Skipper Modi surprises by scoring big on foreign soil

WASHINGTON: It was one area where the punditocracy was unsure of his pedigree — somewhat like that of a cricketer who has made tonnes of runs in Ranji Trophy but you don’t know if he belongs to the Test XI, much less captain it.
With the US visa ban hanging over his head, foreign policy was widely perceived to be Narendra Modi’s weak spot, something he was expected to paper over if he became prime minister with a vigorous domestic agenda.A year later, foreign policy is the one area where Modi is widely accepted as hitting the ball out of the park even as his domestic record is modest at best.
It all began with that one phone call on Friday night of May 16/17 last year when President Obama congratulated the man White House even then correctly described as “candidate Modi”. The results had not been formally declared and he was not yet elected or sworn in Prime Minister, but Obama took a calculated gamble to invite him to visit Washington, thoughtfully recognizing that the primacy of the Indian electorate verdict trumped anything the human rights cranked up. He won over “Narendra”, even as pragmatists in Washington told him the US would be left behind if it persisted in its boycott of Modi.
From that moment on, the Prime Minister’s foreign policy conquests have taken on the tempo of a T20 innings, starting with his barnstorming of Madison Square Gardens in New York. Although he began his innings with a flourish with his dramatic outreach to Nawaz Sharif, by inviting him for his swearing-in, and visits to Bhutan and Nepal in the neighbourhood and Japan and Brazil soon after, it was his end-September powerplay visit to Washington DC, and the quick reciprocal visit of President Obama for India’s Republic Day that dramatically altered perceptions about the kind of speed and energy Modi could bring to the foreign policy table.
Here then was a man who was not only unconstrained by not having any foreign policy experience in New Delhi (which was probably an advantage in that he was not overwhelmed by South Block traditionalists), but who also remained unmindful of the slights US had inflicted on him. Most pundits had reckoned he would at least play hard-to-get, if not sulk. Instead, he boldly grasped Obama’s turnaround, and in turn drew him into a tango that took the US president to a military parade in New Delhi with the full range of Indian armaments including nuclear-capable missiles and Russian-made weapons on display.
Whether the symbolic clinch as a partner if not ally sans treaty will translate into billions of dollars in business is hard to say given the mismatch between the cautious Indian mindset and buccaneering American ways. US business leaders are still waiting to cash in on the promises of speedy reforms, fair taxation, and transparent policy-making promised by Modi. But at least in some areas, notably climate change that is close to President Obama’s heart and every shoreline in the world, Washington is starting to see some melt in India’s reserve.
More crucially, Washington’s overt support has also stiffened India’s resolve to stand up to Beijing’s bullying, a message that Modi conveyed skillfully during his visit to China (that was bracketed between visits to US-Japan-Australia before and Mongolia and South Korea after) by cranking up business and trade initiatives while putting the boundary issues on the backburner. The message: Two can play the game of encirclement.
The laggards in this turbo-charged first year of Modi’s foreign outreach have been the European Union, where Germany and France got bilateral attention on account of the size and salience of their economy to India, at the expense of the also-rans and other troubled nations. Also losing traction thanks to the biggest gift the BJP govt received in its first year — a huge drop in oil prices — are the Gulf countries, beset with their own turmoil.
But one country more than any other has been wordlessly put in its place in a neighbourhood strategy where every other country has had (and in case of Bangladesh, will soon have) a Modi visit.