Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. His predecessors had failed to make bilateral visits to countries in our immediate neighbourhood, a glaring anomaly. Modi’s visit to Nepal in August 2014 was the first bilateral visit to that country by an Indian prime minister in 17 years. His visit to Sri Lanka in 2015 was also the first standalone visit after 28 years.

One can ask whether this heightened attention has yielded expected results. To answer that question it is important to recognise that no country can fully control its immediate environment. This is true even of powerful states such as the US, Russia and China. In our case, for various reasons our neighbours have been difficult to handle. Our dominating size creates fears that lead them to assert overly their independence and sovereignty, draw in external powers to create a balance with India, and seek to affirm their separate identity viewed as being threatened by shared civilisational, cultural and ethnic bonds.

Modi has contributed to building strong bonds with the US, without compromising our larger foreign policy interests and autonomy. His visit to the US has also turned out to be reasonably successful

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Nepal and Sri Lanka have played the China card against us openly in the past and even now. Despite efforts to woo Nepal to counter the mounting Chinese influence there, India’s relations with it remain problematic. The Modi Government has been criticised for obstructing the flow of goods into Nepal during the Madheshi agitation in the Terai against Nepal’s new constitution, but despite goodwill efforts thereafter to put ties back on track, internal instability in Nepal and the Maoist elements there have impeded the process. The Maldives too had played the Chinese card in a show of great animosity towards India until the ouster of its previous government. India has rightly courted the new government with generosity. Bangladesh has used this card too though today our relations with it under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina are probably the best ever. Transit links through Bangladesh to India’s Northeast have been developed despite the acute political sensitivity of the issue for Bangladesh in the past. India is supplying power to Bangladesh. It has offered a credit line for defence purchases from India. While the Modi Government has solved the enclaves issue and settled the maritime boundary, the Teesta river issue remains unresolved. Illegal migration from Bangladesh and its linkage to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act became issues of great controversy with a negative fallout in Bangladesh, which is true also of the Rohingya issue, but both were handled well enough eventually. With all these neighbours the Modi Government has been very active in seeking improvement in ties, realising that while it cannot exclude China from pursuing its interests in these countries, it needs to step up its own efforts there. The political and economic consequences of China’s expansionist policies are being felt in these countries, which requires us to be alert and lay down certain red lines, as we have done in the case of Chinese submarines docking at the Colombo port. The wait-and-watch attitude has paid off in the Maldives, containing for the moment the pursuit by China of its maritime strategy there that threatens our security interests. Meanwhile, India has rightly been generous in its assistance to the Maldives.

THE PAKISTAN PROBLEM has endured ever since Independence and no Indian prime minister has found a solution to it. Modi has raised the stakes for Pakistan on the terrorism front by authorising our armed forces to conduct retaliatory ground and aerial operations across the Line of Control (LoC), as was the case with the surgical strikes in 2016 in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir after the Uri terrorist attack and the 2019 Balakot attack on Pakistani territory proper after the Pulwama terrorist attack. In every possible forum, be it in joint statements with various countries, BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), UN General Assembly and so on, India has put the spotlight on the terrorism issue. It has kept the heat on Pakistan at the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). More importantly, it has taken a bold political decision in the context of domestic politics and international opinion as well by abrogating Article 370, making Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) a Union Territory and separating Ladakh from it. These fundamental constitutional changes mean a ruling out of any role of Pakistan in resolving issues pertaining to J&K, which can no longer be on the agenda of any future India-Pakistan dialogue as a separate item. Apart from Pakistan’s diplomatic belligerence on the issue, and China rejecting the new map of J&K issued by India and seeking to raise the issue in the UN Security Council (UNSC) with no effect, the Modi Government has been successful in managing the international fallout of the decision.

