A good scorecard

Kanwal Sibal

WE should evaluate the conduct of foreign policy and national security in the first two years of the Modi government in the light of the challenges India has faced virtually since Independence and the essential continuity in our foreign and security policies.

China’s policies towards us have always been strategically adversarial. Despite this, previous governments have engaged China at the highest levels, kept the channels of dialogue open, set up mechanisms to resolve border differences, strengthened confidence-building measures to prevent actual border clashes and increased trade exchanges to the point of China becoming our largest trade partner in goods.

Pakistan has been perennially hostile. It has abetted terrorism against us since the mid-80s. It has never abandoned its strategic objective of denying us access to Afghanistan and opposing our presence there. Pakistan was a territorial product of religious forces in the subcontinent which continue to threaten Indian security even today. Pakistan has not allowed SAARC to develop as an effective regional organisation. Despite Pakistan’s abiding hostility and terrorist attacks, previous governments have kept the doors of dialogue open, delinked terrorism from dialogue, and overlooked even the horrific Mumbai attacks in the hope that Pakistan in its own self-interest will abjure inimical policies towards us.

Over the decades, our relations with the US have been marked by positives and marred by negatives. With the India-US nuclear deal, the transformation of our ties began earnestly, to the point that the previous Prime Minister was criticised for being too pro-US. The US, however, continues to arm Pakistan, refuses to sanction it for terrorist activities against India, overlooks Pakistan’s nuclear misconduct and the Sino-Pakistan nuclear ties. Far from treating the Taliban as a terrorist organisation, it is willing to accommodate it in the power structure in Afghanistan under Pakistan’s auspices and China’s participation. The US treats China as an adversary in the western Pacific and as a partner in our region.

With Russia, successive governments have endeavoured to maintain the intimacy of political and strategic ties, despite the absence of meaningful economic ties. Narasimha Rao’s Look East policy had Japan in view. We continue to strengthen our ties with Southeast Asia. We have maintained cordial ties with Gulf countries.

In this broad context of continuity, Modi’s two years have some distinguishing characteristics. Armed with an impressive electoral victory and heading a single-party majority government, Modi may have reasoned that he could act with greater credibility abroad. His strong personality and self-confidence have marked his dealings with foreign leaders, and explain his penchant to strike a personal rapport with them. His approach has not been to seek favours as a developing country from the industrialised world, but to offer them opportunities in a growing India in mutual interest.  More pointedly than previous leaders whose goals were not different, he wants foreign policy to primarily serve India’s development goals. He has shown the knack of encapsulating his economic goals in neat slogans. The tremendous personal energy he has brought into his foreign policy pursuits is unprecedented, having made 40 visits and met with 100 world leaders in two years. The downside of this personalisation of foreign policy is that while there is applause for success, he gets the blame for perceived failures.

Modi began by courting all our neighbours and wanting to infuse new life into SAARC. His visit to Nepal in 2014, the first by an Indian PM in 17 years, was visibly successful. But Nepal finds self-realisation in trying India, and, unsurprisingly, relations have nosedived, as they did in Rajiv Gandhi’s time. Modi was the first Indian PM to visit Sri Lanka bilaterally in 28 years. The change in government there has helped in improving ties, but the Chinese challenge will not go away, as Sri Lanka has always played the China card to balance India. The internal disarray in the Maldives makes management of that country difficult, but the Maldivian President visited India in April this year. With Pakistan the flip-flops of the past continue. The dialogue process has got frozen because of terrorism, as before. The handling of the Pathankot episode has not been different from the long rope given to Pakistan in the past. But Modi invites strictures as he is expected to be tougher with the Pakistanis. His lack of success in dealing with Pakistan merely underlines the intractability of our Pakistan problem. With Bangladesh, Modi notched a success in signing the landmark boundary agreement. He has tried to give substance to the strategic partnership with Afghanistan by transfers of some military equipment.

If China has protected Pakistan on terrorism in the UNSC sanctions committee, and is opposing our membership of the NSG, it is less a failure of Modi’s engagement of President Xi than a continuation of rebuffs and provocations that China has habitually administered to India in previous years. With Japan, Modi has consolidated strategic understandings pursued by the previous government. With Russia, Modi has been careful in nurturing the vital defence and nuclear pillars of our bilateral relationship. The last two summits with Russia have been a success. Modi has consolidated the breakthrough achieved earlier in ties with key Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia, besides scoring a significant political success in relations with the UAE. His visit to Iran should prove productive for the future.

Modi has galvanised the US relationship that stagnated in UPA’s second term. He has struck a personal rapport with Obama, resolved differences over our nuclear liability legislation, assiduously cultivated the US corporate sector, worked with Obama on climate change issues, expanded defence ties and boldly elaborated a joint strategic vision for the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions with the mounting Chinese assertiveness in view. The negative elements in US policies in our region will, of course,  continue as before.

Under Modi, the the third India-Africa Forum Summit in 2015 was significantly successful. The Forum for India-Pacific Island Cooperation was a novel initiative. His visit to Indian Ocean island countries in March 2015 was timely. His outreach to the Indian diaspora has been dramatic, as has been his projection of India’s civilisational heritage through initiatives such as the UN-sponsored International Yoga Day and celebration of India’s Buddhist linkages with other countries.

In sum, if the yardstick used to evaluate Modi’s foreign and security policies in his two years in office is not different from the one used to judge the performance of previous Prime Ministers, Modi could legitimately claim high marks.  

 — The writer is a former Foreign Secretary