With the Rs 4,500 crore Boeing ‘India One’ at his command, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has so far made 81 foreign trips since his inauguration in May 2014. He has visited 70 countries, including 9 visits to the United States to attend the United Nations General Assembly or to address the joint houses of Congress, 5 to China, and three to the United Kingdom.
This, arguably makes him the most travelled prime minister in India’s history, far more than the first one, Jawaharlal Nehru, and even more than Indira Gandhi who, however, still holds the record of welcoming more heads of stage and governments twice to India, at a general assembly of the Non Aligned Nations, and the second of the Commonwealth Heads of State and Government, CHOGM.
There are more independent countries now than there were in Nehru’s time, or even in Indira Gandhi’s tenure. It needs to be remembered that Indira Gandhi died in 1984, a full 40 years ago. Though several things remain the same, but this is an entirely new world we live in.
Wars remain, but the Cold War is over. The Soviet Union is dead, and its two main components, Russia and Ukraine are at war with each other.
China is perhaps the only one remains the same, every other country ill at ease with it for different reasons. Its friendship with Russia, the inheritor of the Soviet mantle, is forged in difficulties – a pressure which remains too for both globally. And this is a new China under the 71-year-old supremo Xi Jinping, President of the country, general secretary of the Communist party wince 2013, and head of the Central Military Commission.
Under Xi, China is richer, militarily stronger, and spread its influence far and wide, with pearl necklace of ports, bass and trading offices from southeast Asia to Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Africa.
Modi has embraced all these leaders, and does indeed know them personally, remembering their names with the help of his high-powered office. He must have felt good every time he embraced an American president, its first Black leader Barack Obama, his successor Donald Trump, and now the retiring Joe Biden.
Modi was once denied a visa for the bloodshed in his Gujarat state in 2002, but now is a favoured visitor, always bringing warm greetings and better business opportunity for the military industrial combine. His latest coup is buying state of the art long range Drones, which can deliver warheads with the same felicity that it can gather intelligence, and which perhaps even China and Pakistan don’t have for now.
So why is Modi not his own foreign minister, or minister for external affairs as we more correctly call this post? Or, second best, why does he not have a mature professional politician at this critical time as he had in his first term when Sushma Swaraj so capably became the second face of India to the world.
The best prime ministers of the past were their own foreign ministers. Nehru never let go of the ministry till death, uncharitable as it may sound. He knew the West better than most, apart from Gandhi, who too like him had studied in London.
Nehru had his plate full in India, specially keeping the nation peaceful after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi at the hands of Nathuram Godse. With Sardar Patel handling the home ministry, Nehru gave his undivided attention building infrastructure in steel and power, irrigation and transport, and above all, in education where the Indian Institute of Technology, and their counterparts IIMs for management and AIIMS for medical sciences.
He had to build relations with the world as a free nation, not a dominion of colonial Britain. In a post war world of rivalries for power and spheres of influence, he had to weave a path that helped India, but did not make enemies out of anyone. The non- aligned movement.
And, importantly, he had to build the administrative infrastructure, converting the Imperial ICS into an Indian administrative Service and a brand-new foreign service. Nehru handpicked the first foreign service officers, one of whom, Narayanan, became President eventually, and another, Natwar Singh, the first diplomat to become minister for external affairs.
Natwar Singh, however, had a long apprenticeship in poetics after leaving the foreign service, serving as minister of state and an aggravate political leader of the Jats, before being given full powers as minister by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Even Mani Shankar Aiyar had a political internship before becoming a full-fledged minister.
This political apprenticeship Jaishankar, the current incumbent, did not have. He retired from the Indian Foreign Service as its administrative head and Foreign Secretary. He joined the National Security establishment guided by Modi’s handpicked officer, Ajit Doval is the National Security Advisor to the Government. With Jaishankar now in the cabinet for five years, he shares the cabinet minister rank with Doval.
This is not to depreciate Jaishankar’s ability, or to underestimate his immense experience and talent. He is the son of one of India’s most formidable expert on security policy, the late IAS officer K Subrahmanyam. He was a member of the first batch of students in Jawaharlal University’s famed School of International Studies.
But these are very fraught times. Modi has vested Canada but once, and currently Canada is the hottest potato on Modi’s plate. The allegations Canada has made against India, allegations which the United States has in a way seconded, requires a sureness of touch that comes with political maturity, advised, of course by experts in international law. This comes closer to being called political cussedness and getting out of a corner to flummox the other chap who wants to win votes of ethnic minorities in his domestic election.
China too cannot be left without the prime ministerial hand on the steering wheel. We have beaten China fair and square to the second place in population. China was the most heavily populated nation in the world for a century till last year with India a close second. No longer. India is by far the most populous nation, an everything that goes with those numbers, for good or for bad.
But China remains far ahead in economy, in science and technology, and in infrastructure. Some of these thins help it in its military stand-off with India, including roads close to the borders all the way from Ladakh and through Nepal to Arunachal Pradesh.
Maintaining peace at Galwan and other high points along the very long border with China is very important. A military confrontation escalating into a conflagration will not help India. But will joining the US, Japan and Australia in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, QUAD, be of help either, when India’s national political, military and economic interests of the other three are not the same as of India.
India cannot afford to be seen as not always being in full grip of the situation. Some would say Modi must do a Nehru – be his own Minister for External Affairs.
(John Dayal is an author, Editor, occasional documentary film maker and activist)