Modi has changed the image of India from an obstructive participant in climate change negotiations to one of leadership without giving up on basic principles of climate justice, and provision of finance and technology

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With regard to China, India’s focus since the 1990s has been on peace and tranquility and confidence-building measures on the unsettled border in order to avoid military clashes. China cannot be wished away, and so the policy so far has been to continue discussing the border issue but not allow a lack of resolution to stand in the way of broadening ties in economic and other areas. Modi has initially not only continued this well-established policy but, as part of his more personalised diplomacy, raised the level of political engagement by having two long-ranging informal summits with President Xi Jinping. These summits allowed a probing of the mind and worldview of the top leader of a country that has an opaque system of decisionmaking and governance. The net result has been disappointing as China has continued its provocations on the border. India has countered China’s expansionism in Bhutan’s Doklam plateau and in Ladakh with determination. China has been able to get its way in its aggressive policies in the South China Sea without resistance and has bullied Japan in the East China Sea without a military confrontation, but India has stood up to it. At the same time, Modi has kept himself away from public denunciations of China and has kept the negotiation option open with some success so far. The idea is to avoid the relationship from becoming politically irretrievable, pursue a policy of both resisting and engaging China as other countries are doing, preserving our room for manoeuvre internationally so that we do not become overdependent on others in countering China and become a pawn in their hands, besides being able to participate in forums where both countries are present such as RIC (Russia-India-China), BRICS, SCO, etcetera. This has not precluded India from opposing Xi’s pet project, the Belt and Road Initiative, and taking steps to curb China’s economic inroads in India in sensitive areas.

India’s relationship with the US has been expanding ever since the Indo-US nuclear deal in 2008. Under Modi the momentum of these ties has been maintained. Trade and investment volumes have expanded, and so have defence ties. India signed the remaining two defence foundational agreements with the US, the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (2016) and the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (2020). India has been declared a Major Defence Partner of the US (2016), transfers of sensitive technologies have been eased, a 2+2 Defence and Foreign Ministers dialogue has been instituted. Modi has shown his capacity to forge a degree of personal chemistry with US presidents as different as Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Some needling trade issues have remained unresolved, with the US withdrawing arbitrarily benefits to India under the Generalized System of Preferences. If cooperation on counter-terrorism increased during Modi’s tenure, the US policy towards Pakistan has ignored some vital Indian concerns, such as in Afghanistan. The Doha Agreement with the Taliban, legitimising the terrorist militia politically, and the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan have created serious security issues for us. Pakistan has been effectively rewarded with its long-sought “strategic depth”in Afghanistan. The US pinpricks on human rights issues, religious freedom, restrictions on NGOs, etcetera have continued. The US sanctions on Iran have interfered in India-Iran energy ties and have damaged our strategic ties with that country. The Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) legislation seeks to hit at our defence ties with Russia. The power disparity between India and the US and the latter’s unilateralist tendencies explain some of these issues. On the whole, Modi has contributed to building strong bonds with the US, without compromising the country’s larger foreign policy interests and autonomy. Modi’s visit to the US has also turned out to be reasonably successful in its outcome, removing some concerns about the degree of commitment of the Biden administration to relations with India. The positive trajectory of India-US ties remains confirmed.

The US debacle in Afghanistan is a failure of US policy, not of Indian policy. The US has gone against all its declared principles and values in handing over the country to the Taliban, giving a fillip to religious radicalism and terrorism in the region. Criticism in some quarters that India had erred in Afghanistan by not reaching out to what was projected as a reformed Taliban has proved to be wrong. The Taliban government is neither inclusive nor has it emerged through negotiations, as Modi has pointed out. He has expressed concern about Afghan territory being used as a base for terrorism—a concern that has been reflected in the joint statement issued on the occasion of Modi’s US visit—and has cautioned against any early recognition and so on. On this, the US visit has not provided clarity about the American position though the joint statement exhorts the Taliban government to honour its commitments to human rights, especially those of women and minorities. Using its UNSC membership, India has got inserted in the UNSC resolution a reference to the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed in the context of the Afghan soil being used for terrorist acts against countries in the region. India was right to close its consulates and the mission in Afghanistan in view of the security situation. Any loss of life or a hostage situation would have put the Government in the dock. The purported loss of $3 billion of investment in development projects in Afghanistan is misplaced criticism, as the roads, the power lines, the dam and the parliament building continue to exist and these development projects (500 in all) have earned the goodwill of the Afghan people that will endure.

