WHEN most European countries and Volodymyr Zelensky were praying together with American neocons for the collapse of Vladimir Putin’s Alaska summit with Donald Trump, India was vocal in hoping for its success. The Indian idea was laudable, only the argument was a tad self-regarding. If the talks ended on a positive note, assorted Indian analysts reasoned, the impugned oil trade with Russia would no longer draw Trump’s ire. Putin would have saved the day for New Delhi.
On a wing and a prayer, the Modi foreign policy has bodily lifted its model from international sports contests where the ousted team pulls out its pocket calculators to desperately speculate its chance of returning to the contest should some other team beat another team. China is also affected by Trump’s frowning on its Russian oil imports. But the Communist Party-backed Global Times headline seemed in no tearing hurry to eye Beijing-centred success or failure in the otherwise important US-Russia talks. All the paper said was: “Trump and Putin addressed a joint press conference.”
And that is more or less what we know did happen. Much else is speculative. It is evident, Prime Minister Modi’s foreign policy prefers to ride piggyback on future outcomes over which it exerts no control. This is not how it used to be. A vital difference has emerged between then and now.
Indira Gandhi took Soviet help to bridge military and economic gaps. Yet she censured Moscow when the ally invaded Afghanistan. Nehru had the best of relations with Britain and even made India a member of the Commonwealth for which he was criticised roundly by his leftist supporters. Majrooh Sultanpuri found himself writing some memorable songs for the blockbuster movie Andaz from prison where he was sent for penning an acerbic poem against Nehru’s Commonwealth membership. But even as a member of the Commonwealth Nehru stoked the anti-colonial fervour in Asia and Africa, which won him lifelong friendships in the Global South.
Why is it so difficult to instil a simple, inexpensive idea for diplomacy?
Nehru supported the rise of China as a major post-colonial power but was misled by a combination of historians and cartographers into laying claim on tracts of Tibet that China had refused to accept during British rule. Nehru paid the price for his decision, until his grandson travelled to shake hands with Deng Xiaoping in a memorable move in 1988. Even Atal Bihari Vajpayee decided for better or worse to accept the heavy cost of declaring India a nuclear power even though he slipped up by explaining to Bill Clinton that the bomb was aimed at China. Everyone did what they deemed good for the country, which can’t be said of Narendra Modi. He has been doing whatever he could to appease the US until Trump poured cold water on the enthusiasm.
And yes, Indira Gandhi waged a decisive war on Pakistan but bore no ill will towards its people. She had a landmark meeting with Z.A. Bhutto in Shimla. Likewise, Rajiv Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto had a widely cheered rendezvous in Pakistan. Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh came close to resolving the Kashmir issue and, importantly, they did so with the help and support of their people, not of a foreign prompter. That’s what is missing in the pocket calculator diplomacy today, the engagement of the people on both sides of the equation, be it with Pakistan, or Bangladesh or Sri Lanka. India’s military has a problem with Pakistan’s military. But it’s Pakistan’s people that are known to have shown the door to many dictators, military or civilian. Modi has sidelined people on both sides. Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s daughters were denied visas for the first time in India’s history. Now, Modi has announced an iron dome-like project to protect the country from enemy attacks. Many see it as a wasteful idea given the hammering a heavily guarded Israel took from Iran recently.
Why is it so difficult to instil a simple, inexpensive idea for diplomacy? Why not let the masses — as opposed to state-backed mobs — take the initiative to build inevitable excellent ties, and see the menace called terrorism vanish in a jiffy?
Many current foreign policy preferences are, of course, rooted in Modi’s ideological pursuit of Hindutva. Or more accurately, it’s about marrying big business with Hindutva and passing it off as national interest. Of course, other than pervasive corruption, this has led to little else, as can be gleaned from the criminal cases in the US involving a major tycoon.
Bureaucracies, too, play a role in the wrack and ruin of India’s fair name. Inured to the social costs that state policies incur, they formulate or conjure ‘national interest’ from personal expediencies or biases, which currently seem to be heavily tilted towards the West. Much has been said about Modi’s Mittyesque media, which cut a sorry figure in the recent military engagement with Pakistan. But what does one make of respected current and former diplomats? One such served in Islamabad as high commissioner. In his view, in the absence of a decisive military victory, India should periodically “mow the grass” in Pakistan, a phrase used by Israel for periodically raiding Gaza and killing Palestinians before the events of October 2023. Mow the grass in nuclear Pakistan?
India has experienced many economic woes, mostly caused by oil price fluctuations. When the prices went through the roof in 1990, and the USSR had all but disappeared, the country pawned gold reserves to stave off defaulting. People accepted it. V.P. Singh was prime minister when the oil crisis began. He announced rationing on petrol. People understood. There were regulations about using cars. People took it in their stride. Something has changed today. It’s more about guarding the interests of this or that business house refining Russian oil to ship it off to Europe. From the dominant Indian perspective, the Alaska summit was about Russian oil, sadly, not about saving the world from nuclear annihilation.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
jawednaqvi@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2025