The Modi government’s return to power, of course with a reduced majority, the focus on foreign policy gains prominence.
The Prime Minister will have to navigate global challenges amid shifting geopolitical dynamics.
The BJP’s 2024 manifesto did not mention either Israel or Palestine.
The Congress manifesto, in turn, attacked the Modi government for “marked departures from this consensus [on Indian foreign policy], notably on the ongoing Gaza conflict.”
The departure, one assumes, is from New Delhi’s historical support for Palestine.
And yet, while the BJP has been enhancing ties with Israel over the past 10 years, the Congress had been doing the same earlier. It was in 1992, during the Congress-led coalition government, that India and Israel established formal diplomatic ties.
One assumes that had the Congress been in power after October 2023, it would have employed stronger rhetoric to condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza, but other than that, business would have proceeded as usual.
The post-2014 years saw Modi reach out to Chinese leader Xi Jinping through “informal summits,” which brought about no results.
In fact, Indian and Chinese soldiers nearly clashed in 2017 on the Doklam plateau in Bhutan. And yet, in the 2019 poll manifesto, the BJP became even softer on China.
Its name only appeared in rather positive light, as part of the briefly noted China-Russia-India dialogue. Even the Line of Actual Control dispute was dropped by the BJP in 2019, though there was talk of ensuring an open Indo-Pacific – which means containing China’s aggressive actions.
Notably, a significant improvement in the relations with the US and Europe is one of the more important legacies of Modi’s first 10 years in office.
The just completed G7 summit showcased the growing conflict between the West on the one hand and the Sino-Russian alliance on the other.
This presents major new opportunities as well as challenges to Indian diplomacy.
Early next month, PM Modi will meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin when he will be in Kazakhstan to join the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
But while it would be good for the BJP to quietly rearrange itself, no large change is expected in the country’s foreign policy.
The two parties in question will be the ruling BJP and the main opposition party, the Indian Nation Congress. Limiting myself to the two is justified by the fact that most of the other, smaller and regional Indian parties, usually do not affect New Delhi’s foreign policy.
One interesting factor is India’s rival number one – China. Decades ago, the Hindu nationalists that had formed the BJP were one of the most vehement critics of the People’s Republic (some in that group had even called for Tibet’s independence).
But as the BJP became mainstream, especially in the 1990s, the party’s militant tone in speaking about Beijing was significantly toned down.
The party’s 2014 poll manifesto did not even mention China, though it did talk of strengthening the Line of Actual Control (the line that serves as a makeshift divider along the Sino-Indian disputed boundary).
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| Blogger - China - prior to Covid era |
The BJP’s 2024 manifesto mentioned China only in the context of developing “robust infrastructure” along the border. There was also, once again, talk of striving to retaining the freedom of navigation and this time, also of protecting India’s security interests in the Indian Ocean.
For his first term in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had tried to revive the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) by inviting India’s immediate neighbours for the swearing-in ceremony. In 2019, leaders from the BIMSTEC nations were invited—Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Nepal, and Bhutan. It signalled a move away from Pakistan and embraced the “Act East” policy while focusing on economic diplomacy and connectivity.
Arguably, the Modi administration has given a lot of thought to external relations. Foreign policy debates earlier were seen as an elite phenomenon, removed from the domestic policy arena. However, the last ten years have seen a democratization of the foreign policy discussions, says an article 'The Sunday Guardian'.
Regular “master classes” by foreign minister S. Jaishankar have broadened the discussion base of how India is conducting its foreign affairs.
India’s presidency of G20, or its “strategic autonomy” stand, avoiding alliances in the Ukraine-Russia conflict or Israel-Palestine conflict has been a subject of chatter among the “aam aadmi”. India’s engagement has deepened with regions it views as vital—the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East, and the West.
India has been largely successful in creating a brand of itself in terms of civilizational attributes, strong diaspora ties, and robust democratic credentials.
The government has been using terms like “Viksit Bharat”, “Vishwaguru” and “Vishwamitra” which sit well with the common citizenry and amplified India’s claim as a civilizational power.
The Congress, in turn, chose more hawkish rhetoric. In its 2024 manifesto, the party promised restoring “the status quo ante on our borders with China” – seemingly a call to retake what Beijing’s forces took in 2020. The Congress also trained its guns at the BJP, declaring that the 2020 clash “represented the biggest setback to Indian national security in decades.”
Thus, in an interesting role reversal, it was the Congress that cornered the BJP, with the benefit of being in opposition – even though it is usually the BJP that has a stronger image, and which generally includes more specific solutions in its manifestos, says 'The Diplomat'.
But that aside, it is doubtful whether the Congress would have been more bold toward China had it been in power at the time.
It was during the tenure of the Congress-led coalition of early 1990s that a number of confidence-building measures between India and China were introduced – these regulated the interactions between their forces deployed on the frontier, and remain in force till now.
Thus, all rhetoric aside, I doubt if the Congress would have risked a larger conflict with China just to retake an uninhabited bend of the Galwan river in Ladakh. The BJP seems equally hesitant to take that risk.
Both the BJP and the Congress manifestoes spent little time on Pakistan, and the tones were similar. All that Modi’s party manifesto promised was to, again, strengthen the infrastructure on the border with the hostile Muslim nation.
Equally general in tone, Congress’ document just stated that “[e]ngagement with Pakistan depends fundamentally on its willingness and ability to end cross-border terrorism.”
But, contrary to words, the parties’ actions show that it was the BJP, not the Congress, that has been much more bold toward Pakistan. In 2019, after a major terrorist attack in Indian Kashmir, the BJP government took a rare risk by striking Pakistan’s territory in retaliation. In comparison, the Congress didn’t opt to do so in 2008 after the far more devastating Mumbai attacks.
When it comes to China, the BJP has been moderate in its rhetoric, while the Congress became more hawkish, but both parties were moderate in action.
When it comes to Pakistan, the BJP was historically more hawkish – and while both parties were moderate in their 2024 poll manifestos, it was also the BJP that was more hawkish in action.
Even when it comes to the Middle East, the differences between the two parties are not that deep.
The BJP’s 2024 manifesto doesn’t mention either Israel or Palestine. The Congress manifesto, in turn, attacked the BJP government for “marked departures from this consensus [on Indian foreign policy], notably on the ongoing Gaza conflict.”
The departure, one assumes, is from New Delhi’s historical support for Palestine. And yet, while the BJP has been enhancing ties with Israel over the past 10 years, the Congress had been doing the same earlier.
It was in 1992, during the Congress-led coalition government, that India and Israel established formal diplomatic ties. One assumes that had the Congress been in power after October 2023, it would have employed stronger rhetoric to condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza, but other than that, business would have proceeded as usual.
Interestingly, the 2024 election manifestos of both the BJP and the Congress didn’t even mention Russia – even though India-Russia cooperation has been the most noticed aspect of India’s foreign policy in the West since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Yet, the statements of some of the leading politicians of the Congress suggested that they would have behaved the same way toward Russia had they been in power in 2022-2024 (i.e. they wouldn’t have condemned Russia, just like the BJP government did not, and would have chosen to buy discounted Russian crude oil as the BJP did).
This lack of mention of Russia in both party manifestos shows some of the disconnects between what the West sees as a crucial aspect of Indian politics, and what the Indian parties perceive as the most important issues.
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