Ties with Russia have been preserved despite India’s perceived leaning towards the US. India has succeeded in de-hyphenating its Russian and American ties. India has shown its commitment to its strategic ties with Russia by going ahead with the S-400 missile procurement despite the threat of US sanctions. In the standoff between India and China in Ladakh, Russia responded positively to India’s demands for emergency defence supplies despite receiving signals from China to slow them down. The energy ties with Russia have expanded. Modi and President Vladimir Putin maintain regular contact. Russia made a remarkable personal gesture to Modi by participating in the UNSC meeting presided over by him. No doubt, on Afghanistan and Pakistan, India and Russia have divergent thinking, but this should not be exaggerated. On these countries, India has in reality much greater differences with the US.

The deepening of India’s strategic ties with France has been a marked feature of India’s relations with Europe during Modi’s tenure, despite the misguided controversy generated domestically by the opposition over the Rafale contract. The warmth of ties with Portugal has been helpful in conducting the India-EU summit and the decision to begin negotiations on the long-pending India-EU free-trade and investment agreements. India under Modi has demonstrated its rising diplomatic stature with the organisation of an India-Nordic summit in 2018. The Modi Government resolved the vexatious Italian marines case to put India-Italy relations back on course. The Enhanced Trade Partnership and the 10-year roadmap to expand ties with the UK are joint efforts to take advantage of opportunities created by Brexit.

India’s relations with the Gulf countries began improving under the previous Government but the Modi Government has notably consolidated them, especially with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, with which cooperation in combating terrorism has been taken to new levels. The Pakistan connection of these countries is no longer an impediment in bilateral relations. The previous Indian external affairs minister was even invited to address the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) Foreign Ministers meeting in Abu Dhabi in 2019. Modi has been conferred the highest awards of these two countries. Defence ties with the Gulf countries are on the agenda. The Indian Army chief has visited both the countries for the first time. That a BJP prime minister, projected as anti-Muslim, with all the abuse he receives from Pakistan, is a privileged interlocutor of the conservative Gulf monarchies marks not just a big change in the mindset of these countries but also the practical and pragmatic approach of the Modi Government with a clear eye for national interest. Regrettably, even though Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdog˘an was invited to India in 2017 as part of efforts to reach out to an influential country in West Asian politics, relations with Turkey have received a setback with Erdog˘an’s uncalled-for statements on Kashmir which he has treated as a Muslim cause, prompted by his Muslim Brotherhood affiliations. The Modi Government has reinforced ties with Israel without disturbing its ties with Arab countries; in retrospect, India was ahead of the curve in the light of the normalisation of ties among some Gulf monarchies as well as Morocco’s with Israel.

When India talks of multipolarity today it is on the assumption that India has the capacity to be one of the poles. By stating that a multipolar world presupposes a multipolar Asia, India is signalling its resistance to China’s ambition to dominate Asia

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With Iran, despite draconian US sanctions on the country that disrupted our economic and energy ties with it, India has kept communications channels with the leadership open as part of the exercise of its strategic autonomy. Modi visited Iran in 2016 when the Chabahar agreement was signed. The US was persuaded to exclude the project from the sanctions regime and its implementation has been pursued despite difficulties. The Iranian foreign minister visited India in 2020 and India’s external affairs minister has visited Iran twice recently and met its leadership after the presidential elections there. The Government has felt that it is in India’s interest to maintain some balance in the region in the context of our greatly improved ties with Arab Gulf countries. The Modi Government is concerting with Iran on the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan.

