When Modi became prime minister, many Indians hoped that he would give a
new direction to foreign relations at a time when the gap between India and China in
terms of international power and stature was growing significantly. In fact, India’s
influence in its own strategic backyard—including Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh
and the Maldives—has shrunk. Indeed, Bhutan remains India’s sole pocket of strategic
clout in South Asia.
India also confronts the strengthening nexus between its two nuclear-armed
regional adversaries, China and Pakistan, both of which have staked claims to substantial
swaths of Indian territory and continue to collaborate on weapons of mass
destruction. In dealing with these countries, Modi has faced the same dilemma that
has haunted previous Indian governments: the Chinese and Pakistani foreign ministries
are weak actors. The Communist Party and the military shape Chinese foreign
policy, while Pakistan is effectively controlled by its army and intelligence services,
which still use terror groups as proxies. Under Modi, India has faced several daring
terrorist attacks staged from Pakistan, including on Indian military facilities.
One Modi priority after assuming office was restoring momentum to the relationship
with the United States, which, to some extent, had been damaged by
grating diplomatic tensions and trade disputes while his predecessor was in office.
While Modi has been unable to contain cross-border terrorist attacks from Pakistan
or stem Chinese military incursions across the disputed Himalayan frontier, he has
managed to lift the bilateral relationship with the US to a new level of engagement.
He has enjoyed a good personal relationship with US President Donald Trump, like
he had with Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama.
Modi considers close ties with the US as essential to the advancement of India’s
economic and security interests. The US, for its part, sees India as central to its
Indo-Pacific strategy. As the White House’s national security strategy report in
December 2017 put it, “A geopolitical competition between free and repressive visions
of world order is taking place in the Indo-Pacific region. The region, which
stretches from the west coast of India to the western shores of the United States,
represents the most populous and economically dynamic part of the world.…We
welcome India’s emergence as a leading global power and stronger strategic and
defence partner.”5
More broadly, Modi’s various steps and policy moves have helped highlight
the trademarks of his foreign policy—from pragmatism and lucidity to zeal and
showmanship. They have also exemplified his penchant for springing diplomatic
surprises. One example was his announcement during a China visit to grant Chinese
tourists e-visas on arrival, an announcement that caught by surprise even his foreign
secretary, who had just said at a media briefing that there was “no decision” on the
5 White House, National Security Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, DC: December
2017), https://goo.gl/CWQf1t.
52Political Change
issue. Another example was in Paris, where Modi announced a surprise decision to
buy 36 French Rafale fighter-jets.
Modi is a realist who loves to play on the grand chessboard of geopolitics. He is
seeking to steer foreign policy in a direction that helps to significantly aid his strategy
to revitalise the country’s economic and military security. At least five things
stand out about his foreign policy.
First, Modi has invested considerable political capital—and time—in highpowered
diplomacy. No other prime minister since the country’s independence
participated in so many bilateral and multilateral summit meetings in his first years
in office. Critics contend that Modi’s busy foreign policy schedule leaves him restricted
time to focus on his most-critical responsibility—domestic issues, which
will define his legacy.
Second, pragmatism is the hallmark of the Modi foreign policy. Nothing better
illustrates this than the priority he accorded, soon after coming to office, to adding
momentum to the relationship with America, despite the US having heaped visa-denial
humiliation on him over nine years. In his first year in office, he also went out
of his way to befriend India’s strategic rival, China, negating the early assumptions
that he would be less accommodating toward Beijing than his predecessor. With
China increasingly assertive and unaccommodating, Modi’s gamble failed to pay
off. Yet, in April 2018, Modi made a fresh effort to “reset” relations with China and
held an informal summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the central
Chinese city of Wuhan.
Third, Modi has sought to shape a non-doctrinaire foreign-policy approach
powered by ideas. He has taken some of his domestic policy ideas (such as “Make
in India” and “Digital India”) to foreign policy, as if to underscore that his priority
is to revitalise India economically. By simultaneously courting different major
powers, Modi has also sought to demonstrate his ability to forge partnerships with
rival powers and broker cooperative international approaches in a rapidly changing
world.
