2014 was a trailblazing year for Indian foreign policy, thanks to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s sustained emphasis on improving our major external relationships. Indians enter the New Year with a more involved and connected feeling towards the rest of the world because Mr Modi has been hyperactive in travelling abroad, hosting key global leaders at home, and winning hearts and minds on an international scale. Unlike his predecessor, Mr Modi has shown a Midas touch and a demagogical flair that appeal universally.
Mr Modi thumping traditional Japanese Taiko drums in an impromptu concert with local percussionists in Tokyo tells us how impressions about India changed. In that photo-op moment, India looked fresh, vigorous and ready to mingle in a grand party called world politics by playing to the galleries and directly appealing to global public opinion.
To make oneself more welcome and desirable is the first step to successful diplomacy in an era of “soft power” and presentation skills. Popularity is no minor virtue in foreign policy. That Mr Modi was declared the readers’ Person of the Year 2014 by the Time magazine is a brilliant debut in the international public sphere for India.
Our understaffed public diplomacy division in the ministry of external affairs could not have asked for a bigger rockstar to lead the national roadshow than the Prime Minister who is at consummate ease in the world. Stamping his own distinct voice and vision on world affairs when he entered office was not only a tone-setting political necessity for Mr Modi but also an integral part of his domestic governance agenda.
In 2014, Indians were made to realise the imperative of attracting foreign direct investment. Every significant multi-billion dollar commitment Mr Modi secured for inward FDI this year was a reminder that India had become a wealthy foreigner’s migraine, which, in turn, was crippling our economic growth and fiscal health. Mr Modi compelled us to reconceive India as a land where outsiders can get value for money and in the process also help us build our sinews.
While the visuals of Indian foreign policy have been gratifying this year, our diplomacy has also undergone a reorientation towards boosting our leadership position in the immediate neighbourhood. 2014 is undoubtedly the year of India’s return with a bang in South Asia, where previous governments had squandered leverage and goodwill through neglect and unimaginative repetitions of hackneyed policies.
Under Mr Modi, we saw a rediscovery of Kautilya’s Mandala theory of interstate relations, wherein India is at the centre of a wave of concentric circles, the nearest and most critical being South Asia. Barring Pakistan, whose hostile military establishment still threatens us with jihadist terror, India succeeded in 2014 to overcome nagging past failures with the rest of the South Asian fraternity.
Mr Modi’s green flag to the land swap agreement with Bangladesh that had been inked but not implemented by the Manmohan Singh government, is the diplomatic equivalent of a slam dunk that will ensure India regains its stature as a benevolent and accommodating lynchpin for our sensitive eastern flank.
Mr Modi’s visits to Nepal and Bhutan, where hydroelectric energy and infrastructure agreements topped the agenda, were crucial interventions in light of China upping its game in the Himalayan buffer countries through massive aid and connectivity projects.
In 2014, India was faced with a dilemma of finding the strategically astute response to China’s revival of ancient Silk Routes that could erode our influence in South Asia, especially in troublingly pro-China capitals like Colombo. In 2015, Mr Modi will be challenged to mount a foreign policy offensive by crafting and gaining international buy-in for new ideas that preserve India’s geopolitical space, while not missing out on economic benefits of intra- and inter-regional integration.
Further afield, India remains hard-pressed to negotiate the release of 39 of its citizens who were abducted way back in June 2014 by the Islamic State in Mosul, Iraq. This unending ordeal, which has faded from the lenses of our news media cycle, is a symptom of how limited India’s foreign policy tools are the moment one moves beyond South Asia.
West Asia, on which we are so dependent on oil and remittances, is a glaring weak spot for India’s influence. In 2015, Mr Modi would be well advised to devote personal attention to this pivotal but volatile region and insert India as an ambitious political player there, especially by teaming up with our traditional partner Iran to contain Sunni Islamist extremism emanating from Syria and Iraq.
If there is one lacuna in the emerging “Modi Doctrine” of foreign policy, it seems to be in devising a grand strategy for India in the turbulent shifting waters of world politics. 2015 will kick off with a diplomatic gala of India hosting US President Barack Obama for the Republic Day. Given that the US is in relative decline and China is overtaking it rapidly, we need to internally review how to benefit from this inevitable power transition.
Mr Modi is acing on-the-ground meat-and-potatoes diplomacy, but he needs a macro framework and blueprint to capitalise on American anxiety about a rising China without compromising our strategic autonomy from Western pressures. Among the numerous memorable sound bites with which Mr Modi has enthralled audiences this year, his suggestion that “India, with its immense youth power, can export teachers to the world” echoes with this columnist’s long-aired view that we must create our own Peace Corps-like force of young professionals who go to live and teach in underserved parts of Africa, Latin America and Asia to win grassroots goodwill.
Under Modi, the thoughtlessly suppressed creativity of Indian foreign policy is finally taking wing. 2015 promises to be an exciting and fecund year for India’s external outlook.
The writer is a professor and dean at the Jindal School of International Affairs
