INDIA IN THE NEW NUCLEAR AGE

America’s withdrawal from one of the most important arms control treaties of our time is the result of a changing nuclear landscape that challenges policymakers in New Delhi as well.

US president Donald Trump’s announcement to withdraw from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia may have received scant attention in India, but in the West, it has already fueled concerns about a third world war involving nuclear weapons. This may seem alarmist but the fact is that Washington’s decision to walk away from one of its most significant arms control agreements with Moscow has important implications for global security--which India cannot ignore, especially as it deals with a changing nuclear landscape in its own backyard.

Signed during the Cold War, the 1987 INF treaty prohibited the US and the former Soviet Union from developing and deploying ground-based intermediate range ballistic and cruise missiles. However, the treaty did not cover sea-based and air-launched missiles and was only applicable to the US and Russia. This wasn’t a problem at the time, and the treaty was in effective in bringing the two superpowers back from the brink of nuclear war.

Three decades later, however, the situation has changed--with China, North Korea, Pakistan and India all having intermediate-range land missiles. For the US, China’s arsenal is as much a matter of concern as that of Russia who it has accused of cheating on the treaty. US officials including national security adviser John Bolton argue that China’s arsenal poses a threat to US assets and allies in the region--and needs to be brought under an INF-like treaty. China, of course, has little reason to join such a treaty--and, for that matter, so does India.

But that being said, China’s growing presence in the Indo-Pacific is a matter of concern for India, which also finds reflection in Pakistan’s threat perceptions; thereby, creating a new set of concerns and conditions that could destabilise the region. Indeed, this problem is already taking shape as Pakistan follows India’s quest for sea-based nuclear deterrence.

Earlier this year, Pakistan conducted a second round of tests for the Babur-3 nuclear-capable submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM), following the first one in January 2017. It is expected that the Babur-3 will be mated with the Agosta 90B diesel-electric submarine. This should give Pakistan an assured second-strike capability--while land-based and air-borne systems can be destroyed in a first attack, nuclear submarines are considered to be much less vulnerable.   

India already has a small sea-based deterrent force. In April 2016, the K-4 nuclear-capable submarine-launched ballistic missile was successfully test-fired from aboard the INS Arihant, India’s indigenously built nuclear submarine, which was inducted into service in August that year; thereby, completing India’s nuclear triad. This was in keeping with India’s nuclear doctrine which enumerates a no-first-use policy but also makes clear that a nuclear attack on India will result in massive retaliation with nuclear weapons. For India, to secure such second strike capability, survivability of its nuclear weapons arsenal is key and hence the need for a sea-based force.

In other words, India’s naval nuclearisation--aimed at China, not Pakistan--buttresses New Delhi’s NFU policy and brings strategic stability. Pakistan’s naval nuclearisation, on the other hand, stems from its lack of trust in Indian NFU and is an effort to play catch-up. This is understandable but still destabilizing--both from a strategic as well as tactical point of view.

This may seem counterintuitive: if having nuclear weapons at sea enhances the survivability of Pakistan’s strategic forces, then that should add to strategic stability because Pakistan would have less of a use-it-or-lose-it dilemma. However, unlike India, Pakistan maintains an ambiguous nuclear policy for the use of nuclear weapons. This is meant to deter India, but it also implies that India would have to consider and prepare for a Pakistani first attack.

Almost every scenario involving a Pakistani first use begins with a Pakistan-sponsored spectacular terror attack on Indian soil like the 2001 Parliament attack or the 2008 Mumbai attacks. India sought to respond to the former with a show of force along the international border but Pakistan wasn’t perturbed. This led Indian strategists to propose a more pro-active response--a shallow-thrust offensive into Pakistan to seize a small piece of land to be used as a post-conflict bargaining chip. This strategy, known as Cold Start, isn’t official but it was acknowledged by the Army chief last year and the 2017 Indian military doctrine allows ample space for a similar proactive policy.

Pakistan responded to Cold Start by fielding tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) or low-yield short-range nukes which could be used on the battlefield. These seek to lower the nuclear threshold and allow Islamabad greater control of the escalatory ladder (which, otherwise, is in favour of the conventionally bigger power). Moreover, Pakistan justified its TNWs within the framework of full spectrum deterrence, moving away from credible minimum deterrence. Add to this the nukes at sea, and the intended effect, as Abhijnan Rej describes it, is to tie India’s hands in a nuclear bind: If India activates Cold Start, Pakistan can use its TNWs to repel the attack, while its nuclear-tipped missiles at sea would deter an Indian retaliatory attack.