In fact, Modi’s foreign policy is implicitly attempting to move India from its
long-held nonalignment to a contemporary, globalised practicality. In essence, this
means that India—a founding leader of the nonaligned movement—could become
more multi-aligned and less nonaligned. Building close partnerships with major
powers to pursue a variety of interests in diverse settings will not only enable India
to advance its core priorities but also will help it to preserve strategic autonomy, in
keeping with the country’s longstanding preference for policy independence.
Nonalignment suggests a passive approach, including staying on the sidelines.
Being multi-aligned, on the other hand, permits a proactive approach. Being
pragmatically multi-aligned seems a better option for India than remaining passively
non-aligned. A multi-aligned India is already tilting more toward the major
53The Modi Phenomenon and the Re-Making of India
democracies of the world, as the resurrected Australia-India-Japan-US quadrilateral
(or “quad”) grouping underscores. Still, India’s insistence on charting an independent
course is reflected in its refusal to join America-led financial sanctions against
Russia.
Meanwhile, a Modi-led India has not shied away from building strategic partnerships
with countries around China’s periphery to counter that country’s creeping
strategic encirclement of India. New Delhi’s resolve was apparent when Modi tacitly
criticised China’s military buildup and encroachments in the South China Sea
as evidence of an “18th-century expansionist mindset.” India’s “Look East” policy,
for its part, has graduated to an “Act East” policy, with the original economic logic
of “Look East” giving way to a geopolitical logic. The thrust of the new “Act East”
policy—unveiled with US blessings—is to re-establish historically close ties with
countries to India’s east so as to contribute to building a stable balance of power in
the Indo-Pacific region. As Modi said in an op-ed published in 27 ASEAN newspapers
on 26 January 2018 (the day, in a remarkable diplomatic feat, India hosted the
leaders of all 10 ASEAN states as chief guests at its Republic Day parade), “Indians
have always looked East to see the nurturing sunrise and the light of opportunities.
Now, as before, the East, or the Indo-Pacific region, will be indispensable to India’s
future and our common destiny.”6
Fourth, Modi has a penchant for diplomatic showmanship, reflected not only in
the surprises he has sprung but also in the kinds of big-ticket speeches he has given
abroad, often to chants of “Modi, Modi” from the audience. Like a rock star, he unleashed
Modi-mania among Indian-diaspora audiences by taking the stage at New
York’s storied Madison Square Garden, at Sydney’s sprawling Allphones Arena,
and at Ricoh Coliseum, a hockey arena in downtown Toronto. When permission
was sought for a similar speech event in Shanghai during Modi’s 2015 China visit,
an apprehensive Chinese government, which bars any public rally, relented only on
the condition that the event would be staged in an indoor stadium.
To help propel Indian foreign policy, Modi has also injected a personal touch.
Indeed, Modi has used his personal touch with great effect, addressing leaders
ranging from Obama to Abe by their first name and building an easy relationship
with multiple world leaders. In keeping with his personalised stamp on diplomacy,
Modi has relied on bilateral summits to open new avenues for cooperation and collaboration.
At the same time, underscoring his nimble approach to diplomacy, he
has shown he can think on his feet. The speed with which he rushed aid and rescue
teams to an earthquake-battered Nepal, as well as dispatched Indian forces to
evacuate Indian and foreign nationals from Nepal and conflict-torn Yemen, helped
to raise India’s international profile, highlighting its capacity to respond swiftly to
natural and human-induced disasters.
Fifth, it is scarcely a surprise that, given this background, Modi has put his own
stamp on Indian foreign policy. The paradox is that Modi came to office with little
foreign policy experience, yet he has demonstrated impressive diplomatic acumen,
including taking bold steps and charting a vision for building a greater international
role for India.
