Foreign policy was not Prime Minister Narendra Modi metier when he assumed office in May 2014 following a landslide victory over the incumbent Congress government. By background, education and political experience foreign policy was largely an unknown territory. But Mr Modi proved a fast learner, a hands-on leader who acquired a mastery of statecraft through skills with its tools, which he honed as he went along. His native shrewdness leavened his experience; and when he required the advice of men who had greater first-hand knowledge of India’s external relations, Mr Modi was never too proud to turn to them for counsel. He, thus, consulted his Congress predecessor Dr Manmohan Singh, and later, called on (Congress) President Pranab Mukherjee, whose range of experience in government was unrivalled, having held the vital portfolios of Defence, Foreign affairs and Finance.
For all the public relations twaddle on shared democratic values, Mr Modi grew to understand the realpolitik that informed US foreign policy, and policies in the round of Europe as well. Beyond this was India’s troubled neighbourhood, with unremitting hostility of Pakistan and the challenge posed by the Sino-Pakistan strategic alignment. Farther lay Southeast Asia, with Singapore a critical hub and Vietnam even more so, as unilateral assertions of Chinese power unfold across the South China Sea.
In answers to the Russian newspaper Izvestia, Samir Saran, President of the influential think tank, The Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, explained: ‘Russia is India’s most important partner...Our defence partnership and business relations are vital and India will strive hard to ensure that these grow and strengthen....The past year has seen the defence partnership with Russia growing stronger...and such will be the case in the future as well.’ Mr Saran opined that the opposition Congress party was equally committed to India’s time-tested relationship with Russia.
Recently, President Vladimir Putin conferred his country’s highest civilian honour, the ‘Order of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First,’ on Prime Minister Modi for his contribution to deepening bilateral ties. Mr Modi’s response was equally warm. Thanking President Putin for the honour, the Indian Prime Minister said India-Russia cooperation had led ‘to extraordinary outcomes for our citizens....Under his [President Putin] visionary leadership, bilateral and multilateral cooperation between our nations has scaled new heights.’
India’s privileged strategic partnership with Russia included a shared interest in the peace, stability and development of the Central Asian states that were formerly part of the Soviet Union. Samir Saran made the point that Russia through its history was more adept than India in its understanding of geopolitics. For India, this was still an educative process.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s withdrawal of his country’s opposition to UN condemnation of Pakistani jihadi Masood Azhar as a global terrorist is surely a feather in Mr Modi’s cap. His secret Wuhan summit with President Xi has clearly paid off, as was India’s determination to face down Chinese threats of military action over Doklan on the Bhutan-Sikkim border in the summer of 2017.
US news agency Bloomberg, in an analysis of the Modi regime’s record in power, pointed to the 92 foreign visits he had made in comparison to the 50 by his predecessor Dr Manmohan Singh. Mr Modi had projected India as serious international player, whose concerns on international terrorism commanded close and respectful attention from his myriad hosts. Foreign Direct Investment in India had reached $193 billion under his five-year dispensation, although Bloomberg emphasised that more needed to be done on the economic reforms front. Rome wasn’t built in a day and India, with its subcontinent size, will require a longer time span to full modernity.
The modernisation of the economy thus far had been confined largely to the services sector, Bloomberg correctly pronounced. Manufacturing had some way to go, and agriculture a longer distance by far. In foreign policy, Mr Modi had displayed deft touch. He had wooed Japan as a partner in India’s industrialisation, maintained India’s close relationship with Israel, without diluting its ties with the oil rich Gulf kingdoms and Iran. Economic and cultural ties with the European Union – with an India-Nordic summit leavening the relationship - is built on a sound platform of trade, investment and shared democratic systems of government. Much the same can be broadly said about India’s ties with North America, now home to a significantly prosperous India diaspora. Similarly, India’s relations with Africa have gained traction. For reasons of geography and history Southern and East Africa has been especially close to India. Prime Minister Modi has clearly risen to the challenge of making India relevant player in the emerging multi-polar global order.
Irritants mar India-US ties
As civil societies, Indian-American relations have grown creatively down the years. The American dream may have faded for many native Americans, but for communities of aspiring India it the land of opportunity and enterprise, where hard work, good education and individual initiative have yielded rich dividends, Trade and investment ties have been robust in recent years. Against this promising canvas one would imagine state-to-state relations would achieve parallel success. Indo-US ties, apart from the interlude in 1971-72 during the Nixon-Kissinger era, have never been bad; indeed they were, and are, cordial and friendly, but not intimate.
Irritants, from time to time, have scarred the Indo-US relationhip from the inception of Indian Independence in August 1947. The US establishment took the somewhat simplistic view that the new democratic India would reflexively join the US cold war crusade against the Soviet Union. India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru possessed a considerable intellect, and a vision of India’s future was more nuanced. Friendship and admiration towards the United States did not imply mortgaging Indian sovereignty and independence to a third power.
US frustration lead various establishment agencies in Washington to indulge in declamatory posturing on India’s domestic politics, with insufficient awareness of its complexities. ‘Facts are sacred, opinion is free,’ proclaimed a great English newspaper editor decades ago. In US pronouncements on India – notably on religious freedom – these concepts are often interchangeable. A recent statement emanating from an US body ranks India with Afghanistan and Iraq, and such other states, for restrictive religious and political practices. India has its myriad warts, which few Indians would deny, but it does have its self-correcting mechanisms, too.
America has long ceased to be the city on a hill, a light unto the nations. Its executive and legislature authorties are dysfunctional, its legacies in Asia and Greater Middle East an abomination, the racial violence in America’s inner cities hells on earth, the mainstream media utterly toxic, the penal system a nightmarish dystopia.
Now, the US administration has damned Indian pharmaceutical industry for exporting cheap generic drugs . Their affordability has offended the looting US multinational companies. India is the largest supplier of low-cost generic drugs globally, catering to 20 per cent of global demand by volume.
India’s pharma exports rose 11 per cent to $19.2 billion in 2018-19, driven mainly by higher demand in America and Europe. The US constitutes 30 per cent of Indian pharma exports, followed by Africa and the European Union. Other key Indian export markets include South Africa, Russia, Nigeria, Brazil and Germany. Finally, over 66 per cent of Indian generic drugs are exported to highly regulated markets. The looters are clearly not having it their way.
Hardick Pandya on cusp of glory
Hardick Pandya was once more playboy than vintage cricketer. He went a step too far with indiscretions on a TV show and briefly hovered on the brink of sporting extinction. The jolt proved to be his cure. It saved him going the way of the hugely talented Vinod Kambli, who drifted from high promise to shadowy obscurity.
Pandya suddenly clicked into top gear with the Bombay Indians in the Indian Premier League. His blistering innings of 91 from a mere 30 balls, left spectators agog. His pace bowling has been penetrative, his catching and ground fielding outstanding. Pandya is on the cusp of cricketing glory. He will play in the Indian team selected for the ODI World Cup in England this summer. India’s selectors, as has been the custom in recent years, have displayed their standard preference for mediocrity on grounds of experience, making an Indian triumph in the tournament as remote as Ursa Major in the night sky. Yet, the country brims with youthful talent, their skills intoxicating crowds across the land.