On paper, this seems like a water-tight strategy but it isn’t. For one, TNWs only make the situation even more precarious, as Sylvia Mishra explains. And even with TNWs in the field, there is still strategic space for India to explore pro-active conventional military options against Pakistan as the 2016 ‘surgical strikes’ showed. Second, with regard to nuclear submarines, there is ample reason to doubt their survivability, as Ankit Panda and Vipin Narang point out.

Third, putting nuclear weapons on conventional vessels is extremely dangerous for any country and could lead to accidents at sea--for example, if its adversaries are unable to distinguish between conventional and non-conventional submarines or if there is a break in the command-and-control system. At some point, Pakistan will have to choose between submarine-based weapons that are ‘totally secure’ or ‘readily usable’ in a real crisis, and Christopher Clary and Ankit Panda suggest that it will in all probability go with the latter--making both the country and its nuclear weapons less safe.

But Pakistan isn’t the only state moving in the direction of ‘easy nukes’. In recent years, Russia has been toying with the idea of using TNWs in a conventional war in a “escalate-to-deescalate” strategy . And the US has responded, in  the 2018 US Nuclear Posture Review, by advocating for “useable” nuclear weapons and full spectrum deterrence. These pose a challenge to policymakers across the world as they seek to manage old hostilities while responding to new developments in technology and geo-politics.

HOW ISRAEL MADE FRIENDS IN INDIA

Israel’s bottom-up diplomacy has paid off.

The recent award of a $777-million contract to Israel Aerospace Industries for the supply of air and missile defense systems to the Indian Navy has re-emphasized how India-Israel relations have evolved in the last two and a half decades. From outright hostility at the time of independence seven decades ago to a strategic partnership today, the bilateral has come a long way.

That this has been possible in part because of robust defense cooperation between New Delhi and Jerusalem is well-know but what is less acknowledged is the importance of cooperation with Indian States, in fields such as agriculture and water-management. So while the IAI deal made international headlines, the Israel tour of the chief minister of one of India’s most prosperous States, Punjab, went under the radar. During his five-day visit from October 21-25, Capt. Amarinder Singh toured the NaanDanJain agricultural facility, the Dan Region wastewater treatment plant, the Afikim dairy farm, and met with President Reuven Rivlin. Earlier in the year, his counterparts from the States of Gujarat and Haryana also visited Israel, and agriculture featured prominently on both their agendas. 

This decentralized strategy of partnering with different political and private players including State governments, through cooperation in agriculture and allied fields, has long been an integral part of Israeli diplomacy in India – especially in the early years when Jerusalem had few friends in New Delhi.

For example, in 1949, Israel favorably considered India’s request for assistance in agriculture even as India refused to recognize the Jewish State and opposed its UN membership. Israel’s Histadrut maintained ties with India’s labor leaders, many of whom visited the Jewish State. In 1960, two large Indian delegations – one comprising land reforms activists from the Bhoodan movement, and another comprising young farmers – visited Israel. In 1970, India’s leading agriculturist Appasaheb Pawar lived in Israel for months, studying new agro-tech. His brother, Sharad Pawar – who would later serve three terms as Maharashtra chief minister and two as Union Minister – also played an important role in building agri-ties between the two countries.

This decentralized approach to diplomacy continued even after India and Israel established diplomatic ties in 1992. A significant development in itself, it, however, did not translate into policy shifts on the ground. Delhi issued a curt official statement and kept the new bilateral on a low profile. Left-wing parties opposed diplomatic ties and argued that India should have waited till Palestinian statehood had been achieved.

However, the normalization of India-Israel ties coincided with the liberalization of the Indian economy – and States were now empowered to work with foreign governments to bring in economic investment. Israeli diplomats seized the opportunity. Often ignored in the power corridors of Delhi, they sought to build durable partnerships in state capitals.

A slew of chief ministerial visits to Israel, from across party lines, followed--starting with Gujarat’s Chimanbhai Patel (Congress) in 1992, then Maharashtra’s Sharad Pawar (Nationalist Congress Party), who led an 800-member strong delegation to the agritech conference in 1993, then Rajasthan’s Bhairon Singh Shekhawat (Bharatiya Janata Party) in 1994, and Karnataka’s Deve Gowda (Janata Dal-Secular) in 1995.

In 1996, Deve Gowda became Prime Minister and, within six months, hosted President Ezer Weizman in Delhi – even though his own party had opposed normalization. Gowda and Weizman signed four agreements, including one to set up a model farm at India’s premier agriculture research institute near Delhi. By this time, Israeli firms had also begun to build a profile in India – Tahal was working on water management in Gujarat and Rajasthan while Netafim had a joint venture with an Indian firm that it had been doing business with even before 1992. Both Israeli companies now have a pan-India presence.