The former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright famously said, “The purpose
of foreign policy is to persuade other countries to do what we want or, better
yet, to want what we want.”7
How has Modi’s foreign policy done when measured
against such a standard of success? One must concede that, in terms of concrete results,
Modi’s record thus far isn’t all that impressive. His supporters, however, would
say that dividends from a new direction in foreign policy flow slowly and that he
has been in office for just four years.To be sure, a long period of strategic drift under
coalition governments undermined India’s strength in its own backyard. Modi, however,
has not yet been able to recoup the country’s losses in its neighbourhood. The
erosion of India’s influence in its backyard holds far-reaching implications for its
security, underscoring the imperative for a more dynamic, forward-looking foreign
policy and a greater focus on its immediate neighbourhood. China’s strategic clout,
for example, is increasingly on display even in countries symbiotically tied to India,
such as Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. If China established a Djibouti-type
naval base in the Maldives or Pakistan, it would effectively open an Indian Ocean
front against India in the same quiet way that it opened the trans-Himalayan threat
under Mao Zedong by gobbling up Tibet, the historical buffer. China has already
leased several tiny islands in the Maldives and is reportedly working on a naval base
adjacent to Pakistan’s Chinese-built Gwadar port.
To be sure, Modi has injected dynamism and motivation in diplomacy.8
But he
has also highlighted what has long blighted the country’s foreign policy—ad hoc
and personality-driven actions that confound tactics with strategy. Institutionalised
and integrated policy making is essential for a robust diplomacy that takes a long
view. Without healthy institutionalised processes, policy will tend to be ad hoc and
shifting, with personalities at the helm having an excessive role in shaping thinking,
priorities and objectives. If foreign policy is shaped by the whims and fancies of
personalities who hold the reins of power, there will be a propensity to act in haste
and repent at leisure, as has happened in India repeatedly since the time of Prime
Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who was in office for 17 years.
India is more culturally diverse than the entire European Union—but with twice as many people. It is remarkable that India’s democracy has thrived despite such diversity. Yet, like the US, India has become politically polarised. And like Trump, Modi draws strong reactions—in support of him or against him. When Modi won the 2014 national election, critics said they feared his strongman tendencies—a fear they still profess. But in office, Modi has been anything but strong or aggressive in his policies. For example, his foreign policy and his domestic policies, especially economic policy, have been cautious and tactful. However, the “strongman” tag that critics have given Modi helps to obscure his failure to improve governance in India. On his watch, for example, India’s trade deficit with China has doubled to almost $5 billion a month. Prudent gradualism, however, remains the hallmark of Modi’s approach in diplomacy and domestic policy. For example, to underpin India’s position as the world’s fastest-growing developing economy, Modi has preferred slow but steady progress on reforms, an approach that Arvind Subramanian, the government’s chief economic adviser, dubbed “creative incrementalism.” Many in India, of course,
would prefer a bolder approach. But as a raucous democracy, India has to pay a
“democracy tax” in the form of slower decision-making and pandering to powerful
electoral constituencies. For example, under Modi, India’s bill for state subsidies has
risen sharply.
A dynamic foreign policy can be built only on the foundation of a strong domestic
policy, a realm where Modi must overcome political obstacles to shape a
transformative legacy. If India is to emerge as a global economic powerhouse, Modi
must make economic growth his first priority. Another imperative is for India to
reduce its spiralling arms imports by developing an indigenous defence industry.
However, Modi’s “Make in India” initiative has yet to take off, with manufacturing’s
share of India’s GDP actually contracting.
As a shrewd politician, Modi has shown an ability to deftly recover from a setback.
For example, he came under withering criticism when, while meeting Obama
in early 2015 in New Delhi, he wore a navy suit with his name monogrammed in
golden stripes all over it. Critics accused him of being narcissistic, while one politician
went to the extent of calling him a “megalomaniac.” But by auctioning off the
suit, Modi quickly cauterised a political liability. The designer suit was auctioned
for charity, fetching INR 43.1 million ($693,234).
To many, Modi seems politically invincible at home, floating above the laws
of political gravity. But, as happens in any democracy, any leader’s time eventually
runs out. Modi suddenly appeared vulnerable in last December’s state elections in
his native state of Gujarat but his party managed to retain power, although with a
reduced majority. Until his political stock starts to irreversibly diminish, Modi will
continue to dominate the Indian political scene, playing an outsize role. At present,
though, there is no apparent successor to Modi.
new direction to foreign relations at a time when the gap between India and China in
terms of international power and stature was growing significantly. In fact, India’s
influence in its own strategic backyard—including Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh
and the Maldives—has shrunk. Indeed, Bhutan remains India’s sole pocket of strategic
clout in South Asia.
