Modi's foreign policy fundamentals: a trajectory unchanged

Abstract

The advent of Narendra Modi to the Indian premiership aroused considerable expectations about India's place in world politics. In the closing years of the last millennium, the spurt in India's economic growth and its 1998 nuclear tests appeared to signal that the country was poised to become a major player in Asian and eventually global politics. The India-US nuclear agreement of 2005, which allowed India to bypass the tightening rules of nuclear commerce despite its refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), seemed to symbolize the restructuring of the global balance of power, bringing Washington and New Delhi together to counter the rise of China. Yet, barely a decade later, the Manmohan Singh government (2004-2014) appeared to be irresolute and reluctant to press on with the task of consolidating India's position. Modi's election in May 2014 was widely viewed as signifying a more decisive phase in the country's foreign policy, especially after he launched his tenure as prime minister with a flurry of overseas visits to large and small powers alike. There were three reasons for the high expectations of change. First, Modi's personal style is starkly different from that of his predecessor. Singh was a low-key leader, inclined to position himself as primus inter pares and collegial in decisionmaking, while Modi is charismatic and authoritative. Singh was media-shy and bland in his public style, whereas Modi quickly displayed his media skills through orchestrated media events and the effective use of mass media such as Facebook and Twitter. 1 The 2014 election manifesto of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) clearly carried his personal stamp, proclaiming a determination to 'fundamentally reboot and reorient the foreign policy goals, content and process, in a manner that locates India's global strategic engagement in a new paradigm'. 2 Second, Singh was hampered by serious political constraints. He rose to power through the bureaucracy, was never elected to the Lok Sabha (the popularly elected lower house of parliament), and had little control of his party, the Indian National Congress, which was (and is) dominated by the Nehru-Gandhi family. In contrast, Modi rose up through the maelstrom of state politics-he was chief minister of Gujarat 1 Nalin Mehta, 'Modi and the art of political performance', Times of India, 28 Sept. 2015, http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/academic-interest/modi-and-the-art-of-political-performance/. (Unless otherwise noted at point of citation, all URLs cited in this article were accessible on 11 Oct. 2016.)

Indian Foreign Policy under Modi: A New Brand or Just Repackaging?

“…The buildup of coalitions with other major powers is a trend that began under earlier prime ministers, but these are not alliances-far from it. Rather, India has developed strategic partnerships with the United States, Japan, Russia, and others in which its arms purchases are distributed and its strategic commitments are limited (Basrur 2017). Modi's confrontational response to China's road building on the China-Bhutan border (the Doklam standoff in June-August 2017) is reminiscent of earlier standoffs dating back to at least 1986.…”

Tone Shift: India's Dominant Foreign Policy Aims Under Modi

“…Within this thinking, the concept of India's "strategic autonomy" has gained greater prominence in official discourses whereby it "undergird(s) its quest for security and status. " 33 Realizing such autonomy rests upon accumulating sufficient amounts of power for India "to articulate its own interests in foreign policy and in the shaping of the world order, " 34 which marks continuity from a long-held preference for self-reliance. Underpinning these global ambitions is a sense that India is a state that "cannot be ignored ... (and) one whose relative weight and influence in material terms have been increasing over the past decade. "…”

Modi’s India and Japan: nested strategic partnerships

“…To what extent has Modi himself shaped its course? Scholars debate whether he has engineered a ‘paradigm shift’ in Indian foreign policy (Dixit 2019 ; Kumar 2019 ; Tremblay and Kapur 2017 ), wrought a significant transformation (Bajpai 2017 ; Chellaney 2014 ; Raja Mohan 2015 ), or represents continuity with a veneer of change (Basrur 2017 ; Chandra 2017 ; Ganguly 2020 ; Hall 2019 ). We address the debate with specific reference to India–Japan relations.…”