The bilateral grew stronger with the pro-Israel BJP coming to the helm in Delhi in 1998. In 2000, West Bengal’s Jyoti Basu, a Communist party veteran, broke taboo and visited Israel with a large business delegation. This was a big win but it was derailed by the Second Intifada. Still, Prime Minister AB Vajpayee hosted Ariel Sharon in 2003, indicating a qualitative improvement in bilateral ties.

This was again taken down a notch when the Congress party returned to power in 2004 and rolled back public engagement. However, bilateral trade in general and cooperation in agriculture in particular continued to grow. In 2007, Israel’s NaanDan joined with India’s Jain Irrigation Systems to form NaanDanJain which now provides irrigation solutions across 100 countries. In 2008, the flagship Indo-Israel Agriculture Project was established. Jointly implemented by the India’s horticulture mission and Israel’s MASHAV, it now has more than 15 agricultural centers across nine Indians states.

When the BJP returned to power in 2014, the pro-Israel Prime Minister Narendra Modi was able to build on decades of quiet but effective diplomacy that had already delivered tangible benefits. Modi himself was chief minister of Gujarat for 14 years, during which time his state developed a close partnership with Israel. When he became Prime Minister, few other diplomats had the kind of access to him as the Israeli Ambassador in New Delhi.

Israel’s bottom-up diplomacy has paid off. By focusing on agriculture and water management, instead of, say, lobbying to change India’s foreign policy perspectives, Israel had shifted the core of its India’s policy from a politically-charged single issue (the Palestinian cause) to a much wider non-political grassroots platform. This is not to suggest that cooperation in other areas, particularly defense, was not important – it was and is. But defense cooperation is also inherently susceptible to secrecy and negative opinion, which can be challenging for public diplomacy. In contrast, agricultural cooperation at the state level, allowed Israel to accrue the goodwill of the people, make friends across the ideological spectrum, and shield the bilateral from political upheavals.

(This article was published in the Jerusalem Post on September 30, 2018)

2017 IN REVIEW: INDIA

From enhancing capabilities for connectivity and security in the region to staring down the neighborhood bully to clearing out outdated ideological policy formulations, 2017 saw India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi take on a more self-assured and assertive approach–at home and abroad. And there is reason enough to expect that this trend will continue into 2018 as the ruling party continues to consolidate power in the run up to the 2019 general elections.

Doklam Standoff

When considering the events of this past year, the Doklam crisis emerges at the top of the list. The 73-day military standoff pitted India against China, and sparked fears that the world’s two most populous, nuclear-armed neighbors were on the brink of war. The border dispute between the two has quietly festered for many decades, but aggressive border intrusions in recent years have threatened that trend of peace. It is unclear if these intrusions will compel both parties to resolve the dispute sooner rather than later, but for now it adds to a growing list of irritants in their relationship.

Though the standoff was resolved through diplomacy this time, there is ample reason to worry that such conflagrations may disrupt regional stability. In fact, on December 1, the Chinese military hinted that it will not withdraw its troops from the Doklam region as is customary during the harsh winter months, but instead maintain a sizeable presence. Currently, India enjoys a tactical military advantage—its Doka La post oversees the area of the actual standoff. However, with China beefing up its own presence in the region—which borders the vital sliver of land that connects India’s northeastern states with the rest of the country—New Delhi cannot afford to be complacent.

The crisis will, of course, impact the ongoing border negotiations between India and China, but it also tests India’s abilities as a regional security provider. Technically, Doklam is disputed between Bhutan and China, and India intervened to protect Bhutanese sovereignty. For now, whether India can or will be a counter-balance to China is an open question, but in this context, recent efforts to revive the decade-old idea of a security allianceamong India, Japan, Australia, and the United States to bring stability to the Indo-Pacific region is of significant interest.

India and the Quad

The first official-level discussion on the Quad since 2007 took place in November, on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) and East Asia summits in Manila, and though the grouping is still in an embryonic stage, it is worth noting that the Malabar naval exercisebetween India, the United States and Japan is growing bigger and more complex with every passing year. Of course, India has sought to make clear that the grouping isn’t directed at any one country but Delhi’s participation in the Quad meeting does indicate a more confident and assertive foreign policy vision–and a willingness to work more closely with friends—both old (Japan) and new (the United States, Australia). Notably, this also ties in nicely with the United States’ Asia policy under Trump, which envisages a wider role for India in the Indo-Pacific as well as in South Asia. Herein, the inauguration of two new India-Afghanistan trade routes that bypass Pakistan indicate how the many pieces of the geopolitical puzzle fit together.  

