Less than a month before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to America, the Bidens had South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol over for dinner at the White House. Yoon got up on stage and belted out his favourite number, American Pie. Modi joked, “I know your hospitality has moved your guests to sing. I wish I, too, had the singing talent. I could have also sung before you all.” As the Indian premier’s visit wound down, agreements were signed and toasts were drunk, it was clear that he was not in the US to sing for his supper. The US and India are going beyond the traditional America-India-China strategic triangle to develop an independent relationship; not with New Delhi as a pivot or junior partner, but as a conditional ally with common economic, diplomatic, military and cultural interests.
CREATING A WIDE NEW ORDER
In 2022, on 75 years of Independence, Modi sent personalised one-page letters to ‘Friends of India’ — a list of accomplished personalities abroad, who are either connected to India in professional capacities or are PIOs with strong desi connect — seeking feedback. The postmarks were representative of India’s reach: Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Israel, Jamaica, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, Switzerland, Sweden, the UK and the US.
There were Australian cricketer Brett Lee, captain of the German women’s cricket team, Anuradha Doddaballapur, medi-tech innovator and IIT alumni Dr Anurag Mairal, Australian journalist Sharri Markson and Israeli author Ashley Rindsberg who has written about biases in New York Times reporting. America is witnessing an emerging global order, where pro-Indian sentiment spans continents.
In it, China is Enemy No. 1 and Russia, weakened by war, is unable to hold its own. The US considers itself the last Great White Hope. This bipolar parenthesis pits democracy against dictatorship.
As foreign minister S Jaishankar lays it out in his book, The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World, the Modi vision is “this is a time for us to engage America, manage China, cultivate Europe, reassure Russia, bring Japan into play, draw neighbours in, extend the neighbourhood, and expand traditional constituencies of support”—in an economic ecosystem which owns a “more vivid expression of (native) beliefs and traditions”. An undeniable factor in the US-Modi romance is preventing China from dominating the Asian balance of power.
Modi envisions a multi-polar world, in which India is a pole by itself—nobody’s guy but a country powerful enough to take its own decisions, domestic and international. Says Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal: “It is universally acknowledged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has, on every conceivable front, ranging from foreign affairs, geopolitics and diplomacy to defence, global indices of economic growth, governance and our socio-cultural identity, redefined, in an unprecedented manner, India’s rising presence on the international stage.” Rajeev Chandrashekar, MoS for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship and Electronics and Information Technology, adds, “Modi is expanding the digital economy and tech opportunities at an unprecedented speed and scale. His vision is that India will do in the next 10 years what China took 30 years to do.”
A LEGACY OF BILE
The foundations of such assertive internationalism were laid by Atal Bihari Vajpayee in May 1998 when he and APJ Abdul Kalam conducted nuclear tests at Pokhran under the CIA’s nose. Washington was mighty irked. “Bill Clinton is said to have asked China to take care of the two naughty boys (India and Pakistan),” says former foreign secretary Shashank. The Indo-US diplomatic baggage is heavy. Henry Kissinger, then President Richard Nixon’s Secretary of State, purging anti-China diplomats from US missions—including Ambassador Archer Blood from Dhaka for condemning the Pakistan Army’s genocide in Bangladesh—had cast a long shadow over South Block.
In spite of Western sanctions after the N-blasts, Washington wished to keep on India’s right side. The low-risk foreign policy of the Congress had yielded only minor benefits while Vajpayee’s bold move led to India being integrated into the world nuclear system. Both sides conducted many rounds of negotiations that intensified before Vajpayee’s visit to Pakistan in 2004. “Brajesh Mishra and Tariq Aziz (respective NSAs of India and Pakistan) worked the back channel with Americans to make the visit possible. Pakistan had given the assurance that its territories will not be used by terrorists,” recalls Shashank.
