A zero for Modi on diplomacy

The past 10 days have cruelly exposed the foreign policy pretensions of the Modi government as deep embarrassment has simultaneously been caused to India from three crucial quarters: Pakistan and China in our immediate neighbourhood operating in tandem, and internationally the United States.

With the US, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sought to develop a “global partnership” — going beyond the mere “strategic partnership” of an earlier time — since President Barack Obama arrived in New Delhi as our chief guest for Republic Day last year.

The so-called “global partnership” regime might be usefully seen as the base camp to reaching the Mount Everest of being America’s “strategic ally”, or at least a “non-Nato strategic ally”. That honour has thus far been showered on countries like Egypt and Pakistan, the two biggest recipients of US military hardware, which are also military dictatorships in effect.

The direction in which Mr Modi wishes to travel to elevate India’s status in the world is thus clear. We must, of course, ask ourselves if the status of a “leading power”, let alone a “global power” or “great power” such as the US, China or the European Union, is achievable for a country mired in disquieting poverty for close to one half of its population, and burdened with a savings deficit to fuel the greatly enhanced investments required to maintain a place on the high growth path.

At the same time, India is having to endure on a sustained basis a worsening social climate on account of religious neo-imperialism being sought to be pushed by the Hindutva brigade indulged by the regime. Domestic peace and harmony, it can’t be emphasised enough, is as great a requirement for achieving prominence and weight in the international system as accretion to economic wealth and development of military might for purposes of power projection.

In any case, strategies being pursued by this government to raise India’s position in the world — by dovetailing our strategic and security preferences to the overarching US “vision”, especially for the Indo-Pacific region, — have not been brought to the forum of Parliament for discussion, although it is possible that they have been gone over in the counsels of the RSS and the Sangh Parivar, of which the ruling BJP is an element.

The irony is worth noting that for many decades our neighbour Pakistan has also sought to derive its strategic solace by linking up with American dreams through the period of the Cold War in its effort to militarise rapidly and shore up its domestic economy. That trajectory has been widened for some years to attract the munificence of across-the-board Chinese assistance, as befits the description of “all-weather friendship” between Beijing and Islamabad.

Thus, Pakistan finds itself today in the coveted position of being cosseted by two permanent members of the UN Security Council who fulfil its military needs and its infrastructural requirements, and give it invaluable political manoeuvre room. At the cost of causing deep resentment in India, Washington recently cleared the supply of a fresh batch of F-16 fighter aircraft and attack helicopters to Islamabad, although it knows that historically Pakistani generals have aimed US-supplied military equipment at India.

Even as the Obama administration decided to go ahead with sending high-value military goods to Pakistan that will doubtless be used against this country, at his press conference after the Nuclear Security summit in Washington at the end of last month, which Mr Modi — for unfathomable reasons — attended with the air of a prancing bridegroom, Mr Obama berated both India and Pakistan, as if spanking two naughty boys together, for maintaining large nuclear arsenals while having military doctrines that were “continually headed in the wrong direction”.

The US leader disregarded India’s nuclear rectitude. He forgave Pakistan for acquiring its bomb-making capability on the clandestine nuclear supermarket. He stopped short of highlighting the danger of terrorists stealing from the Pakistani nuclear arsenal although this is a cause of openly voiced worry.

The truth is that indirectly, and very consequentially, Mr Obama was hitting out at India’s military doctrine of Cold Start, whose very mention frustrates and angers Pakistan, and providing the military generals in Islamabad a much-needed political ballast. Cold Start postulates that Indian forces will rapidly make a retaliatory conventional warfare move inside Pakistan and hold territory as a hedge against a likely Pakistani nuclear strike since Islamabad revels in its nuclear doctrine which underscores its nuclear “first strike” posture against India.

The government’s reaction in New Delhi to Mr Obama’s officious pseudo-moral posturing was far from angry. The Modi government was content to note that Mr Obama had shown a lack of understanding of the Indian military doctrine. Such a cavalier disregard of our crucial security concerns is hard to imagine. India has not before been known for a tail-between-the-legs attitude towards a great power.

It is in this background of extreme American solicitousness that Pakistan has just delivered India a diplomatic black eye. After India received a Pakistani technical team, which included a senior ISI officer, to investigate the Pathankot terrorist attack, and asked for a reciprocal visit to Pakistan by Indian investigators to interrogate Jaish-e-Mohammed leaders, including its notorious chief Masood Azhar, the Pakistani high commissioner in New Delhi announced that for now the talks between the two countries stood “suspended”.

In this period, when India tried to get Masood Azhar named in the UN list as an “international terrorist” — so that his movements and financial transactions could be tracked with a view to preventing future terrorist acts — China conspicuously stepped in to block the effort, thus proclaiming to the world its tight security embrace of Pakistan.

Since Mr Modi assumed office two years ago, much of his government’s diplomatic energy has been expended on making high-profile forays into enhancing the spirit of ties with Washington, Islamabad and Beijing in a highly personalised manner, with contempt for institutional knowledge and experience.

This was being hailed as foreign and security policy alacrity by the RSS, BJP and the favoured bureaucrats of the top-tier, who have pointedly contrasted what they see as present-day innovativeness and dynamism with the diplomatic languidness of the Manmohan Singh years.

After the triple rebuff of recent days, one truly wonders. The much maligned
Dr Singh was at no stage in his 10 years in office humiliated by Washington, Islamabad and Beijing in quick order within a space of less than 10 days. Is it
Mr Modi who is being strong-armed, or is it India?