PPrime Minister Narendra Modi will return to Delhi on Wednesday after being abroad for almost a week. Hiroshima, port moresby And SydneyDuring this he met some of the world’s most powerful leaders as well as people from its smallest countries.
But what has been remarkable during this visit is the aggressive adoration of many of these heads of state and governments towards Modi – as if they have come to the conclusion that in the changing world order, he and India deserve much more than his grudging respect. Are .
Why does the West want to know Modi?
Let’s examine my hypothesis closely. First of all, all these leaders know that the PM’s party, the BJP has just lost the Karnataka elections and hence has been wiped out from a large part of India, the South. Moreover, almost half of the country is ruled by a variety of regional parties, not the BJP. Under normal circumstances, many of these liberal democracies – especially the US, which is run by a Democrat president – would be wary of Hug Indian PM,
But clearly, these are not normal circumstances. The world knows that Modi’s extraordinary charisma and leadership may not have been able to strike a balance in Karnataka, but the BJP will surely dry up in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. So if the world’s largest country in terms of population is again being led by the same person, they might as well know him better.
Second, there is more than grudging praise from many nations that Modi has not shied away from the game. America demands that sanctions be imposed on Russia In the wake of its Ukraine invasion. Modi has protested In protest against repeated requests from the US to stop buying Russian oil – and strongly rejected by the EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell’s allegation That India is bypassing Russia’s sanctions.
Modi’s ability to buck US pressure and the moral necessity not to praise Russian President Vladimir Putin has been extraordinary last year given New Delhi’s energy dependence on Moscow. India has become one of the world not only along with China largest buyer of Russian oil for domestic consumption, but Indian refineries also re-export it Converted crude oil to energy-greedy Europe.
Surely Modi’s inner circle would have given him all kinds of analysis. Go with America; Not only is it a like-minded democracy, but it also provides a viable alternative to putting all your eggs (defense equipment as well as energy) in the Russian basket. Or, conversation. stay with the russians They have been firm friends in the past, since 1971 in fact.
Modi seems to have heeded both the pieces of advice. so he met with the president of ukraine volodomir zelensky in Hiroshima and carefully chose his words when talking to him. “India does not approve of war,” Modi originally told Zelensky, but never added that India is upset with Moscow and Putin for starting this completely unnecessary conflict.
Modi went from Hiroshima to Australia (via Port Moresby, of course), a fellow Quad nation. Australians, treaty allies of the US – which means that the US is bound to aid and protect Australia if they are in distress – means that when the US starts sneezing, Australia reaches for a hot water bottle and Crocin because it’s bound to catch a severe cold. In a lesser joke, this means that Australia will conform to US policy, be it on Russia or nuclear weapons or markets or China, once its biggest trading partner.
This brings me to my third point. China. Australian PM Anthony Albanese and US President Joe Biden went out of their way to praise Modi. So many people are sending invitations to the state dinner I am hosting for you.I want your autographBiden told Modi, while Albanian Something similar was said about how 20,000 people were trying to get into the stadium in Sydney where Modi was being welcomed – because a large part of the attraction has to do with China.
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Anti-China sentiment helps India’s case
If there’s one thing that unites all the Quad nations, it’s the massive communist power, also the world’s second largest economy, right on the heels of the world’s largest economy. Surely nothing concentrates the mind better than this. This anti-China sentiment has mixed with New Delhi’s anger about the India-China military standoff at the Line of Actual Control, which is on its third anniversary and shows no signs of abating.
The US and, indeed, all the Quad nations, realize that they need India if they want to contain China. India shares a long Himalayan border with China and has been able Withhold 50,000 Chinese soldiers with 50,000 Chinese soldiers, despite losing 20 soldiers in the 2020 skirmish in the high Himalayan Galwan Valley and accepting the buffer zone on their side of the LAC.
The fact is that even as its colossal power begins to slip, the US still has the ability to identify with two major geopolitical enemies, Russia and China. However, keeping it afloat requires friends and like-minded allies. according to the famous American analyst Ashley Tellis, India will never completely side with the US because China is too close and does not want to offend Beijing too much – but it is clear that it cannot be business as usual between New Delhi and Beijing until that the latter does not revert to the status quo ante.
And then there’s the market, fool. While India is not really part of the China value chain, Apple’s big India move It is part of the US strategy to diversify away from China, even if it takes a few years to do so. India’s huge market and young population provide a great, if possible, alternative to the Chinese market.
For all these reasons, this week the attraction of the aggressive western world towards Modi is clearly visible. It is also an acknowledgment 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 underpin India’s unique choice is a domestic political agreement on foreign policy – unfortunately, it appears to be completely broken. Imagine if the ruling party and the opposition could come together and walk the middle path that Modi has successfully charted – as Manmohan Singh, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, PV Narasimha Rao, and all others did before him – then India His reputation will shine even more.
Jyoti Malhotra is Senior Consulting Editor at ThePrint. She tweets @jomalhotra. Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)