After Indira Gandhi won the elections in 1971 with a brute majority—352 out of 521 MPs—Kissinger is recorded telling the then US ambassador to India, Kenneth Keating, that the subcontinent’s power equation had changed. Keating advised that “India should not be equated with Pakistan. India is a strong, stable power now while Pakistan is having all this difficulty”. Nixon and Kissinger didn’t trust Keating fully; the Ambassador had an excellent social rapport with Mrs Gandhi, escorting her to a concert by the great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson in Delhi. The US government had been promoting jazz in South Asia since the late 1950s as a PR tactic to spread American culture. In a racist regime like Nixon’s, leveraging jazz was an ironic apology from the American democracy. Cut to the next century. On July 22, 2023, African-American singer Mary Millben touched Modi’s feet after singing the Indian National Anthem at the White House.
Modi is making music for Indian ears. Next year is the national election. Various opinion polls have shown that a majority of Indians praise him for elevating India’s international standing: a crucial factor for voters. The surge of muscular politics is accompanied by the popular desire to see India as a serious global player respected by the West, with the PM as the uncompromising nationalist at the helm. “Modi made India a compelling story for the Western world to take note of by deftly handling the Covid-19 pandemic, pursuing independent foreign policies, accelerating defence self-reliance and scripting fast-paced economic development,” says Amit Malviya, BJP’s IT cell head.
THE WORLD IS HIS STAGE
At a previous summit, Biden had jested that the Indian PM should give him an autograph for being so popular. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu jokingly invited Modi to join his Likud party. As of June 2023, Modi has made 69 foreign trips, visiting 65 countries to push his ‘Neighbourhood First and Act East’ policy. At the India Global Forum’s fifth UK-India Week, from June 26-30, 2023, Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer told diplomats and industry honchos that he hoped to “reset” the Indo-British relationship. After special status for Jammu and Kashmir was scrapped in 2019, the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn passed an emergency motion calling for international observers in the state.
This isolated British Indians, especially Hindu voters, from Labour. Starmer even pitched an Indian century, seeking a strategic partnership based on global, economic and climate security. The latest opinion poll projects a landslide win for Labour. In April 2022, former British PM, Boris Johnson, while referring to Modi as khaas dost (special friend), had declared, “Thank you my friend Prime Minister Modi, my khaas dost, I think is the phrase I want to (use) in Hindi.”
Australian PM Anthony Albanese took victory laps with Modi in Ahmedabad, describing him as someone who “gets a rock star reception wherever he goes”. “Prime Minister Modi is the boss,” he gushed. Modi’s Europe outreach is being taken seriously by the European Union (EU); President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, spent two days in India in April 2022, meeting Modi to garner support for Ukraine. The year also marked 60 years of the EU-India bilateral relationship, one of the longest-standing ties between the EU and an Asian country.
The Modi regime is intent on turbo-charging its political relations in Europe. His first foreign tour in 2022 was to Germany, Denmark and France in May. Germany pledged an additional 10 billion euros to help India achieve its 2030 climate targets. French President Emmanuel Macron counts Modi as his friend. Next month, the PM will visit Paris. The Naval Group, the French builder of Scorpene submarines, hopes for another purchase order. In March, during Macron’s India visit, a contract to buy 26 Rafale-M Marine fighters was signed. In 2015, Modi had cut through red tape to announce that India will buy 36 Rafale fighter jets to modernise its moribund fighter jets. “(Bilateral) relationship is seen in continuity. Governments come and go, but (national) interests are permanent,” says Congress MP Manish Tewari.
THE NARROWING GULF
With national interest prominently in mind, Modi has proved to be the most astute and aggressive Indian prime minister on foreign policy; the iron fist in a velvet glove, with the glove slipping off on occasion. To balance India’s Act East policy, Modi’s ‘Act West’ policy incorporates a closer relationship with Israel while simultaneously keeping the Middle East happy. With its resource-rich strategic location, religious volatility and tight-knit ruling class, Saudi Arabia has been on the Western radar since the age of the Empire. Previous Indian regimes have tread cautiously in Middle-Eastern geopolitics since Indian Muslim sensitivities were considered a significant electoral factor. Unencumbered by that legacy, but aware of it, Modi’s visits and bilateral agreements with Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia disrupted the traditional diplomatic matrix. Not all are happy with this new turn.