India-Israel Ties

India’s assertive and confident foreign policy approach was also evident in Modi’s trip to Israel in July, the first-ever official visit to the Jewish state by an Indian prime minister. Though relations between India and Israel have grown significantly since the two countries established diplomatic ties in 1992, a pre-Modi India was reluctant to acknowledge the full potential and scope of the partnership, fearing that this would upset Arab states. Since 2014, the Modi government, however, has sought to dismiss these outdated policy formulations: de-hyphenating India’s Israel and Arab state policies, and leveraging the India-Israel bilateral for all that it has to offer—in sectors as diverse as defense, agriculture, and water technology.

Developments in Kashmir

In Kashmir, the state’s reinvigorated anti-militancy campaign, “Operation All Out,” has eliminated nearly 200 militants as of November 19. The Army has said that there will be no let up in its efforts during the winter season, so this is an ongoing operation and, therefore, it’s too early to assess its impact at the political level. For example, in October, the central government appointed former Intelligence Bureau (IB) director Dineshwar Sharma as India’s interlocutor to Jammu and Kashmir, but he hasn’t fared any better than his predecessors as of yet.

However, on the ground, it seems that the government has been able to turn things around after the unrest in mid-2016 that continued well into 2017 following the killing of militant leader Burhan Wani. The turning point came with the Lashkar-e-Taiba terror attack on Hindu pilgrims in south Kashmir—the only major attack on civilians in the country in 2017 but the deadliest targeting Amarnath yatris since 2000. The July attack galvanized “Operation All Out” and has since sought to hollow out the ranks of the anti-militancy operation. Expectedly, there have been reprisal attacks on police and military positions, but for now, it is the government that seems to have the upper hand.

Economic Reforms

Another example of assertive policymaking this year has been the rollout of the Goods and Services Tax. This is the single largest tax reform in the country since independence. It unifies India’s two-trillion-dollar economy and effectively converts it into a single market. Also a big win for cooperative federalism, this tax reform has been in the works for about two decades but is still riddled with flaws and loopholes. This was perhaps only to be expected, nevertheless, it will be interesting to see if the Modi administration continues with its reform agenda–especially as it enters the last phase of its five-year tenure, and all political parties prepare to go into election mode next year.

State Elections and the BJP

In this context, the state elections of 2017–which arguably serve as a sort of mid-term assessment of the ruling party–provide some valuable inputs. Five states went to the polls in the first half of the year–Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa, and Manipur. While the Congress managed a rare victory in Punjab, the BJP won Uttar Pradesh and managed to form a government in all the other states as well. The BJP also achieved two electoral triumphs in Himachal Pradesh, a Congress-BJP battleground state, and Gujarat, a BJP stronghold, in December. During the year, the Indian Electoral College voted BJP leaders Ramnath Kovind and Venkaiah Naidu as President and Vice President respectively. The BJP also increased its strength in the Upper House where, for the first time, it emerged as the single largest party–by mid-2018, it is expected to have a majority, paving the way for easy passage of just about any legislative item. 

Conclusion

The ruling coalition has been consolidating power at all levels of the polity and will go into the New Year on a high note. Whether it uses that momentum to push for reform, growth, and development remains to be seen.

Editor’s note: This article was published by the Stimson Center on its regional policy platform--South Asian Voices. It was the fourth piece in the '2017: Year in Review' series. In this six-part series, contributors assess the most significant domestic and foreign policy developments in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal in 2017 and how these developments will impact the countries and the region in 2018. Read the entire series here.

Click here to read this article in Hindi

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Image 1: The Kremlin

Image 2: Sam Panthaky/AFP via Getty Images

INDIA-ISRAEL TIES: TRADE, TECHNOLOGY, TOURISM TO BE TEMPLATE FOR NEXT 25 YEARS

Investments to boost tourism, education and cultural ties and building bridges with the Indian diaspora in Israel can help boost ties between the two countries

Tuesday afternoon at Ben Gurion airport was one for the books. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi disembarked from Air India One and engaged his counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu in a bear hug, it marked the beginning of the first ever state visit by an Indian prime minister to Israel. The optics were encouraging; Netanyahu gave Modi the red carpet welcome that’s otherwise reserved for Israel’s closest allies and the Pope.

Modi on his part has also been gracious enough to accord this visit the attention and visibility it deserves. Not only has he kept Ramallah off his itinerary (having already hosted the Palestinian president in New Delhi earlier in the year), he also honoured the memory of the victims of the Holocaust at Yad Vashem and paid tribute to the founding father of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl.

