History has thrust itself on India’s foreign policy very early in Narendra Modi’s third term as prime minister. Modi, who will complete 100 days of his third term on September 17, stands on the threshold of leaving an imprint on current global affairs if he accepts history as a great teacher and follows its lessons.
Seventy-one years and a few weeks ago, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister, took steps that were very similar to Modi’s two months ago. Modi arrived in Vienna from Moscow after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin. Ukraine was very much on the agenda of Modi’s meetings in both Moscow and in Vienna. Nehru’s mission, when he met Austria’s then foreign minister Karl Gruber at the latter’s request, was similar: persuade Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to restore Austria’s sovereignty.
Adolf Hitler was born in Austria and the country of the führer’s birth became a part of his Third Reich in 1938. Austrians paid a heavy price for this. They were occupied by the victorious Allied powers at the end of the Second World War. Like Berlin and the rest of Germany, Vienna and Austria too were carved up by the four Allied victors with their respective zones of ownership. Gruber pleaded with Nehru to end this occupation.
Nehru intervened with the Soviets and Khrushchev accepted the offer of Austria to be “permanently neutral” under its 1955 Constitution. Austria regained its sovereignty and Nehru was invited to Vienna the same year as a gesture of gratitude by the Austrian people for paving the way for their country’s new-found independence. Austria remains neutral to this day. It is a member of the European Union, but not of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Western military pact.
If Modi is to make any headway with his as-yet-opaque peace initiative in Kyiv, the Nehru formula for Austria is the only viable way forward to end Russia’s ongoing war with Ukraine. There is a ray of hope with Putin declaring India, China and Brazil as honest brokers for ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict. But only if Modi pays heed to the history of Nehruvian diplomacy with the Soviet Union in 1955.
The Anglo-Saxon West routinely debunked Nehru’s non-alignment and underplayed newly-free India’s post-Second World War roles. But when the office of the historian in the US department of state declassified documents pertaining to the end of the Allied occupation of Austria, two secret telegrams to Washington by the US high commissioner for Austria in 1953-54 conclusively established Nehru’s contribution to the historic events of that period. Modi must read those deeply instructive telegrams before going ahead with his peace plans for Ukraine.
A time-bound challenge that the new Modi government appears to have successfully coped with in its first 100 days is generational. It involves inevitable sharp turns in the evolution of history.
This week, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, 42, visited New Delhi and Mumbai. His visit rounded off three generations of close friendship between India and the United Arab Emirates. It is true that during his first tenure as prime minister, Modi made amends for a long gap in visits from India to the UAE at the level of head of government. But even this hiatus did not slow down a steady growth in people-to-people, cultural, business and energy ties between the two sides. There was phenomenal growth in bilateral connectivity.
When the founding father of the UAE, President Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, came to New Delhi in January 1975, such was the importance India attached to his visit that President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and a sizeable section of the cabinet was at the airport to receive him. This gesture reflected New Delhi’s desire to cement relations with the new country.
In 2017, Sheikh Zayed’s son, the incumbent UAE president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, was chief guest at India’s Republic Day parade. Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled is a third-generation leader from the UAE to consolidate ties with India. That the only trees planted at Rajghat by three members of one ruling family are from Abu Dhabi is a riveting saga in India’s engagement of the Gulf.
Four days before Sheikh Khaled began his India visit, Modi was in Singapore, where similarly heart-warming scenes of a smooth generational transition in statecraft synthesised bilateral ties. This visit happened when it was widely assumed that relations with Singapore had reached its zenith and there was little more that the two countries could do together.
But Jaideep Mazumdar, secretary (East) in the ministry of external affairs, said Modi and his Singapore counterpart have made the relations “future-ready” by bringing their vast bilateral associations under six organised pillars. “To boost trade and investment, the prime minister also announced the setting up of an Invest India office in Singapore,” Mazumdar said.
Singapore was the first country to wholeheartedly endorse the P V Narasimha Rao-Manmohan Singh economic reforms in 1991-92. The proof of the then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong’s endorsement was in the early institutionalisation of structures that would become channels for Singaporean investments in India in the subsequent years. No other country was willing to put their trust in the Rao-Singh reforms at that time as much as this small-but-thriving city state.
An indelible stamp of approval for India’s reform agenda came when Lee Kuan Yew, the architect of modern Singapore, visited New Delhi in January 1996. Lee had become disenchanted earlier with India’s centralised economy and the Hindu rate of growth, which he believed was a case of missed opportunities. Lee’s successor, twice removed, was his son Lee Hsien Loong, who continued Goh’s policy of creating an “India fever” in Singapore, as he said in one national day address to his nation. Lawrence Wong, the new prime minister whom Modi went to see within the first 100 days of his swearing-in, is jokingly described as “4G” in the technology-driven city state. It means he is a fourth-generation leader since Singapore became a republic. India can rest assured that it has met Singapore’s generational challenge.
K P Nayar
Strategic Analyst
(Views are personal)
(kpnayar@gmail.com)