Gautam Mukherjee
A book of essays by a clutch of eminent diplomats and analysts, co-edited by Anirban Ganguly, Director of the Syama Prasad Mookerjee Foundation, Vijay Chauthaiwale of the Department of Foreign Affairs in the BJP, and Uttam Kumar Sinha from IDSA and the Banaras Hindu University, was released on the evening of August 13 by Union External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. In front of a packed hall at New Delhi’s India International Centre, speaker after speaker boldly announced the arrival of a new approach to India’s foreign policy, calling it The Modi Doctrine.
This book is amongst the first serious attempts to review the direction India is now taking to pursue its ‘enlightened self-interest’, after a prolonged spell spent under a Nehruvian world-view, suffering its resultant hangover.
This, under successive Congress/UPA regimes, replete with its peculiar prejudices and conceits. These did not often serve the country and its interests very well, as is increasingly being pointed out in hindsight, but as long as the same party remained in power, all mistakes and missed opportunities were skilfully brushed under the carpet.
This book is amongst the first serious attempts to review the direction India is now taking to pursue its ‘enlightened self-interest’, after a prolonged spell spent under a Nehruvian world-view, suffering its resultant hangover.
The results, of a more urgent engagement with the world than ever seen before in Indian diplomacy, led by the Prime Minister in person, are beginning to show already, within the 25 months this Government has been in power. So much so, that it may call for a corresponding make-over in the ways and means of the foreign-service bureaucracy, in order to cope with Modi’s blistering pace.
The momentum of the Modi Government in the foreign affairs space has been unmistakeable, right from the swearing-in ceremony in May 2014, with almost all heads of government from South Asia in attendance. Both the Prime Minister and the External Affairs Minister have visited nearly 150 countries since, meeting heads of state, Government, business, industry, the Indian diaspora, and high officialdom.
They have also not only taken much greater notice of the ordinary Indian abroad, in need of help, succour or rescue, recognising their yeoman contribution towards India’s foreign exchange reserves, but rekindled many dormant relationships.
Together with the MEA’s troupe of professional diplomats, they have built a broad consensus against Islamic terrorism, helped in part by the constant depredations of the terrorists in many countries around the globe.
They have also listened, learned and discussed, while putting India’s aspirations forward in the comity of nations, urging many to Make in India and participate in the modernisation of its infrastructure .
This has resulted in quite a few concrete advances and diplomatic breakthroughs, as in membership of the influential Missile Technology Control regime, and an emerging military and strategic alliance with the United States and Israel. This, in addition to retaining the long-standing strong ties with Russia. Logjams in terms of nuclear fuel from Canada and Australia have been cleared, and Canadian uranium has begun to flow to Indian reactors. Australia too is expected to commence supplies soon.
While China has blocked India’s inclusion into the Nuclear Suppliers Group for the moment, its own troubles on its claims in the South-China Sea turned down by the Hague, and the liabilities of supporting two delinquent, mostly insolvent allies, Pakistan and North Korea, may prove too onerous in the medium term. Meanwhile, the other four members of the United Nations Security Council are far more energised about India’s inclusion as a permanent member, facing up to geopolitical realities and threats today, posed by China’s global ambitions.
Closer home, India has forged close links with Afghanistan and Iran, with a presence at Chabahar, Iran, a heartbeat away from Gwadar in Balochistan. It has also balanced its relationship to an appreciable degree with China, despite border tensions, and also with Pakistan’s erstwhile supporters Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, helped appreciably by a more or less permanent crash in petroleum prices.
Other substantial initiatives have fructified with Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, all in Asia. We now have warmer ties with Australia, France, Germany and with Brexit-reduced Britain. There are growing possibilities with African countries such as Madagascar, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and others in the BRICS (Brazil Russia, India, China, South Africa) and G-20 formations.
Some parts of South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation and the immediate neighbourhood have responded to our overtures to a greater degree than others, with Bangladesh, Bhutan and Myanmar, showing bold new promise by way of greater trade engagement, strategic cooperation, road, rail, maritime and gas pipeline links.
Closer home, India has forged close links with Afghanistan and Iran, with a presence at Chabahar, Iran, a heartbeat away from Gwadar in Balochistan. It has also balanced its relationship to an appreciable degree with China, despite border tensions, and also with Pakistan’s erstwhile supporters Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, helped appreciably by a more or less permanent crash in petroleum prices.
On the converse side, after being plagued by cross-border terrorism from Pakistan for decades, the Modi Government has decided, at last, to challenge the very foundations of the existing non-functional matrix. From being primly on the defensive, India has now decided to take the battle into the enemy camp. Its mint-fresh approach is to question Pakistan’s illegal occupation of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Balochistan, all from the 1947-1948 period.
These places, forcibly occupied, have been restive from the start under Pakistani domination. In addition Pakistan’s erstwhile North West Frontier Province, bordering Afghanistan, and even Sind, the bastion of the once powerful Bhuttos, is not happy under blatant Punjabi domination. Pakistan has resorted to increasingly bloody repression, Sunni terrorist attacks, and human rights abuses, in three out of its four Provinces, in a bid to wipe out its 20 per cent Shia minority. And it has also resort to rigged elections, the subject of the latest uproar in PoK.
In the hope of breaking our bank before we can think of breaking theirs, Pakistan has been escalating and ratcheting up their provocations in our Kashmir Valley, hoping to radicalise the population. India, fed up with Pakistan’s unrelenting nefarious designs, has decided to go on the offensive, after years of trying to play it with a straight bat. Part of the UPA approach to Jammu & Kashmir was also influenced by its need to pander to its Muslim vote banks elsewhere, including, for example, in Assam.
But Assam too has thrown out the Congress and the moderate element in the Valley wants no truck with Pakistan. The Modi Doctrine now is at the beginning of a process to champion, aid and abet the liberation movements in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir/ Gilgit-Baltistan and Balochistan.
This, to the absolute joy of the resistance movements in these areas, and their exiles abroad. China may not be over keen to wade into the upcoming mess and may have to rethink its major investments in Pakistan under the circumstances.
It is true that Pakistan, identified as the terrorist factory to the world is not very popular anywhere now that it has lost its strategic value to America and increasingly to China as well. Under the Modi Doctrine it will have to mend its ways or risk being broken up rather comprehensively, its nuclear weapons status notwithstanding.
(Courtesy : dailypioneer.com)