And in another well-judged move, Modi is scheduled to meet 11-year-old Moshe Holtzberg, whose parents were murdered in the Chabad house attack during the 2008 Mumbai carnage. Moshe, barely two years old at the time, was rescued by his Indian nanny Sandra Samuel. It is worth mentioning here that in December 2008, when then minister of state for external affairs E. Ahamed presented the government of India’s views on the attack at the UN, he listed all the buildings that had been targeted except one: the Chabad house. Nine years later, when Modi meets young Moshe, it will be portrayed as a reminder of the common security challenges that both India and Israel face but it will also perhaps be the most genuine acknowledgement of India’s embrace of the Jewish nation.

That said, it is important to place the evolution of India’s Israel policy in context.

Since India established full diplomatic ties with Israel in 1992, relations between the two countries have grown at an astonishing pace, covering a wide range of issues from defence and homeland security, to agriculture and water management, and now education and even outer space. And while Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have historically been more supportive of India’s relations with the Jewish nation, let’s not forget that it was a non-BJP prime minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, who established diplomatic ties, and also that bilateral ties continued to grow apace even during this past decade of Congress rule.

Similarly, while Modi deserves full credit for going public with India’s de-hyphenation of its Israel and Palestine policies (and taking the related course-correction measures such as rethinking India’s voting choices on anti-Israel resolutions at the UN and dropping the demand for East Jerusalem as capital of a future Palestinian state), the fact remains that in private this de-hyphenation had already taken place. 

In effect then when Modi landed in Jerusalem on Tuesday, he did not necessarily start a new chapter in India-Israel relations but took the one that was opened 25 years ago to its logical conclusion. And while that is a fine thing in itself, for the visit to be truly substantive, it is the roadmap for the future that will hold the key.

In particular, two issues deserve attention.

The first is trade. From just $200 million in 1992, bilateral trade (excluding defence) peaked at about $5 billion in 2012 but since then it has dropped to about $4 billion—which is a pittance compared to both India and Israel’s trade numbers with other countries in the region. Also, bilateral trade has not diversified much—diamonds and chemicals still make up for the large chunk of the pie just as they did in previous years; high-tech is only a small part of the deal. Sure, a few Israeli companies such as Teva Pharmaceuticals, Truphatek, Netafim and Amdocs have big offices, factories or subsidiaries in India, but their numbers pale in comparison to the Israeli presence in the West.

One big reason why India-Israel trade has in fact stagnated is that the Israeli private sector has struggled to find its feet in India. No doubt, India can be a tough market to crack but Israeli businesses, particularly small and medium enterprises, mostly remain focused on the Western markets that they are familiar with and for which their products are designed. This also means that those same products are not always well-suited for the price-sensitive Indian market. Costs can be reduced by leveraging the large Indian market and deploying the economies of scale but this isn’t an Israeli strongpoint and Indians haven’t been able to fill the gap either.

This problem with scaling up technology is also evident in the agriculture sector—one of the core areas of bilateral cooperation. Take, for example, the numerous Israeli “centres of excellence” that showcase Israeli agricultural expertise and provide know-how to Indian farmers across India: as individual units they are a huge success, but they are not viable businesses yet.

From the Indian side, there have been only a few major investments in Israel—for example, in 2013, Tata became the lead investor in the $20 million innovation fund at Ramot, the technology transfer company of Tel Aviv University; last year, it also helped set up a new technology incubator; Mahindra, Wipro, Sun Pharma, Reliance Industries and Infosys have also made investments in Israel, but there’s still a long way to go. The Israeli market is too small for most Indian small and medium enterprises, though the big conglomerates stand to gain significantly from investments in research and development.

A third factor for the lukewarm business ties is cultural difference: Israelis and Indian approach business differently and often find it difficult to get on the same page. Finding the right business partner can be tough, and connections between the business elites of the two countries aren’t particularly strong. This sort of feeds into the larger problem of inadequate people-to-people ties between the two countries—which is the second issue that deserves attention.

Simply put, Indians and Israelis don’t know enough about each other. For the vast majority of Indians, Israel is a war-ravaged country that’s located somewhere in the Middle East; for a few others, Israel is this mythic military power, slaying the demon of Islamist terror. From the Israeli side, again, India doesn’t feature on its mental map of the world, and when it does, it is usually as an exotic holiday destination.

Investments to boost tourism, education and cultural ties and building bridges with the Indian diaspora in Israel can help significantly in this context. Indeed, these are the low-hanging fruits in the bilateral relationship that can be plucked right away. 

This article was published on livemint.com

MODI AT THREE: REWIRING DELHI’S FOREIGN POLICY CORE?

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi was sworn into office on May 26, 2014, many wondered how the decidedly provincial leader would steer India’s engagement with the world. He had almost no experience in New Delhi, having spent most of his time as a senior politician in Gujarat. His visibly distressed critics wondered: how could he possibly sit at the global high table?

