BackIndia still punches below its weight in global affairs, says Brahma Chellaney
In a fundamental sense, India today pursues a non-doctrinaire foreign policy approach and seeks to preserve strategic autonomy. It has moved from non-alignment to multi-alignment, but India largely remains a reactive state and punches below its weight internationally
PremiumNEW DELHI: India, despite accounting for a sixth of the world’s population, continues to punch below its weight in foreign affairs, according to veteran analyst Brahma Chellaney. In an interview to Mint, Chellaney cited India’s passive foreign policy as a major reason for this under-performance.
Chellaney also said that New Delhi was mishandling China by allowing bilateral trade deficits to expand and not taking a stronger stance on territorial issues. He surmised that over the next decade, India’s foreign policy will have to grapple with three key challenges: a troubled neighbourhood, the Sino-Pakistan nexus, and China’s revisionism in the Himalayas.
Edited excerpts:
What is your assessment of the state of play in Indian foreign policy? Are we better off now than we were in 2014?
Even before Modi took office in 2014, India’s fast growing economy and rising geopolitical weight had significantly increased the country’s international profile. India was widely perceived to be a key swing state. Modi’s coming to power has changed India’s foreign strategy just as it has changed domestic politics. The prime minister has animated Indian foreign policy by departing from conventional methods and old shibboleths. The trademarks of his foreign policy extend from pragmatism to zeal and showmanship. His record showed that he’s a realist who loves to play on the grand chessboard of geopolitics. His personal rapport with international leaders, including with some Arab monarchs, have helped to further enhance India’s international profile.
In a fundamental sense, India today pursues a non-doctrinaire foreign policy approach and seeks to preserve our strategic autonomy. We have moved from non-alignment, which is generally more passive, to multi-alignment, which is a more active policy. However, India largely remains a reactive state and punches below its weight internationally.
Why, in your view, does India tend to punch below its weight?
This is largely because we do not pursue an active policy. Ad-hocism tends to hold sway in foreign and defence policy. When you have a political leadership that largely learns on the job, you are not able to develop long term plans. That has been India’s weakness. When a new government takes office, it seeks to reinvent the wheel rather than learning lessons from the past. This undermines the pursuit of long term interests.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office, he sought to befriend China and Pakistan. The first major foreign leader he invited to India was Xi Jinping and also made a surprise visit to Pakistan. He was ignoring lessons previous governments had learnt and was seeking to build a relationship based on hope. This demonstrated the kind of ad-hocism that has weighed down Indian foreign policy since Nehru.
China is now seen as the defining challenge for Indian foreign policy. You have been a strident critic of New Delhi’s handling of China. Are we getting China wrong? If so, what do we need to do to get it right?
India’s goal has been to build peaceful co-existence with China but Beijing has continued to challenge Indian security since 1949. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has always believed that results will only be achieved from a position of power. This explains China’s invasion of India in 1962 after it took over Tibet. Sadly, Indian leaders fail to learn from history. We have repeatedly cried betrayal when it comes to Beijing. In 1962, Nehru declared that China had returned “evil for good". The latest leader to be betrayed was Modi, who sought to befriend Xi Jinping and met him 18 times.
We need to correct ongoing mistakes. Indian policy over the decades has aided China’s territorial aggrandisement including its policies of incremental annexation. For example, while China claims Arunachal Pradesh as “South Tibet", India has long maintained that Tibet is an integral part of the People’s Republic of China. We need to make our stance on Tibet more nuanced.
New Delhi has also allowed China’s bilateral trade surplus to rise so rapidly that it is now bigger than India’s defence budget. In effect, India is underwriting China’s ongoing aggression.
Instead of initiating a gradual process of decoupling, India is doing the opposite and allowing China to have its cake and eat it too. Dependency in trade is the first law of domination over others. We must counter this and begin by targeting non-essential imports from China and implementing a strategy of trade diversification.
You recently wrote that the US-India partnership was too important to lose. What makes it so important and is there a serious chance of losing it?
The strategic partnership is pivotal to the power equilibrium in the Indo-Pacific. With the US policy compelling Russia to pivot to China, Washington’s relationship to India has become more critical to America in the region. Booming exports to India also reinforce a bi-partisan consensus in Washington for a closer partnership with New Delhi. Both sides are also looking to improve military interoperability. We hold more exercises with the US than any other country.
The danger is that this partnership between two of the world’s most powerful democracies will begin to cool. US President Joe Biden’s surrender of Afghanistan to the Taliban and the Russian invasion of Ukraine are creating some discord. On the latter, India has charted an independent course on the war, like many other players like Israel and Turkey. However, because India is the world’s largest democracy, its neutrality undermines the American narrative that the Ukraine war symbolises a battle between democracy and autocracy. These new irritants must be addressed.
The international environment has worsened considerably in recent years with US-China competition and the war in Ukraine. What challenges will that throw up for Indian foreign policy?
The world today is at crossroads. UN Secretary General has warned of “colossal global disfunction". Despite globalisation, the world is more divided globally and a new Cold War seems to be beginning. The present international crisis will burden the Indian economy. This is already evident given the impact of energy and food price rises on India’s import bill.
India doesn’t want to take sides in the next Cold War. India wants to play the role of a bridge between rival blocs. However, there is the danger that if India plays its cards wrong, it could get squeezed by both blocs. So far, India has played its cards well.
What, in your view, are three outstanding challenges for Indian foreign policy that must be addressed in the next decade?
One big challenge centres around India’s troubled neighbourhood. This region is so chronically troubled that the country confronts what can be called a “tyranny of geography". India faces serious external threats from all directions. China has made growing inroads into India’s near abroad.
First and foremost, New Delhi will need to arrest its declining clout in its own backyard. A second challenge is the strengthening nexus between China and Pakistan. Both of these powers have staked claim to substantial swathes of Indian territory and continue to collaborate on weapons of mass destruction. The third challenge will be China’s aggressive territorial revisionism. The present Himalayan crisis and the frenzied build-up of military infrastructure along the India-China border could turn this into a hot border. China is a common factor in the three big challenges India is facing.
Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!
