Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be back in Delhi on Wednesday after nearly a week abroad in Hiroshima, Port Moresby and Sydney, during which time he met some of the world’s most powerful leaders, as well as those from among its smallest nations.
But what has seemed remarkable during this trip is the charm offensive undertaken by several of these heads of State and government towards Modi – as if they’ve come to the conclusion that in the shifting world order, he and India deserve more than their grudging respect.
Why the West wants to know Modi
Let’s examine my hypothesis closely. First, all these leaders know that the PM’s party, the BJP, has just lost the Karnataka elections and therefore has been wiped out from a large part of India, the south. Moreover, in about half the country, a variety of regional parties and not the BJP rule the roost. In ordinary circumstances, many of these liberal democracies – especially the US, which is run by a Democrat president – would be circumspect about hugging the Indian PM.
But clearly, these aren’t ordinary circumstances. The world realises that Modi’s extraordinary charisma and leadership may not have been able to tip the balance in Karnataka but will surely keep the BJP’s powder dry in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. So if the world’s largest nation in population terms is going to be led by this man again, they may as well get to know him better.
Second, there is more than grudging admiration on the part of several nations that Modi has not gamely caved into the US demand that Russia be sanctioned in the wake of its Ukraine invasion. Modi has resisted strongly in the face of repeated requests from the US to stop buying Russian oil – and firmly rejected EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell’s accusation that India is circumventing the Russia sanctions.
Modi’s ability to walk the middle path between US pressure and the moral need not to applaud Russian president Vladimir Putin because of New Delhi’s energy dependence on Moscow has been quite extraordinary this past year. India has not only become, along with China, one of the largest purchasers of Russian oil for domestic consumption, but Indian refineries have also re-exported this transformed crude to energy-greedy Europe.
Modi’s inner circle must certainly offer him all kinds of analysis. Go with America; it’s not just a like-minded democracy, but it also offers a viable alternative to putting all your eggs (defence equipment as well as energy) in the Russian basket. Or, the converse. Keep with the Russians. They have been sturdy friends in the past, indeed since 1971.
Modi seems to have listened to both pieces of advice. So he met the Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelenskyy in Hiroshima and carefully chose his words while talking to him. “India does not approve of war,” Modi basically told Zelenskyy, but never added that India is upset with Moscow and Putin for starting this totally unnecessary conflict.
Modi went from Hiroshima to Australia (via Port Moresby, of course), a fellow Quad nation. The Australians, treaty allies of the US – which means that the US is treaty-bound to come to Australia’s aid and protection in case they are in peril – means that when the US begins to sneeze, Australia reaches for the hot-water bottle and the crocin because it is bound to catch a severe cold. Less facetiously, what this means is that Australia will fall in line with US policy, whether on Russia or nuclear weapons or markets or China, once its largest trading partner.
That brings me to my third point. China. Australian PM Anthony Albanese and US President Joe Biden went out of their way to compliment Modi. So many people are angling an invitation for the State dinner I am hosting for you that “I should take your autograph,” Biden told Modi, while Albanese said something similar about how 20,000 people were trying to come to the stadium in Sydney where Modi was getting a reception – because a large part of the charm offensive has to do with China.
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Anti-China sentiment helps India’s case
If there is something that unites all the Quad nations, it’s the big Communist power, also the world’s second-largest economy, snapping at the heels of the world’s largest economy. Certainly, nothing concentrates the mind better. This anti-China feeling fuses with New Delhi’s angst regarding the India-China troop standoff on the Line of Actual Control that is into its third anniversary and shows no signs of ebbing.
The US and, indeed, all the Quad nations realise that they need India if they want to contain China. India shares a long Himalayan boundary with China and has been able to hold off 50,000 Chinese troops with another 50,000 of its own, despite losing 20 soldiers in a 2020 scuffle in the high Himalayan Galwan valley and accepting buffer zones on its own side of the LAC.
Fact is, even as its enormous power begins to slide, US still has the capability to identify two major geopolitical enemies, Russia and China. Increasingly, though, it needs friends and like-minded allies to hold them off. According to noted US analyst Ashley Tellis, India will never fully side with the US because China is too close and it doesn’t want to antagonise Beijing too much – but it is clear that it cannot be business as usual between New Delhi and Beijing until the latter returns to status quo ante.
And then there’s the market, stupid. While India is not really part of the China value chain, Apple’s big India move is part of the US’ strategy to diversify from China, even if it takes a few years to do so. India’s huge market and young population offer a big, if so far potential, alternative to the China market.
For all these reasons, the Western world’s charm offensive towards Modi this week seems clear. It is also an acknowledgement of India’s extraordinary ability to stand up for itself – neither left nor right, but in the middle, as Indira Gandhi once told the American press.
What could have helped underline India’s unique choices is a domestic political compact on foreign policy – unfortunately, that seems totally broken. Imagine if the ruling party and the opposition could come together and walk the middle path that Modi seems to have successfully forged – like Manmohan Singh, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, PV Narasimha Rao, and all the others did before him – India’s credentials would shine even brighter.
Jyoti Malhotra is a senior consulting editor at ThePrint. She tweets @jomalhotra. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)