Raja Mohan, C (2015), Modi’s World: Expanding India’s Sphere of Influence, New Delhi: HarperCollins India.
Nishant Agarwal
The Indian foreign policy since the country’s independence has gone through various phases, governments and leaderships. From 17 years under PM Jawaharlal Nehru and the successive congress rule which involved Indira and Rajiv Gandhi’s tenures as prime ministers to the era of coalition governments and the first NDA government under the leadership of PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the UPA regimes under the rule of Manmohan Singh. C. Raja Mohan’s Modi’s World: Expanding India’s sphere of influence seeks to explain the same.
It focuses on the expectations of bringing about a transformation from Narendra Modi, the successes and failures of the earlier regimes and the future that the world pre-assumes for the nation. There has been continuity as well as moments of discontinuity in this period of the Indian foreign policy undertaken by the various leaderships and the foreign office bureaucracy. The change of leaderships in general elections has usually not mattered much vis-à-vis the formulation of foreign policy. But this all changed in 2014, when Narendra Modi was running for the office, and eventually came to power. For the first time in a long run, there were expectations for radical changes in the Indian foreign policy and the way India sees the world. Indian foreign policy which was highly criticized during the UPA period for not being commensurate enough to India’s global standing and weight, and was strongly in the hands of the bureaucracy, was hoped to regain its political efficacy.
Raja Mohan begins by dividing the post-independence modern history into multiple phases and labels the congress dominated period from 1947 to 1989 as the “First Republic”, which coincides with the cold war and India’s policy of non-alignment. And the post 1989 period coinciding with the end of cold war, end of the congress system and the rise of coalition politics as the “Second Republic”. The book is a collection of his columns, editorials and essays that were once published in The Indian Express. They go on from September 2013 to March 2015. The book among many foreign policy issues, also builds on the premise that the United Progressive Alliance’s second government undid and backtracked on a lot of policy initiatives and overtures which can be traced back to the days of P.V. Narsimha Rao and A.B. Vajpayee which were in themselves very crucial and unorthodox for the Indian foreign policy establishment. It even backtracked and undid a lot of its own actions which it took in the first government. The chapter titled “Ambivalent legacy” talks about how the leadership under the UPA government was dichotomous, Manmohan Singh though tried to build upon his predecessor’s work, was constrained by Sonia Gandhi and the rigid and orthodox foreign office established. Furthermore, the government devolved a lot of foreign policy decisions to other departments and state governments, like Tamil Nadu and West Bengal vis-à-vis Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, which resulted in the deterioration of India’s foreign policy engagements. The foreign office for him carries on the legacy of non-alignment and this needs to be done with.
The author critiques India’s the then defense minister A.K. Antony, for failing to involve with other nations globally in defense diplomacy during the UPA 2, at the time when countries in South-Asia, South-east Asia as well as Africa were eager to cooperate with Indian armed forces. Antony’s tenure remains the largest one for a defense minister in India is thus regarded as one of “lost opportunities”, where India ceded a lot of space to China. He raised his expectations towards Modi for not viewing Indian relationship with the US and China through a monochromatic and naïve sight, as it has been traditionally viewed by the predecessors in the UPA regime. Relations with both the US and China can progress concurrently and India doesn’t need to vary for attracting the ire of any of the two and should rather cooperate and leverage its relations with them for its own economic growth and development. He devotes specific chapters to India’s engagement with China, Pakistan, the US and the rest of Asia. If the country seeks to compete with the growing Chinese influence, and its projects like the maritime silk route, and wants to remain the net security provider in the broader Indian ocean region, it needs to enhance cooperation and infrastructural projects in the littorals.
Also, the author brilliantly explains that the Great power status, which India under Modi seeks to acquire is not possible without solving the regional issues within the subcontinent with neighbors like Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. However, this needs to be with regional consensus instead of hegemonic imposition. If countries like Pakistan become a roadblock in regional initiatives like SAARC, other already existing dormant regional initiatives can be revived and given emphasis like the BIMSTEC and the BBIN to promote regional integration and improve connectivity. This was immortalized by A.B. Vajpayee when he said “You can change friends, but not your neighbors” and continues to be of immense significance.
The chapter titled “Cultural Diplomacy” discusses the cultural outreach to overseas Indians and the use of soft power by the PM during his state visits. His speeches and personal outreach coupled with his overt display of religiosity by visiting temples in countries like Nepal etc., are a first in the Indian foreign policy, and have helped India promote religious tourism, coupled with the creation of various circuits like the Buddhist and the Ramayana circuits which are transnational. Modi has pitched India’s economic reforms and liberalization of trade regime to the Indians living overseas for greater foreign investment. Thus, the author has accurately explained the importance of mobilization of the Indian diaspora in reinventing foreign policy and presenting a desirable image of India, overseas.
Overall, the book calls on the foreign policy bureaucracy to move on from the non-aligned mindset and shed the so called “strategic autonomy”, as a remnant of the past. It correctly recognizes the need of the hour for India to engage with the US, China and Japan in a way it can leverage the relationship for its growth and development. India’s quest to become a great power as per the author goes through it becoming a regional power first. Therefore, India’s rise as a great power or if India becomes a regional hegemon will tamper its relationship with its neighbors and will have a regional backlash, as a lot of them will try to balance their relationship with India by cozying up to China. Contemporary examples like that of Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh prove this. Indian hegemony shall not only result in balancing acts by other states but also outrage by their respective populations over the infringement of their sovereignty. Narendra Modi has provided with the much-needed personal charisma and has asserted the central authority over foreign policy decisions, there have not been any major substantial departures from the past and a lot of the decisions and initiatives still are either the continuation of the UPA regime or have incremental changes. The book is an easy read. It is a great journalistic account of India’s foreign policy expectations and realities but lacks academic rigor, coupled with the fact that the book was published within the first year of the NDA government, which is definitely a short timeframe to give a systematic and thorough account.