India also confronts the strengthening nexus between its two nuclear-armed
regional adversaries, China and Pakistan, both of which have staked claims to substantial
swaths of Indian territory and continue to collaborate on weapons of mass
destruction. In dealing with these countries, Modi has faced the same dilemma that
has haunted previous Indian governments: the Chinese and Pakistani foreign ministries
are weak actors. The Communist Party and the military shape Chinese foreign
policy, while Pakistan is effectively controlled by its army and intelligence services,
which still use terror groups as proxies. Under Modi, India has faced several daring
terrorist attacks staged from Pakistan, including on Indian military facilities.
One Modi priority after assuming office was restoring momentum to the relationship
with the United States, which, to some extent, had been damaged by
grating diplomatic tensions and trade disputes while his predecessor was in office.
While Modi has been unable to contain cross-border terrorist attacks from Pakistan
or stem Chinese military incursions across the disputed Himalayan frontier, he has
managed to lift the bilateral relationship with the US to a new level of engagement.
He has enjoyed a good personal relationship with US President Donald Trump, like
he had with Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama.
Modi considers close ties with the US as essential to the advancement of India’s
economic and security interests. The US, for its part, sees India as central to its
Indo-Pacific strategy. As the White House’s national security strategy report in
December 2017 put it, “A geopolitical competition between free and repressive visions
of world order is taking place in the Indo-Pacific region. The region, which
stretches from the west coast of India to the western shores of the United States,
represents the most populous and economically dynamic part of the world.…We
welcome India’s emergence as a leading global power and stronger strategic and
defence partner.”5
More broadly, Modi’s various steps and policy moves have helped highlight
the trademarks of his foreign policy—from pragmatism and lucidity to zeal and
showmanship. They have also exemplified his penchant for springing diplomatic
surprises. One example was his announcement during a China visit to grant Chinese
tourists e-visas on arrival, an announcement that caught by surprise even his foreign
secretary, who had just said at a media briefing that there was “no decision” on the
5 White House, National Security Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, DC: December
2017), https://goo.gl/CWQf1t.
52Political Change
issue. Another example was in Paris, where Modi announced a surprise decision to
buy 36 French Rafale fighter-jets.
Modi is a realist who loves to play on the grand chessboard of geopolitics. He is
seeking to steer foreign policy in a direction that helps to significantly aid his strategy
to revitalise the country’s economic and military security. At least five things
stand out about his foreign policy.
First, Modi has invested considerable political capital—and time—in highpowered
diplomacy. No other prime minister since the country’s independence
participated in so many bilateral and multilateral summit meetings in his first years
in office. Critics contend that Modi’s busy foreign policy schedule leaves him restricted
time to focus on his most-critical responsibility—domestic issues, which
will define his legacy.
Second, pragmatism is the hallmark of the Modi foreign policy. Nothing better
illustrates this than the priority he accorded, soon after coming to office, to adding
momentum to the relationship with America, despite the US having heaped visa-denial
humiliation on him over nine years. In his first year in office, he also went out
of his way to befriend India’s strategic rival, China, negating the early assumptions
that he would be less accommodating toward Beijing than his predecessor. With
China increasingly assertive and unaccommodating, Modi’s gamble failed to pay
off. Yet, in April 2018, Modi made a fresh effort to “reset” relations with China and
held an informal summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the central
Chinese city of Wuhan.
Third, Modi has sought to shape a non-doctrinaire foreign-policy approach
powered by ideas. He has taken some of his domestic policy ideas (such as “Make
in India” and “Digital India”) to foreign policy, as if to underscore that his priority
is to revitalise India economically. By simultaneously courting different major
powers, Modi has also sought to demonstrate his ability to forge partnerships with
rival powers and broker cooperative international approaches in a rapidly changing
world.