“Since Independence, India has maintained a clear policy of non-alignment. Modi’s visit to the US makes a departure from the position respected by all political dispensations in the country,” says KC Tyagi, former Rajya Sabha MP and senior leader of the Janata Dal (United). India under Modi, however, is fine with its working relationship with mutual enemies, Israel and Iran, without having to take a side. Instead of a uni-Arab policy, Modi has embarked on a process of multi-engagement. Though Nehru had wished to cleanse India’s nascent foreign policy of colonial and Eurocentric definitions by renaming the Middle East ‘West Asia’, India’s power-projection capabilities were limited in the first four decades after Independence. Non-alignment Movement (NAM) was the only choice to keep its hand in, but a deal with the devil since NAM was practically a Soviet satellite.
As PM, Vajpayee had de-hyphenated the Russia equation by welcoming his Israeli colleague Ariel Sharon in Delhi in 2003. In 2006, Modi, as Chief Minister of Gujarat, visited Israel. With an impending sense of destiny, he promised to visit again when he became prime minister. In July 2017, he kept his promise: Netanyahu and he were photographed hitching up their trousers during a stroll on the Olga beach in northern Israel and chatting animatedly. Modi also signalled that the bonhomie didn’t mean India had checked into Hotel America. India voted against Israel in the UN in December 2017 and subsequently supported a UNGA vote against Jerusalem being declared as Israel’s capital.
In May 2016, Modi signed a tripartite agreement with Iran and Afghanistan in Tehran for the expansion of Chabahar Port: the contract grants India access to mineral-rich Central Asia and Afghanistan. The UPA had been dawdling on the deal for 13 years. Until Modi came along, India couldn’t yank China’s sidekick, Pakistan, off the Gulf gravy train. In 2019, UAE overruled Islamabad’s objections to inviting India as the guest of honour at the annual Organisation of Islamic Cooperation meeting in Abu Dhabi.
Saudi oil giant Aramco announced a $15 billion investment in India in August 2019, a week after Article 370 was revoked; the UAE publicly called it “an internal matter”. Modi has prioritised national security by inking deals with the Arab states that involved defence cooperation, intelligence and counter-terrorism, and maritime security in the Indian Ocean Region.
Agreements to extradite Pakistani and Indian terrorists living in the Gulf states and clamping down on money laundering were formalised; in 2019, UAE deported fugitive terrorist Nisar Ahmed Tantray to India. Helped by NSA Ajit Doval, Modi is close to his ambition of creating a global counter-terrorism axis. Naming Pakistan in a joint declaration against terrorism by Biden and Modi rankles Islamabad to no end.
NRI INDIAN IDOL
The Indian premier is aware of the stakes the US, China and Russia have in the subcontinent. Instead of adjusting India’s stance to theirs, he is charting a path of his own by exploiting their weaknesses and needs. The West realises the power of the Indian market and seems to have bought into the trillion-dollar economy hype—the World Economic Forum predicts India becoming the third-largest consumer market by 2030 at Rs 420 lakh crore. According to the International Labour Organisation, the national labour force will grow by over eight million yearly over the coming decade, mostly driven by the youth. The economic and social clout of Indians living in the US comprising 1 per cent of the population—cannot be ignored by political candidates. NRIs wield disproportionate influence in fundraising and endorsements. Though they traditionally favour Democrats, both parties are courting Indian Americans assiduously.
This could explain why India escaped Western sanctions against buying Russian oil. Russia is India’s biggest oil supplier, accounting for 28 per cent of India’s petro imports, which was just 0.2 per cent before the Ukraine invasion. Washington walked the moral tightrope deftly. Their explanation: India bought Russian crude at less than the G-7 “price cap” of $60, which ensured the American goal of having enough purchasable crude in the market while Russia doesn’t get a premium price for it. When oil prices soared above $100 per barrel after the war broke out, India bought Russian oil for $20-35 per barrel. Modi’s refusal to cry ‘Uncle Sam’ yields rich dividends, both economically and politically.
