Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and the Prime Minister himself have, over the past three years, have developed a reputation across the world of being activist and assertive. Despite the fact that foreign policy has more often than not enjoyed a broad national consensus, it is only natural that the Opposition in India will periodically find fault with the approach and style of the government.
But any analysis of the international media and public reactions across most parts of the world would clearly show that in the recent past, India has increasingly been perceived as being a more assertive and active player on the global stage. It is widely accepted that PM Modi hit the road running on the very first day of his assumption of office, by inviting leaders of all his SAARC neighbours for his swearing-in.
Modi soon demonstrated that while he was willing to reach out to all neighbours across the Indian Ocean, he would not hesitate to ignore and even marginalise India’s interaction with countries and organisations he found ineffective, or hostile to his policies for promoting bilateral and regional cooperation. One clear example was the actions he took when he found that Pakistan was deliberately stalling efforts within South Asia to promote trade, investment, connectivity, space and regional cooperation.
He acted decisively to exclude Pakistan from regional cooperation in South Asia, joining Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Bhutan in boycotting the SAARC Summit and other SAARC meetings that Pakistan was scheduled to host or preside over.
This boycott has been combined with Indian initiatives to activate eastern regional groupings, commencing with BBBIN, which includes eastern SAARC neighbours Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal and thereafter BIMSTEC, which includes other neighbours across the Bay of Bengal, also notably Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand. These moves have isolated and excluded Pakistan across its entire eastern neighbourhood.
Pakistan also finds itself outside the loop as India, Afghanistan and Iran have joined hands to promote connectivity by developing the Chabahar Port in Iran and establishing direct maritime contacts between India, Iran and Afghanistan, bypassing Pakistani ports. Pakistan’s ability to blackmail Afghanistan, by blocking connectivity between India and Afghanistan, has thus been overcome.
Moreover, recent years have seen the evolution of more activist policies towards our western neighbourhood of Gulf Arab countries, where six million Indians live, remitting back around $20 billion every year. We also get 70 per cent of our crucial supplies of oil and natural gas from this region. Modi has skillfully ensured that India is perhaps the only country in the world, which has growing, good relations with all major regional powers—Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Israel and Egypt.
In his recent book Securing India the Modi Way, Nitin Gokhale, one of India’s young strategic analysts, has spelt out how India has made it clear that if attacked, it will not hesitate to respond militarily.
He has provided details of the meticulous planning, which went into three recent military operations, on and across our western and eastern borders. He has dealt with the retaliatory attack in Myanmar, against Myanmar-based Naga insurgents, who had crossed the border and killed 16 Indian soldiers. He has also focused on the two meticulously synchronised attacks by Indian special forces on terrorist camps deep inside Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, in 2016. He has described details of the Chinese intrusion in Doklam, where the Chinese were forced by a calm and cool India to pull back, when the Indian Army faced their intruding forces frontally. This standoff was accompanied by some skillful, behind-the-scenes diplomacy, which compelled a belligerent China to pull back amidst international embarrassment.
Those interested in how India can and should deal with attacks and provocations would find Securing India the Modi Way interesting, absorbing and informative. Military challenges from China and terrorism sponsored by Pakistan are not going to end anytime soon. Belligerent neighbours have to be handed resolutely, with confidence, skill, patience and determination.
G Parthasarathy
Former diplomat
dadpartha@gmail.com