Three years on, such concerns may seem a distant memory. However, it is helpful to keep them in mind, even if only as a reminder of how far he’s come. Today, Modi has not only emerged as quite the globe-trotter, but he has also made foreign policy a top priority, linking it closely with India’s economic trajectory. It is against this backdrop that this piece will assess how Indian diplomacy has evolved under Modi, who is now more than halfway through his five-year term, and where the prime minister may be headed next. Of course, few will disagree that foreign policy has been one of the more successful items on Modi’s governance agenda–he has successfully talked up the India story abroad; at home, the country’s global ambitions have found reflection; and a fundamental refocusing of India’s foreign policy seems to be underway.

Public Diplomacy

The first point to be made is about the man himself. While the Office of the Prime Minister has always played a predominant role in setting the foreign office agenda, Modi has taken ownership of Indian diplomacy to a level unmatched since Jawaharlal Nehru. He has leveraged his own skills as a salesman and showman in equal measure as he seeks to deliver on his vision of how an ascendant civilizational power such as India should conduct itself in the comity of nations. This was most evident at his Inauguration – attended by leaders from the neighborhood – which was reminiscent of an emperor’s crowning where the kings came calling.

Modi’s foreign trips have been consistently public and grandiose, and there is nothing less than a spectacle every time he himself hosts an important head of state. Previous Indian leaders have been welcomed in foreign capitals with much pomp and show, and Delhi has hosted many world leaders in the past. But Modi, powered by his historic once-in-a-generation mandate, has added more than just a tinge of glamor to it all; like a rock star with his speeches and selfies, he has made it larger than life.

One consequence of this has been that India’s public diplomacy has finally come into its own—it has broken out of the bureaucratic mold and become a far more innovative and people-friendly program. A good example of this is how External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has effectively used Twitter to make her office accessible to Indians abroad, serving as a good reminder that foreign policy is about more than just treaties and negotiations – it is ultimately about serving and safeguarding the interests of your citizens.

Software Upgrades or New Hardware?

In terms of specific policies, Modi hasn’t actually made any major changes. All of his leading initiatives and policy formulations – be it Neighborhood First, Act East, Look West, reaching out to Africa, rebuilding ties with the diaspora, or reimagining India as an Indian Ocean power—have been in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA)’s handbook for decades. Modi certainly deserves credit for revitalizing these ideas, but are these just software upgrades or has there been a rewiring of Delhi’s foreign policy core?

It is difficult to answer this question with certitude at this point but there are some interesting indicators in the way that Modi has steered India’s relationship with Pakistan on the one hand, and the United States and Israel on the other. With Pakistan, he seemingly started in good faith but when that didn’t bring desired results, he changed tack. Last year, he ordered the “surgical strikes” and since then, there have been a few reports of preemptive strikes on terror launch pads in Pakistan. Does this indicate a new policy towards Pakistan or is it just that the government is trying out different options to see what works? It’s hard to tell but it is noteworthy that Modi is at least willing to test the different tools in his toolbox that most others were unwilling to touch.

With the United States and Israel, he has not really gone against the grain, but instead, he has built on existing trends. However, he has discarded the baggage of past policies that his predecessors were reluctant to shed and pursued a course of action that he thinks best serves India’s national interests.

With the United States, for example, he has comprehensively junked Cold War paradigms and proceeded to strengthen bilateral ties because he believes that this partnership is crucial for India’s development. Critics worried that if India got too close to the United States, it would get caught in the America-China crossfire and alienate its old friend Russia. But Modi is confident that India is capable of protecting its own interests—without tattered ideological cloaks. And so, his government has also deliberately underplayed the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Sure, Nehru was one of its founding members (and NAM remains a proud moment in Indian diplomatic history) but the grouping is now well past its expiry date, and there is no reason why India should pretend otherwise.

Similarly, with Israel, Modi has acknowledged the Jewish nation as a longstanding friend and made a carefully calibrated attempt to de-hyphenate it from Palestine. Both processes were already underway in private but Modi has gone public. This is evidenced by India’s voting patterns at the United Nations and even more crucially in its decision to drop the demand for East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. This happened, notably, during the Palestinian president’s recent India tour and in the run-up to Modi’s trip to the Jewish nation, which will be the first standalone visit by an Indian prime minister.

So, what does this say about how India views its engagement with the world? It may still be too early to connect the dots, but Modi’s top diplomat, Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar’s comments from a speech he gave in 2015 may be helpful: India wants to “aspire to be a leading power, rather than just a balancing power.”

In other words, India aspires to graduate from a “global swing state” that can support a pole state (like the United States) to a pole state or “leading power” in its own right. Of course, as Ashley Tellis observes, “leading power” is essentially a watered-down version of a “great power” and achieving either “will depend fundamentally on its ability to durably achieve multidimensional success: sustaining high levels of economic growth, building effective state capacity, and strengthening its democratic dispensation.”