“I want to be clear we are not looking to sanction India, and our partnership with India is one of our most consequential relationships,” declared Karen Donfried, US Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs. The defence deals New Delhi has signed with Washington are meant to free India of military dependence on Russia. About 97 per cent of India’s main battle tanks, 100 per cent of its armoured fighting vehicles, 67 per cent of its submarines, 68 per cent of the anti-ship cruise missiles aboard its guided-missile destroyers and frigates, and 97 per cent of its fighter aircraft were bought from the Soviet Union, according to Felix K. Chang, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. India’s anti-ship cruise missile, the BrahMos, was co-developed with Russia.
UNDEPENDABLE FRIEND, DEPENDABLE ENEMY
Geopolitics abhors a vacuum. With Russia’s war expenses mounting, and a paranoid Vladimir Putin still in the captain’s cabin after a failed coup, China’s rise to superpower status is inevitable. The Indian defeat in the 1962 war and the annexation of the territory remains a canker in Sino-Indian relations, much like Pakistan’s loss in the 1971 war influences its attitude to its former parent. Before Indira Gandhi slipped into the Soviet embrace in the early 1970s, the US had backed India against China in the 1962 war. President John F Kennedy warned China he would send the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier to the Bay of Bengal if India was invaded. US Ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith was on point, altering US warplanes in the Philippines and conveying through backchannels in Warsaw that America will join India’s side if there was war. Newly freed India was a prize in the restive and strategically vital region; superpower Britain had played the Great Game with Russia over it. Only, the Americans and the Soviets were at it now. The US sent C-130 Hercules aircraft to drop essential supplies and weapons to Indian soldiers on the battlefront.
On October 25, 1962, Kremlin shocked Nehru by backing China. Pravda carried an article blaming India for the 1962 war. Premier Khrushchev stopped the sale of military aircraft to India. In November 1962, a panicked Nehru facing imminent defeat decided to suspend non-alignment. He sent Kennedy an “extraordinarily desperate” letter, seeking fighter jets to protect Indian cities from Chinese bombers; in effect proposing a military alliance. The US insisted he drop his non-alignment stand. Nehru didn’t. The planes didn’t come. Former Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao wrote in The Fractured Himalaya that “there were analysts who believed that the intervention of the two superpowers—the US and Soviet Union—forced the Chinese army to retreat”. America lost its chance and Nehru forgave Khrushchev. The Soviets loyally vetoed six anti-India UNSC draft resolutions on issues like Kashmir. The deepening engagement strengthened the Left intelligentsia, which saw the US as imperialist evil. The welfare system that rose under Congress rule led to massive bureaucratic and political corruption and an economic decline so protracted that in the early 1990s, Prime Minister Chandrasekhar was ready to sell Indian gold reserves to prevent the country from going under.
CHINESE CURTAIN CALL
After the Wuhan outbreak, it was China’s turn to be identified with evil. Conspiracy theories even suggested that the Chinese made the virus and disseminated it deliberately. But the pandemic had its Vishwaguru moment, too. “India came up with two indigenous vaccines, and provided them to several countries. This demonstrated to the West that India had the capability to respond to global crises, as well as its standing as a source of support for humanity. Vaccine diplomacy won India several friends, and also established the country in the top league of the world order,” says Shashank. Vajpayee had started burnishing India’s global image by sharing surplus food with African countries where China has
been entrenching itself.
When several countries faced food shortages after the Ukraine war broke out, India sent out wheat shipments. “The world has seen that the Modi doctrine is for the global good. With Covid-19 vaccines and wheat support, as well as being a first responder to natural disasters as recently seen in Turkey, India is perceived as a responsible and humanitarian power in the world order. We helped Sri Lanka during its humanitarian crisis after it defaulted on foreign debt,” explains BJP national general secretary Tarun Chugh. Last year, as the China border crisis accelerated, Western policy circles wondered if it would push India to “consider a formal alliance with the US”. But Modi is not a man to be pushed.
