Modi’s blunders unprecedented in India’s foreign policy history

A heads of government summit between India and Russia is almost an annual affair. Eighteen such meetings have taken place without any interruptions. Interestingly though, three exchange visits have taken place in less than a year and a half; the last two in a space of eight months. Russian President Vladimir Putin visited India in October, 2016. So, what made Prime Minister Narendra Modi go running to Russia last week?

Two intriguing praises I have heard about Modi recently are that he is “controversial”, this from an Indian academic at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), and a “risk-taker”, from an Indian businessman. Are these virtues? Are being controversial and taking risks at India’s expense laudable?

India’s foreign policy since independence has been carefully crafted. It stressed on non-alignment but out of necessity, it became closer to the Soviet Union. Later, it chose non-partisanship between colliding superpowers. It has served India in good stead.

However, Modi tore apart the doctrine to overtly hug a historically hostile United States of America. Friendship with all was Jawaharlal Nehru’s fundamental philosophy. But for nearly 45 years, Washington spurned India’s goodwill on narrow grounds, built a military pact with Pakistan and converted a struggling China into an economic powerhouse.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in the US may have recommended it, APCO may have advocated it, but India was ill-advised to become America’s puppet in Asia in an anti-China configuration. Former PM P.V. Narasimha Rao rightly understood that Beijing was essentially keen on commercial gains and, therefore, minimised the military threat it posed with a pragmatic peace treaty. Manmohan Singh extracted significant cooperation from Beijing, including the Nuclear Suppliers Group waiver. But Modi criticising China in Japan, a very sensitive matter, and India attempting to hem in its neighbour at Washington’s behest were unlikely to be taken lying down.

Indeed, Modi is squarely responsible for China consolidating its already very close ties with Pakistan and hastening the China Pakistan Economic Corridor project. An enhanced Beijing-Islamabad cooperation is wholly inimical to India. Yet, this is precisely what Modi has unforgivably constructed.

What is worse is that the Indo-US embrace annoyed Russia which, even if not as reliable as the erstwhile Soviet Union, has been India’s most trustworthy defence partner.

P. S. Raghavan was until recently the Indian ambassador to Russia. Now retired from the Indian Foreign Service, he is the convenor of the National Security Advisory Board. In a recent article in The Indian Express he wrote Russia “supplies to India sensitive technologies which are not sold to any other country”. He went on to say, “no other country is willing to supply such technologies”. He added, “Our efforts at diversification of defence imports have not made sufficient headway. In 2012-16, Russia supplied 68 % of our arms imports. USA with 14 % was a distant second. Despite our best efforts over a decade, we still cannot get cutting-edge US defence technologies.”

Besides, it has not gone unnoticed that Russia was reluctant to mention cross-border terrorism (read Pakistan) at the BRICS summit last year. Putin also parried a question on Pakistan’s sponsorship of cross border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir at St Petersburg last week. The strategic partnership between Russia and China has perceptibly strengthened, with Putin treated as a prominent participant in last month’s Belt and Road Forum in Beijing. In short, Russia can no longer be considered by South Block as a bulwark against Chinese ill intentions towards India.

To teach Modi a lesson – with India the consequent sufferer – for his cosiness with the US, Russia has unfrozen its relationship with Pakistan. The two held their first-ever joint military exercise in 2016. The Pakistani Air Force Chief, in an address at the IISS, made no secret of his weakness for the Russian SU-35 combat aircraft to bolster his nation’s fleet. Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif was in Moscow six weeks ago to take this newfound friendship forward.

A Russia-China-Pakistan dialogue on Afghanistan was also held in Moscow in December. India and Russia are today on divergent paths on the issue. While New Delhi is committed to support the government of President Ashraf Ghani, and rightly so, Moscow is keeping its options open by opening communication channels with the Pakistan-backed Taliban.

Over and above, economic cooperation between India and Russia remains stagnant. “Since 2014,” recorded Raghavan, “Mr Modi has repeatedly emphasised that strengthening the economic pillar of the India-Russia strategic partnership needs special focus. Government departments functioning in silos or sometimes at cross-purposes have failed to effectively pursue this objective.”

Russia played the game beautifully against a novice like Modi. It knew fully well that overtures to Pakistan and China will alarm India and it will come scurrying back to restore a status quo ante. This is exactly what has happened with the RSS pracharak landing up in Moscow with goodies such as more defence and nuclear energy contracts.

Snuggling up to the US has exploded on Modi’s face. The Joint Strategic Vision for Asia-Pacific and the Indian Ocean Region agreed with Barack Obama appears to be of little interest to Donald Trump. Indeed, he singled out India for a tirade against the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. “India makes its participation contingent on receiving billions and billions and billions of dollars in foreign aid from developed countries,” he alleged. This is hardly bonhomie between strategic partners.

Thanks to Modi, India is confronted with triple jeopardy. Its tilt towards the US has boomeranged, its hand vis-à-vis Russia has weakened and the China-Pakistan axis has intensified. It’s probably the biggest goof-up in the annals of Indian foreign policy.