In fact, Modi’s foreign policy is implicitly attempting to move India from its
long-held nonalignment to a contemporary, globalised practicality. In essence, this
means that India—a founding leader of the nonaligned movement—could become
more multi-aligned and less nonaligned. Building close partnerships with major
powers to pursue a variety of interests in diverse settings will not only enable India
to advance its core priorities but also will help it to preserve strategic autonomy, in
keeping with the country’s longstanding preference for policy independence.
Nonalignment suggests a passive approach, including staying on the sidelines.
Being multi-aligned, on the other hand, permits a proactive approach. Being
pragmatically multi-aligned seems a better option for India than remaining passively
non-aligned. A multi-aligned India is already tilting more toward the major
53The Modi Phenomenon and the Re-Making of India
democracies of the world, as the resurrected Australia-India-Japan-US quadrilateral
(or “quad”) grouping underscores. Still, India’s insistence on charting an independent
course is reflected in its refusal to join America-led financial sanctions against
Russia.
Meanwhile, a Modi-led India has not shied away from building strategic partnerships
with countries around China’s periphery to counter that country’s creeping
strategic encirclement of India. New Delhi’s resolve was apparent when Modi tacitly
criticised China’s military buildup and encroachments in the South China Sea
as evidence of an “18th-century expansionist mindset.” India’s “Look East” policy,
for its part, has graduated to an “Act East” policy, with the original economic logic
of “Look East” giving way to a geopolitical logic. The thrust of the new “Act East”
policy—unveiled with US blessings—is to re-establish historically close ties with
countries to India’s east so as to contribute to building a stable balance of power in
the Indo-Pacific region. As Modi said in an op-ed published in 27 ASEAN newspapers
on 26 January 2018 (the day, in a remarkable diplomatic feat, India hosted the
leaders of all 10 ASEAN states as chief guests at its Republic Day parade), “Indians
have always looked East to see the nurturing sunrise and the light of opportunities.
Now, as before, the East, or the Indo-Pacific region, will be indispensable to India’s
future and our common destiny.”6
Fourth, Modi has a penchant for diplomatic showmanship, reflected not only in
the surprises he has sprung but also in the kinds of big-ticket speeches he has given
abroad, often to chants of “Modi, Modi” from the audience. Like a rock star, he unleashed
Modi-mania among Indian-diaspora audiences by taking the stage at New
York’s storied Madison Square Garden, at Sydney’s sprawling Allphones Arena,
and at Ricoh Coliseum, a hockey arena in downtown Toronto. When permission
was sought for a similar speech event in Shanghai during Modi’s 2015 China visit,
an apprehensive Chinese government, which bars any public rally, relented only on
the condition that the event would be staged in an indoor stadium.
To help propel Indian foreign policy, Modi has also injected a personal touch.
Indeed, Modi has used his personal touch with great effect, addressing leaders
ranging from Obama to Abe by their first name and building an easy relationship
with multiple world leaders. In keeping with his personalised stamp on diplomacy,
Modi has relied on bilateral summits to open new avenues for cooperation and collaboration.
At the same time, underscoring his nimble approach to diplomacy, he
has shown he can think on his feet. The speed with which he rushed aid and rescue
teams to an earthquake-battered Nepal, as well as dispatched Indian forces to
evacuate Indian and foreign nationals from Nepal and conflict-torn Yemen, helped
to raise India’s international profile, highlighting its capacity to respond swiftly to
natural and human-induced disasters.
Fifth, it is scarcely a surprise that, given this background, Modi has put his own
stamp on Indian foreign policy. The paradox is that Modi came to office with little
foreign policy experience, yet he has demonstrated impressive diplomatic acumen,
including taking bold steps and charting a vision for building a greater international
role for India.