The US swiftly flew in the weapons India requested and shared real-time intelligence about PLA movements without quid pro quo. The Modi government initiated high-level meetings at different levels at the Quadrilateral Dialogue (Quad) whose members are the US, Japan, Australia and India. Since India’s interests align with the US this time, it wants Quad to take the lead against China. Last week, Beijing’s hackles rose against US-India cooperation on AI. It alleged that such military cooperation was undermining regional peace and stability. No doubt the Modi Policy has rattled China. Jayshankar writes, “Here, the weaker player solicits or manipulates stronger forces to (its) advantage,” which in a world “of multiple poles and greater choices” requires that “India must reach out in as many directions as possible and maximise its gains. India’s goal should be to move closer towards the strategic sweet spot—a worthy goal”.
Modi keeps moving the goalpost in pursuit of national glory on the global field. The lyrics of the song Yoon performed at the White House say “Bye-bye, Miss American Pie.” The American pie may not be good enough for Modi. It is bye-bye to a bipolar or unipolar world order and “Howdy” to the Indi-polar pie.
The Changing Face of India’s Foreign Policy: Idealism, Realism to Pluralism
Jawaharlal Nehru (1947-66)
Based Indian foreign policy on the Panchsheel (five principles of peaceful coexistence). He founded the Non-Aligned Movement with Egypt’s Nasser and Yugoslavia’s JB Tito in 1961 during Cold War. His economic vision was to create a hybrid of American entrepreneurship and Soviet public industry, keeping India equidistant in a world divided into two blocs. In his time, China became India’s formal foe.
Indira Gandhi (1966-84)
India became a dominant military power in South Asia after winning the 1971 war against Pakistan, which led to the creation of Bangladesh. Indira developed closer ties with the Soviet Union after the war, which went on to become India’s largest trading partner and biggest arms supplier. In 1974, she initiated nuclear tests and took the country into the N-Club changing its stature.
PV Narsimha Rao (1991-96)
The first Indian PM in the post-Cold War world and the first non-Nehru family member to complete a full term in office ushered in economic reforms that forced a foreign policy shift. India entered full diplomatic relations with Israel in 1992. The market economy helmed by Manmohan Singh as finance minister attracted Western investors. In 1995, the US declared India as a ‘big emerging market’. India’s Look East Policy was, for the first time, pursued by the Rao Government, under which the focus was on South-East Asia.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1998 to 2004)
He’s credited for initiating a new beginning in India’s diplomacy. Under him the country conducted a nuclear test in 1998, asserting its strategic autonomy. Despite the 1999 Kargil War and 2001 attack on Parliament, Vajpayee’s foreign policy pursued dialogue with Pakistan’s leadership while Operation Parakram put Islamabad on the edge. He was for the resolution of disputes with China and the restructuring of ties between India and the US.
Manmohan Singh (2004-14)
The highlight of his tenure was the India-US civil nuclear cooperation agreement in 2005. India agreed to commit its civilian nuclear facilities to International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. The US, in return, agreed to extend full civil nuclear cooperation. He was criticised for lack of military action against Pakistan following the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks; the softer approach was seen as a sign of weakness, even though the government depicted it as a restraint.
Narendra Modi (2014-current)
With a focus on demography, democracy, decisiveness and diaspora, India’s foreign policy under Modi has undergone a paradigm shift. Be it Quad, BRICS or SAARC, the thrust is to engage with every country, from superpowers to small and developing nations. Modi has stated both the US and Russia as partners while isolating China. Act East, Neighbourhood First, Fast-Track Diplomacy and Cooperation with Pacific Islands are some of his other policy initiatives.
Strong Soft Power
Food: UN declared 2023 the year of millets. The Indian staple grain was part of Modi’s state dinner in the US. There were marinated millets and crisped millet cakes.
Bollywood: At the White House, the PM was welcomed with songs such as Shah Rukh Khan’s Chaiyya Chaiyya, Lata Mangeshkar’s Aye Mere Watan ke Logon and Kishore Kumar’s Om Shanti Om.
Festivals: After Modi’s visit this year, New York City announced a public school holiday on Diwali. In several Southeast Asian countries too—the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia—Diwali is a public holiday.
Yoga: UN General Assembly declared June 21 as the International Day of Yoga in 2014 on Modi’s
suggestion. During his recent US visit, the day saw participation by delegates from over 180 nations.
(with inputs from Maneesh Anand)