Laying the Groundwork for Global Ascent

Whether India will deliver on this objective in the long-term remains an open question. But it has certainly begun to lay the groundwork. For one, it is actively reaching out to countries as diverse as Japan, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States to establish different kinds of developmental partnerships. While India has longstanding historical ties with all of these states, Modi has very specific ideas about who fits into this potentially transformational moment for India and how.

Modi’s efforts to take a more proactive, as opposed to reactive, approach in the subcontinent must also be taken into account. After all, if India cannot emerge as the undisputed leader in its own backyard, it cannot realistically ascend globally. India’s economic prosperity is intricately linked to its neighbors, hence this government’s emphasis on improving South Asian trade and connectivity.

There are also some interesting new projects in the pipeline, such as the Asia-Africa Development Corridor wherein India will partner with Japan to carry out development projects across the African continent. India has longstanding experience working with its partners in Africa, but it will be interesting if it can now take that cooperation to a new level.

There are clearly a number of moving parts. But if Modi can steer India towards growth and development, he just may put his country on the path to great power status, marking the beginning of a new phase in Indian foreign policy. That would undoubtedly define his legacy.

This article was published on the Stimson Centre's South Asian Voices platform.

HASINA’S INDIA VISIT: MOVING BEYOND TEESTA

Later this week, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, one of India’s staunchest supporters in the region, will finally be making a state visit—her first since the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance came to power in New Delhi in May 2014. In those three years, she has come to Delhi twice—in 2015, to attend the funeral of President Pranab Mukherjee’s wife, and then in 2016, to participate in the BRICS-Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) Outreach Summit. But a state visit seemed to have been inordinately delayed.

That Prime Minister Hasina has agreed to a state visit even though New Delhi has been unable to deliver the long-awaited water-sharing agreement on the Teesta river is noteworthy. In the India-Bangladesh context, this agreement could have served the purpose of a high-value deliverable—especially for Hasina who has invested enormous political capital in Bangladesh’s relationship with India. She would have rightly been expecting a deal on the Teesta in return. However, continued opposition from the state government in West Bengal has not allowed for any diplomatic progress to be made on this issue.

Hasina’s critics at home have often charged her with peddling an Indian agenda and failing to secure Bangladesh’s interests. The Teesta deal was supposed to be her comeback– her big diplomatic deliverable–but if that’s not going to materialize, then she will be seen as having returned empty-handed. In other words, Hasina is actually taking a significant political risk with this trip. The question then is: Why and why now? What are the other items on the agenda that could possibly counter-balance this risk? And what can India do to ease the pressure?

The answer lies in counter-terror cooperation. This has been one of the biggest achievements of the India-Bangladesh bilateral in recent years but as radical jihadi groups mount a renewed threat in this part of the subcontinent, it’s time for both countries to up the ante.

When Hasina and her Awami League government returned to power in 2009, they launched a nationwide crackdown on groups such as the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh(HuJI-B) that had been given a free hand by the previous administration of Khaleda Zia (which counted the insidious Jamaat-e-Islami amongst its allies). Hasina’s government also assured New Delhi that anti-India activities will not be tolerated on Bangladeshi soil.  In keeping with her word, Hasina destroyed terror camps and went after militants from India’s northeast who had found sanctuary in Bangladesh.

But this was not all. When militants were flushed out of their safe havens in Bangladesh, many fled to India, particularly West Bengal. Here, the state government turned a blind eye to the jihadists as they regrouped and gained strength. The situation became worse after the Shahbagh movement in 2013 led to an outpouring of secular, progressive sentiment in Bangladesh—and in the process, galvanized extremist elements. Last year’s deadly Dhaka cafe blast was just one example of how the latter have been reactivated. Some have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, adding yet another layer of complexity.

Across the border, in Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s refusal to take on Islamist hardliners, even as general law and order in the state has deteriorated, has created a ticking bomb of its own. This became evident in 2014 when an accidental blast at a family home in Burdwan district exposed the JMB’s network in Bengal—as well as a plot to topple the Sheikh Hasina government. Since then, several links have been exposed between terror networks in West Bengal and Bangladesh and other transnational groups. For example, the Dhaka attack masterminds are known to have traveled around Bengal and met with at least one Islamic State sympathizer in Malda. Another suspect was recently arrested from Kolkata.

These developments have serious security implications for both India and Bangladesh as the Burdwan blasts in Bengal and the Dhaka café attack in Bangladesh stand proof. It will be interesting to see if and how they form the backdrop for a defense pact that may reportedly be signed during Hasina’s upcoming visit.

