PM Modi & India’s new foreign policy

Foreign policy of a nation reflects its core ideology. It’s about how a nation perceives the world around it. It’s also about how it reacts to the periods, events, incidents which occur in the near and far world around it. As ‘change’ is the only constant in the world we live in, the foreign policy of a nation must be equally agile to constantly and consistently calibrate to the challenges of the evolving external environment. However, as the changes in foreign policy implications are huge and have national and international consequences, the shifts have to be vision-led, well thought-out and non-reactionary.

Yes, India’s foreign policy has been under massive transformation in the last two years of the new regime of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Indian foreign policy is evidently shifting from a low profile, invisible, hesitant, meek, passive, inactive, underdog to a high-profile, visible, strong, communicative, networking, accountable, proactive and demanding international enterprise. Union Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj is leading it from the front, with clear policy direction from the Prime Minister.

PM Modi’s initiatives in this critical governance area started right from his swearing-in ceremony, where he invited the entire neighborhood nations for the bonhomie, as the first step towards 360 degree transformation of the Indian foreign policy. Since then, aggressive yet well-envisioned and strategised bold steps of proactive networking, relationship building, demanding, negotiating, lobbying, advocating and even at times coercing initiatives are visibly underway as a part of evolving new foreign policy of India.

The arrival of a new Indian foreign policy is not a low profile affair or a backdoor policy shift; it’s open to the world to see and is loud and clear. PM Modi’s vision of new foreign policy seems to be led by singular macro objective of ‘India First’ and driving India to the greatness, leadership and glory which it deserves amongst the comity of nations in the current world order.

Multitude of policies towards international issues, stands, statutes, concerns, events and nations constitute a comprehensive foreign policy of a nation. The regular transformation process of a macro policy of a nation of this size is painfully time-consuming and quite selective in its choice of shifts. However, the path-breaking current transformation under the leadership of PM Modi is challenging almost all the earlier policy status quo. It seems to be a complete overhaul than being selective. The shift seems to be comprehensive and is being driven in a controlled speed.

The current foreign policy transformation is quite representative of PM Modi’s model of disruptive transformation for positive outcomes. Every aspect of the earlier foreign policy is either under intense scrutiny or is being challenged to evolve better and more efficient macro policy to lead India into the next level of global positioning. Only discerning few can analyse this massive shift. As it looks now, there would be nothing ‘old’ left in the Indian foreign policy to quote from by the end of the first term of PM Modi’s government – such is the quantum of transformation.

While keeping the core ideology of ‘spirit & idea of India intact’ with a vivid display of resilience, patience, fairness, humility, strength and mutual respect, PM Modi is giving the Indian foreign policy an immensely required facelift to reflect the expectations, aspirations and ambitions of the new demographics and psychographics of India and its nationals. This is exactly what the Indian voters expected he does. Bring in the change and move the nation decisively forward. That’s exactly what the Prime Minister is doing, leading this massive change with decisiveness and clear vision.

Congress party which ruled this nation for over six decades has committed unpardonable, unjustifiable, irreparable and grave foreign policy blunders during their successive regimes since 1947. Successive Congress governments have not learnt from earlier mistakes and continued their legacy of misrepresenting India’s interests globally, causing unimaginable loss, pain, agony and disturbance, which still haunts India and its nationals.

Indians, especially thousands of soldiers and many civilians in conflict-prone areas, continue to pay with their lives for the dynastic, unilateral, visionless, patronising and personalised decisions successive Congress governments have taken for decades. Congress governments have failed at legitimising accessions, leveraging military wins, delayed critical decisions, lost out on great opportunities and plundered international good will in six decades of their misgovernance.

India’s geographic integrity, national sovereignty and international borders have been compromised with immature, selfish, self-perpetuating politics of Congress party. There’s nothing in the former foreign policy which requires continuity, constancy and adherence as there’s literally nothing in the Congress government’s foreign policy which either resulted in or will result in future glory and greatness for India.

Complete overhaul of the Indian foreign policy is underway and a vibrant foreign policy is in the making, for the world to experience a robust, young and a glorious nation under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and MEA Sushma Swaraj. Indian foreign policy in its transformed form will historically be identified and recognised as ‘Pre-Modi Sarkar & Post-Modi Sarkar.’ This transformation is an international milestone for India, in the timeline of the current and the future world order. (Writer is a BJP Spokesperson, an organisational strategist and an author)

By Krishna Saagar Rao