NARENDRA MODI FOREIGN POLICY INITIATIVES

http://www.niticentral.com/2014/09/19/narendra-modi-buries-nehrus-panchsheel-238841.html?utm_content=buffer4381b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=plus.google.com&utm_campaign=buffer SHASHI SHEKHAR | SEP 19, 2014 Narendra Modi’s blockbuster September for Diplomacy hit high gear with Chinese President Xi Jinping visiting India. The Chinese visit was preceded by Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Japan and a visit by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to India. From Japan, Australia to China Narendra Modi’s first four months in Office mark an unusually heavy emphasis on Foreign Policy going well beyond India’s immediate neighborhood. The past four months have seen the creative application of Swearing-in Ceremony to mend fences in the neighborhood, a rigid WTO stance to signal there is a new regime in Delhi, a warm hug in Kyoto to mark a new sunrise in India’s look-east policy, unmistakable Hindu Symbolism in Nepal and a Buddhist revival in conversations with Japan and China. If there is one common theme running through all of Narendra Modi’s foreign policy moves it is its markedly post-Nehruvian character. Gone are the days when every diplomatic maneuver by an Indian Prime Minister would be prefaced with lip-service to Non-Alignment. Culture and Shared Values have displaced pacifist platitudes as the primary conversation filler. Unapologetically bold invocation of Religious Symbolism has signaled a new confidence that India will deploy all realistic instruments to advance its strategic interests. Willingness to stake much political capital in welcoming Foreign Investments stands in stark contrast to the previous regime. Sagacity in setting aside past bitterness to engage with United States purposefully is perhaps the clearest signal from Narendra Modi that he is putting Foreign Policy on priority ahead of an ambitious domestic agenda. Narendra Modi’s ambitious Foreign Policy moves in the first four months have raised expectations tad too high. The loss in India’s Strategic Influence over the decades will take much more than four months of shuttle diplomacy to fix. A grim reminder of just how much strategic influence India has lost in the past 10 years became evident during the Chinese President’s stopover in Maldives. The domestic politics of Maldives that saw the dispute over an Airport Contract resulting in an Indian firm being thrown out must be seen in a new light. While GMR is out of the Male Airport Project, a Chinese firm is now all set to take over giving the Chinese a strategic foothold in the Indian Ocean nation. Closer home the Chinese President inaugurated the Colombo Port in Sri Lanka in a reminder of the steep cost of ultra-Tamil Nationalism over the decades and the geo-political space that has been ceded to China in the neighborhood. Xi Jinping may have opted out of a trip to Pakistan but his county’s continued investments in Gwadar and in Myanmar to the east underline the gap between foreign policy expectations and geo-political reality for India. While the Chinese Red Army sought to take Xi Jinping’s call to Visit India a bit too seriously with its incursion in Ladakh, the Prime Minister’s allusion to “inches” and “miles” inspired much frivolity on Social Media with the Chinese refusing to pull-back in the two sectors. The standoff in Ladakh notwithstanding Narendra Modi did not shy away from raising the unresolved border as a key hurdle to India and China making progress on their shared economic interests. Xi Jinping too echoed Narendra Modi on the need to get the border dispute clarified. Thejoint press conference by Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping came in the backdrop of Tibetan protests against China being allowed in Delhi and comments by the Dalai Lama who too was in Delhi. The joint statement also came a day after India struck a deal with Vietnam to wade into China’s sphere of influence in the South China Sea. The highlight of the Narendra Modi-Xi Jinping summit though was not what was said but what was quietly buried