India's equation with foreign countries in 2014

New Delhi: India's foreign relations appear on a humming, happy front as 2014 draws to a close, with ties with many countries, including the US, China and Russia, on the uptick, especially after the Narendra Modi government kicked off a blitz of active foreign policy engagements since it took over in May.

The year dawned with the looming general elections in April-May, lending an air of uncertainty to everything, including foreign policy, as everyone was unsure of the outcome and predictions were rife of the demise of the decade-long Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government.

The international community was waiting and watching to see what would happen in the world's largest democracy.

The year 2014 began with India-US relations on the ebb, with the bitter hangover of the Devyani Khobragade episode very fresh. The arrest and strip search of the Indian diplomat in New York in late 2013 continued to reverberate in early 2014.

Both sides made serious efforts for a patch-up, with then foreign minister Salman Khurshid breaking ice with US Secretary of State John Kerry and India's new envoy S. Jaishankar moving actively to smoothen the ties. The US also moved quickly to recall then US envoy Nancy Powell, who was perceived to be unfriendly towards the Modi juggernaut that was surely headed towards Delhi.

After Modi was installed at the helm, the outreach with the US started in earnest, culminating in his visit to America, a country that had declared him a pariah over the 2002 Gujarat riots.

Before Modi came to power, India had two important guests - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as chief guest of the Republic Day parade and South Korean President Park Guen-hye, who visited in the second week of January. Abe was the first Japanese prime minister to grace the Republic Day and his visit helped reinforce India-Japan ties that got an even higher trajectory under the Modi government.

The new government launched its foreign policy with a bang - by inviting eight South Asian neighbours, including Pakistan, to the swearing in, a step that was lauded all round. It gave Modi an opportunity to get to know his immediate neighbours and also reassured them of the new government's intentions.

While the Modi government's outreach to neighbours appears to have worked well to assuage the concerns of most, in the case of Pakistan the blow hot, blow cold relations between the two continue, despite the early promising noises in the wake of the Modi-Nawaz Sharif handshake and the shawl-sari and twitter diplomacy.

The relations with Pakistan, in fact, witnessed a major downslide after the continuous border firing incidents and after India called off the foreign secretary-level talks over Islamabad dabbling with Kashmiri separatists.

The horrific Peshawar school terror attack last week helped bring both neighbours together in sharing concerns over terrorism and sympathy over the great loss. A Pakistan court's decision last week to grant bail to 26/11 Mumbai attack mastermind Zaki-ur Rahman Lakhvi came as a shocker, and India will have to wait for three months to know if the Lashhkar-e-Taiba terrorist will get off the hook or Islamabad will heed India's concerns and bring him and other perpetrators of the 26/11 carnage to book.

In the over six months that Modi has been in power, he has met all the Permanent Five members of the United Nations - the US, Russia, China, Britain and France - some more than once, including US President Barack Obama, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The prime minister, who visited Bhutan in his first bilateral outing, has since visited Nepal, Myanmar, Australia, Fiji, the US, Brazil and attended several bilateral and multilateral summits. Among the multilateral summits are: South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in Kathmandu, the G20 in Brisbane, Australia, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the East Asia Summit in Myanmar, and the first India-South Pacific Island nations forum summit in Fiji - all in November, and the BRICS summit with Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa in Fortaleza, Brazil.

He also became the first Indian leader to address the Australian, Nepalese and Fiji parliaments, and his interaction with the diaspora in New York's Madison Square Garden and Sydney Allphones area were rocking events.

While former prime minister Manmohan Singh, an intellectual, brought his own style of learned wisdom to foreign policy that was not overt, but well thought out, towards the end of his decade in power it began to be perceived to be faltering, especially with regard to ties with neighbours. And this was largely due to troubles from coalition allies, like the DMK and the TMC.

In contrast, Modi, whose BJP-led government came to power on the back of an unbeatable three-fourths majority, is perceived by the international community as powerful, someone who means business and has the ability and the numbers to pull through tough policy decisions.

Modi, who is known to have a penchant for good attire, has brought in his own brand of flamboyance and colour to India's foreign policy - his invite to eight South Asian neighbours, his twitter diplomacy and his courting Chinese President Xi Jinping along the banks of the Sabarmati being just some examples.

Modi, who initially started off in Hindi but has since begun addressing diplomatic gatherings in English with the aid of teleprompters, has got the eyes and the ears of the international community with his promise of the ease of doing business in India, his Make in India, Clean India campaign, Skill India and building 100 Smart Cities.

His invite to US President Barack Obama to be chief guest for the Republic Day parade on Jan 26 is being viewed as a diplomatic masterstroke.