India’s Act East policy has seen Modi focusing on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). In 2018, all the 10 ASEAN leaders were chief guests on the occasion of the Republic Day for an India-ASEAN commemorative summit. Modi noted on the occasion that “the East, or the Indo-Pacific region, will be indispensable to India’s future and our common destiny”. He has paid special attention to Singapore which has acted as a gateway for India to ASEAN. Attention has been paid to Vietnam, which he visited in 2016, following on the Vietnamese prime minister’s visit to India in October 2014. He made his first visit to Indonesia in 2018. The joint statement issued on the occasion points to the underlying strategic aims of wooing specific countries in this region, with the two sides emphasising the “importance of achieving a free, open, transparent, rules-based, peaceful, prosperous and inclusive Indo-Pacific region, where sovereignty and territorial integrity, international law, in particular [UN Convention on the Law of the Sea], freedom of navigation and overflight, sustainable development and an open, free, fair and mutually beneficial trade and investment system are respected.” As part of maritime cooperation, India will develop a strategic port in Sabang in Indonesia, which is close to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. As part of our Act East policy, connectivity projects linking the Northeast to the ASEAN region through Myanmar and Thailand in which Japan is an active partner have been pursued but hiccups have occurred with the agitation in Assam on a new citizenship register and the military coup in Myanmar.

In the maritime area, the Modi Government has been remarkably dynamic diplomatically. India is strategically located in the Indian Ocean and this is being leveraged to assert India’s importance and its leadership role at a time when the maritime security scenario in the Indian Ocean is becoming more problematic for India with China’s ingress into the region as part of its so-called maritime silk road project. India has taken calibrated steps to give substance to the concept of the Quad countries (the US, India, Japan and Australia) coming together for maritime security. The bilateral India-US Malabar exercise was expanded in stages to include Japan and Australia. The Quad initially met at official level, subsequently at the ministerial level and then on March 12th at the summit level in a virtual format at the initiative of the US president. An in-person meeting held on September 24th in Washington has issued a detailed and substantial communiqué outlining the broad agenda of the Quad covering beyond maritime security, anti-Covid vaccines, climate change, critical technologies, supply chains, infrastructure, space, education, people-to-people contacts, Quad fellowships, and so on.

INDIA HAD INITIALLY tried to separate the Quad from the Indo-Pacific concept, looking at the latter as broader, more inclusive in scope, to be adhered by all those countries which accepted the principles of freedom of navigation and overflight, openness, a rules-based order, respect for sovereignty and equality and so on. This was the thrust of Modi’s speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue in June 2018. India’s Indo-Pacific concept is represented by the SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) doctrine that would ensure prosperity for all the stakeholders in the region. India has rightly emphasised “ASEAN centrality” in the context of the Indo-Pacific. As ASEAN countries are a link between the Indian and the Pacific Oceans, they have played a central role so far in building an Asian security architecture through mechanisms such as the East Asian Summit. It is imperative therefore to assure the ASEAN countries that their role is not being diluted, as also to draw into a Quad-plus architecture in the future key ASEAN countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam in particular. The Quad communiqué underlines the centrality of ASEAN.

As part of a much stronger emphasis on maritime issues, the Modi Government has increased cooperation with key countries, especially France, with a focus in particular on the southwestern Indian Ocean. A logistics agreement has been signed with France. In the area of maritime domain awareness a fusion information centre has been established by the Indian Navy at Gurugram. A trilateral India-Sri Lanka-Maldives meeting on maritime security held in November 2020, which was attended by observers from Bangladesh, Mauritius and the Seychelles, marks a more dynamic approach by the Modi Government on Indian Ocean security in the background of the mounting Chinese challenge. In November 2019, Modi launched the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative at the Bangkok East Asia Summit to foster a rules-based order in the region.

