Keeping foreign policy hostage to domestic political optics hurts India

The developments of last week are huge setbacks for India’s standing in the world.

Not too long ago, Bharat Karnad, our foremost old school strategic expert who doesn’t hesitate to call a spade a spade, published an outstanding analysis of the Bharatiya Janata Party government’s foreign policy post 2014 entitled,Staggering Forward: Narendra Modi and India’s Global Ambition.

Staggering, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, is walking or moving with great difficulty as if you are going to fall – by no means a happy state for anyone or any country; especially the most populous and self-proclaimed Vishwa Guru; to be in.

But strikingly enough, the title of Karnad’s 2018 book pretty much sums up the state of India’s foreign policy even at this hour, manifested in Pakistan bagging the chair of United Nations Security Council’s anti-terror panels, Ottawa’s eleventh-hour invitation to Modi to the G7 summit making it look like an afterthought as other world leaders got an invite long before our Prime Minister leading to intense speculation that Canada would not invite him -- and last but not the least, United States President Donald Trump giving a clean chit to Pakistan by excluding it from the list of 12 countries whose nationals he has just barred from entering the US.

All these three developments of the last week are huge setbacks for India’s standing in the world. We are not on a good footing – in other words, staggering. We are evidently shaky; noticeably wobbly on the global stage. As things stand now, it’s so very tempting to say that unless we get our act together, we won’t have a leg to stand on. And it’s bloody true!

Pakistan gets subtle American backing

The biggest blow is no doubt Trump’s glowing character certificate to Pakistan by exempting it from the ban on citizens of a dozen nations clamped to “protect Americans from dangerous foreign actors”. Well, the world’s top cop has publicly declared that Pakistanis are good boys who are most welcome in America, effectively sucking all the wind out of the sails of all seven multi-party delegations of Indian Parliamentarians despatched by New Delhi to 33 countries to nail Pakistan as a practitioner-exporter of terrorism.

The moot question is: Who will the world listen to and believe – Trump or our MPs? There is no doubt that Islamabad exports terrorism to India, especially Jammu & Kashmir. The Pahalgam massacre couldn’t have been possible without Islamabad’s help. I would go so far as to say that it was Pakistan’s handiwork. But the Modi government has miserably failed to build a good case internationally because it is far more interested in reaping domestic dividends for electoral and political gains from Pakistan-sponsored terrorism than in combating or exposing it in the court of world public opinion.  And therein lies the rub.

Bitter irony at UNSC’s counter-terrorism panel

How ineffective and inconsequential our propaganda and chest-beating over terrorism emanating from Pakistan is borne out by the UNSC officially crowning Pakistan as the vice-chair of its counter-terrorism panel formed after 9/11, and a working group on the UN sanctions regime besides the chair of the sanctions committee against Taliban. In plain and simple language, it means that the Security Council’s five permanent veto-wielding members – Britain, China, France, Russia and America – and non-permanent members have appointed Pakistan as the world’s terrorism watchdog, brushing aside India’s all-out campaign to project Pakistan as the home of major terrorist networks. In short, it seems that there are no buyers for all our accusations and charges levelled at Pakistan, and the world has, in fact, reposed its faith in Pakistan!

Having won the perception war hands down, Pakistan is now bound to exploit the captaincy and vice-captaincy of these critical counter-terror panels to project India as a sponsor of terrorism, especially in Balochistan. How are we going to tackle that? Instead of devising a strategy to stop Pakistan from gunning for us, our diplomatic-security establishment is crowing how India has run all these panels earlier – and that they lack teeth! This is a rather weird approach, to say the least.

Looming street trouble in Canada

Another ominous development is Modi’s acceptance of Mark Carney’s last-minute invitation to sit on the sidelines of the June 15-17 G7 summit in Alberta. Our PM should have told Carney sorry mate; my diary is full. God alone knows why he didn’t. There are already reports of Modi accepting certain pre-conditions imposed by Canada for his participation. Demonstrations and protests by Sikhs in Canada can potentially turn ugly, especially if Ottawa is half-serious about ensuring Modi’s safety and security after extending the invitation. Sikh groups in the US, Canada and UK are openly pooling their resources to spoil Modi’s trip.

As there is so much bad blood already between the Sikh diaspora and the BJP regime, Modi should have avoided stepping on Canadian soil. But he obviously seems to have calculated that whatever he faces in Canada will consolidate his vote bank in the upcoming Bihar elections – yet another instance of domestic politics dictating and overriding foreign policy.