Inviting 10 ASEAN leaders to Republic Day function: Will it really make any difference? 

On January 27, 2015 the then US President Barack Obama delivered a speech at Siri Fort Auditorium in New Delhi in which he emphasised on the need for religious and other types of tolerance.

“India will succeed so long as it is not splintered along the lines of religious faith––so long as it's not splintered along any lines––and is unified as one nation.”

That was among the last engagement in his three-day trip before he took off from India leaving behind many red faces in the establishment and the BJP.

January 26, 2015 was the first Republic Day after Narendra Modi came to power on May 26, 2014. It was trumpeted as a great success by the Indian media. But the parting shot by Obama left Mandarins in Indian foreign ministry high and dry. The very exercise of inviting the US President for the Republic Day was diluted.

Three years after 2015, India has invited 10 ASEAN leaders to attend the Republic Day function and all of them have given their consent. The move is being interpreted by a section of media as a ‘major policy statement’.

Inviting a foreign dignitary on this occasion is a common practice. But never have 10 leaders of the world been invited––and that too when there is no international or multilateral summit or conference in India.

It is a part of Act East Policy of the Narendra Modi government, which is an extension of Look East Policy introduced by the then Narasimha Rao government in early 1990s.

As the Chinese influence is growing in South East Asia, India is trying to play a more important role in the region. But checkmating China in neighbouring South Asia is more important than in the Asia-Pacific.

Immediately after being voted to power the new NDA government invited leaders of the neighbouring countries to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Narendra Modi. Such invitations to foreign dignitaries are usually extended by monarchs at the time of their coronation. In democracies this is not a usual practice.

Yet more than three and a half years later India’s relationship with the neighbours has hardly improved––in fact with Pakistan and Nepal the ties have deteriorated though Narendra Modi paid visits to both these countries.

The success in foreign policy can just not be measured by the number of high profile trips undertaken by the President or Prime Minister and extension of invitations to foreign dignitaries.

Similarly, breaking of protocols and receiving the guest at the airport, hugging him, holding roadshow with him or taking selfie or having photo-ops are just secondary exercises.

We have enough of that when the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee took a bus trip to Lahore in 1999 or when President Musharraf visited New Delhi and Agra in 2001. The bus trip was followed by the Kargil intrusion.

In the same way when President Xi Jinping was sharing a swing with PM Modi at a river-front in Ahmedabad China’s Peoples Liberation Army and Indian forces were locked in a physical tussle well inside Ladakh. Now its forces are building roads at Doklam plateau.

On December 25, 2015 Narendra Modi, while on way back from Kabul, suddenly dropped in at Lahore to attend the marriage in Nawaz Sharif’s family. The latter warmly greeted him, they both exchanged greetings and gifts and for a moment it appeared that both the countries are going to bury all the disputes. But a week later terrorists’ strike took place on the eve of New Year’s day. Not only that India allowed Pakistani officials to visit the Pathankot airbase after the attack.

No doubt the BJP, after abandoning the Sangh’s earlier anti-Semitism and love for Adolf Hitler, stood for closer ties with the Jewish state. Narendra Modi became the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Israel 25 years after the establishment of full diplomatic relationship by the then Narasimha Rao-led Congress government. Now his Israeli counterpart is in India.

Notwithstanding all these recent rhetoric the bilateral trade between Israel and India came down from about $5 billion (excluding defence) in 2012 to $4.2 billion now.

Only last December India voted in the United Nations against the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Then two weeks before Netanyahu’s visit to India the Modi government cancelled the Spike anti-tank missile deal with the Jewish state. However, the deal has reportedly been salvaged after the talks between the two PMs.

It needs to be recalled that Chairman Mao Zedong, during his 27 years of rule, visited only one country––Soviet Union in 1949 and 1957.

Yet in 1971 the United States recognised Communist China and it became the permanent member of the Security Council. It was the then US President Richard Nixon who made a trip to China in 1972.