Understandably, much of the commentary about the defense pact has been focused on the Chinese angle—and how this is India’s response to China’s overtures to Bangladesh in particular and in the region in general. There has been a lot of talk about how Delhi has been worried about Dhaka’s purchase of two submarines from Beijing and is, therefore, seeking to strengthen its own defense relationship with Bangladesh. In Dhaka, the concerns are different. Some analysts worry that a defense deal with India will upset China while the opposition has claimed that this may not be in the best interests of Bangladesh.

But irrespective of the China factor, few will disagree that given the current security scenario, wherein local Islamist radicals connected to transnational groups have reared their ugly head, the deepening of military ties between Delhi and Dhaka is a necessity.

This article was published on the Stimson Centre's South Asian Voices platform.

INDIA-CHINA STRATEGIC DIALOGUE: BIG TALK, LITTLE PROGRESS

Last week, India and China held the first round of an upgraded strategic dialogue in Beijing. The deliberations, led by Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar and Executive Vice Minister in the Chinese foreign ministry Wang Yesui, reportedly lasted several hours. However, though they were describedas fruitful and productive by government sources, there is little to show in terms of progress on the ground.

Specifically, there seems to have been no movement on the two main sticking points on the agenda: China blocking India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and China shielding Pakistan-based terrorist Masood Azhar at the United Nations Security Council. In both cases, the official reason for Chinese obstruction has been couched in principled terms—the sanctity of the nuclear nonproliferation regime in the first case and the absence of adequate proofagainst Masood Azhar for him to be sanctioned in the second case. However, in reality, both positions are driven by geopolitical concerns.  As long as these concerns and considerations continue to define the bilateral, it is difficult to see how the two countries can embark on a strategic partnership of any consequence.

India and China have had a Strategic and Cooperative Partnership for Peace and Prosperity since 2005, but there are “no true areas of strategic convergence” yet. Instead, the bilateral agenda for both countries has consistently focused on the settlement of the boundary dispute and the strengthening of economic and trade ties.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to somewhat modify the template during his 2015 visit to China, as evident in the joint statement, stating:

“This constructive model of relationship between the two largest developing countries, the biggest emerging economies and two major poles in the global architecture provides a new basis for pursuing state-to-state relations to strengthen the international system.”

Interestingly, the statement also had a section on “Shaping the Regional and Global Agenda”:

“As two major powers in the emerging world order, engagement between India and China transcends the bilateral dimension and has a significant bearing on regional, multilateral and global issues. Both Sides agreed to… coordinate their positions and work together to shape the regional and global agenda and outcomes.”

Last week, after the dialogue, Jaishankar echoed these sentiments. However, there is little evidence suggesting that it will fructify any time soon. China is simply not interested.

India may want to play with the big boys in Beijing, but China sees no reason to change the status quo. As far as China is concerned, India is a regional power and simply not in the same league as itself. Hence, when India demands a seat at the global high table, which is essentially what something like membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group is all about, China will do whatever it takes to keep India out. This is also why China will continue to indulge, support, and shore up Pakistan—so as to counterbalance India in the region. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that China has refused to remove its shield protecting Masood Azhar at the UN.

That said, as China’s global profile grows and it increasingly seeks to present itself as a rule-shaper and rule-keeper, it will be interesting to see if China eventually perceives its public defense of a proscribed terrorist as embarrassing enough to merit a change in strategy. Nevertheless, as of now, Beijing does not feel compelled to change its position on Masood Azhar anytime soon.

However, in several interviews this author has conducted over the past month as a Stimson Center South Asian Voices Visiting Fellow, China experts at various American think-tanks have speculated that China may be privately pressuring Pakistan to address the issue of terrorism. China is investing upwards of $50 billion in building an economic corridor through Pakistan that will connect to its own Xinjiang province, and it is imperative that Pakistan put its house in order if the project is to be effectively implemented.

In India, as argued here, the key question is whether Pakistan’s effort to clamp down on terrorism at home will extend to anti-India groups. It seems that China has no good reason to push Pakistan on this in the present context. On the contrary, Beijing will not mind at all if Pakistan—having managed the situation at home—continues to keep the pot boiling in the subcontinent. For long, China has used Pakistan to undercut India’s influence in the region. Today, as India’s economy races far ahead of Pakistan’s, the latter’s disruptive influence has waned. While it still retains some nuisance value vis-à-vis India, terrorism emanating from Pakistan cannot derail India’s growth, just as Pakistan’s anti-India narrative on Kashmir cannot prevent India from joining the big boys club. China may be aware of this changing dynamic, but for the time being it has chosen to continue dealing with India as a middle power that must be shown its place in the world order.

This article was published on the Stimson Centre's South Asian Voices platform.