Africa has continued to receive focused attention. In 2015 the third India-Africa Summit was organised with 54 countries attending, 41 at the level of heads of state or government. In 2018 he visited Rwanda and Uganda. In his address to the Ugandan parliament he enunciated with clarity the 10 principles that guide India’s policy towards Africa. In 2016 he visited Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa and Mozambique. Barring Uganda, all these countries are on the eastern seaboard of the Indian Ocean. Modi has also paid special attention to smaller countries as part of creating constituencies for India within the UN system and to bolster its leadership role. In New York in 2019 he participated in two summits: the first India-Caribbean (CARICOM) summit with 20 leaders with a focus on climate change, the blue economy and India’s partnership in their development; and the third Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation, the India-Pacific island countries summit, the first such summit having been held in 2014 when he visited Fiji and the second in Jaipur in 2015.

Climate change is an issue with huge strategic and economic importance for a country like India, with one-sixth of the world’s population that has to achieve the fruits of development for which increased energy use is indispensable. Modi has changed the image of India from an obstructive participant in climate change negotiations to one of leadership without giving up on basic principles of climate justice, and provision of finance and technology. At the COP26 in November 2021, India will be the only major country to claim that it has met its commitments under the Paris Agreement. With the progress India has made in the area of renewable energy, India has credibility in international negotiations that it lacked before. With France, India launched the International Solar Alliance to promote Modi’s vision of “One Sun, One World, One Grid”.

Modi has tried to use the Indian diaspora, with its wealth of talent and achievements, as a force multiplier for Indian diplomacy as never before. He has galvanised and infused them with confidence about India’s future. The massive rallies organised abroad for him to address the Indian communities have been wrongly trivialised as event management. Other countries such as China and Israel have used their diaspora abroad effectively for promoting the interests of their countries of origin. The political significance of these rallies has been recognised by the host countries whose top political leadership has attended these occasions.

The prime minister has also used India’s soft power to buttress its foreign policy, be it the UN declaring June 21st the International Yoga Day every year or Modi going to prominent Hindu and Buddhist temples during his official visits abroad, as in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Vietnam and Japan. Such visits make the larger point of old civilisational ties between India and these countries and revive consciousness about these bonds. In a speech at the India-China Business Forum in Shanghai in September 2015, Modi drew upon the legacies of Buddhism as a key to uniting Asia, emphasising it as a bond between ancient India and China.

India’s ambition to be a leading power requires more engagement with the outside world from a position of self-assurance and self-confidence. Modi’s visit to Australia in 2014 was the first one by an Indian prime minister after a gap of 28 years; to Canada in 2015 it was after a gap of 42 years; to Fiji in 2014 after a gap of 33 years. His visit to Mongolia was the first ever visit by an Indian prime minister. He is the only prime minister to have visited all the five countries of Central Asia, a little more than a year after assuming office. Modi consistently sends out a message of a vibrant India that offers opportunities to the rest of the world. When India talks of multipolarity today it is on the assumption that India has the capacity to be one of the poles. By stating that a multipolar world presupposes a multipolar Asia, India is signalling its resistance to China’s ambition to dominate Asia. India wants to be in a position to be friendly with all countries, even those which have adversarial relations with each other. This enables India to align itself in a pragmatic way with diverse countries based on shared interests. As part of India’s leadership role, India’s vaccine diplomacy has earned it goodwill.

Regrettably, challenges for India’s foreign policy have been created by domestic opposition to Modi and the BJP-led Government. On issues such as the standoff with China in Doklam or Chinese intrusions across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh, the abrogation of Article 370, the strikes against Pakistan, the weakening of institutions, restrictions on freedoms, human rights in J&K, the treatment of Indian minorities, the farmers agitation, political, civil society, academic and media lobbies in India have vilified the prime minister personally, questioned the credibility of the Government and even sought external intervention in our internal affairs. Ammunition has been given by these lobbies to the Western liberal press to besmirch the image of India under the Modi Government. India has had to expend its energies to counter this propaganda abroad by elements in India itself against the health of India’s democracy. The domestic consensus on India’s foreign policy has got frayed.

About The Author

Kanwal Sibal

Kanwal Sibal is a former foreign secretary

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