The former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright famously said, “The purpose
of foreign policy is to persuade other countries to do what we want or, better
yet, to want what we want.”7
How has Modi’s foreign policy done when measured
against such a standard of success? One must concede that, in terms of concrete results,
Modi’s record thus far isn’t all that impressive. His supporters, however, would
say that dividends from a new direction in foreign policy flow slowly and that he
has been in office for just four years.To be sure, a long period of strategic drift under
coalition governments undermined India’s strength in its own backyard. Modi, however,
has not yet been able to recoup the country’s losses in its neighbourhood. The
erosion of India’s influence in its backyard holds far-reaching implications for its
security, underscoring the imperative for a more dynamic, forward-looking foreign
policy and a greater focus on its immediate neighbourhood. China’s strategic clout,
for example, is increasingly on display even in countries symbiotically tied to India,
such as Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. If China established a Djibouti-type
naval base in the Maldives or Pakistan, it would effectively open an Indian Ocean
front against India in the same quiet way that it opened the trans-Himalayan threat
under Mao Zedong by gobbling up Tibet, the historical buffer. China has already
leased several tiny islands in the Maldives and is reportedly working on a naval base
adjacent to Pakistan’s Chinese-built Gwadar port.
To be sure, Modi has injected dynamism and motivation in diplomacy.8
But he
has also highlighted what has long blighted the country’s foreign policy—ad hoc
and personality-driven actions that confound tactics with strategy. Institutionalised
and integrated policy making is essential for a robust diplomacy that takes a long
view. Without healthy institutionalised processes, policy will tend to be ad hoc and
shifting, with personalities at the helm having an excessive role in shaping thinking,
priorities and objectives. If foreign policy is shaped by the whims and fancies of
personalities who hold the reins of power, there will be a propensity to act in haste
and repent at leisure, as has happened in India repeatedly since the time of Prime
Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who was in office for 17 years.
India is more culturally diverse than the entire European Union—but with twice as many people. It is remarkable that India’s democracy has thrived despite such diversity. Yet, like the US, India has become politically polarised. And like Trump, Modi draws strong reactions—in support of him or against him. When Modi won the 2014 national election, critics said they feared his strongman tendencies—a fear they still profess. But in office, Modi has been anything but strong or aggressive in his policies. For example, his foreign policy and his domestic policies, especially economic policy, have been cautious and tactful. However, the “strongman” tag that critics have given Modi helps to obscure his failure to improve governance in India. On his watch, for example, India’s trade deficit with China has doubled to almost $5 billion a month. Prudent gradualism, however, remains the hallmark of Modi’s approach in diplomacy and domestic policy. For example, to underpin India’s position as the world’s fastest-growing developing economy, Modi has preferred slow but steady progress on reforms, an approach that Arvind Subramanian, the government’s chief economic adviser, dubbed “creative incrementalism.” Many in India, of course,
would prefer a bolder approach. But as a raucous democracy, India has to pay a
“democracy tax” in the form of slower decision-making and pandering to powerful
electoral constituencies. For example, under Modi, India’s bill for state subsidies has
risen sharply.
A dynamic foreign policy can be built only on the foundation of a strong domestic
policy, a realm where Modi must overcome political obstacles to shape a
transformative legacy. If India is to emerge as a global economic powerhouse, Modi
must make economic growth his first priority. Another imperative is for India to
reduce its spiralling arms imports by developing an indigenous defence industry.
However, Modi’s “Make in India” initiative has yet to take off, with manufacturing’s
share of India’s GDP actually contracting.
As a shrewd politician, Modi has shown an ability to deftly recover from a setback.
For example, he came under withering criticism when, while meeting Obama
in early 2015 in New Delhi, he wore a navy suit with his name monogrammed in
golden stripes all over it. Critics accused him of being narcissistic, while one politician
went to the extent of calling him a “megalomaniac.” But by auctioning off the
suit, Modi quickly cauterised a political liability. The designer suit was auctioned
for charity, fetching INR 43.1 million ($693,234).
To many, Modi seems politically invincible at home, floating above the laws
of political gravity. But, as happens in any democracy, any leader’s time eventually
runs out. Modi suddenly appeared vulnerable in last December’s state elections in
his native state of Gujarat but his party managed to retain power, although with a
reduced majority. Until his political stock starts to irreversibly diminish, Modi will
continue to dominate the Indian political scene, playing an outsize role. At present,
though, there is no apparent successor to Modi.
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