Sunanda K Datta Ray | Compromise vital as India tries to expand global role

Ironically, the problems of credibility that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and external affairs minister Subramanyam Jaishankar face in explaining India’s foreign policy are similar to those that confronted Jawaharlal Nehru. The lavish January consecration of a $225 million temple to Lord Ram in Ayodhya and the ambitious $95 million temple in Abu Dhabi may suggest that Indian diplomacy is soaring to the stars. But both temples dazzle mainly simple folk at home who are impressed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s grandiose rhetoric.

Jawaharlal Nehru had to contend with the Cold War that was essentially a power struggle between two aspirant blocs seeking spheres of influence which the United States and Europe exalted into a clash of values. That tussle lingers on in the responses to President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and invites Western scepticism about India buying discounted Russian oil, which is then processed and resold to European governments that make a show of obeying American-imposed sanctions and not doing business directly with Russia. Mr Jaishankar’s claim that “Russia has never hurt our interests” recalls John Foster Dulles, the hardline US secretary of state, infamously dubbing what he termed as “neutrality” -- “obsolete”, “immoral” and “short-sighted”.

No nation can afford to follow a foreign policy that actually hurts its national interests. Flexibility being the keynote of his foreign policy, as it is of India’s, the British statesman, Lord Palmerston, famously dismissed as “narrow” any attempt to divide the world into “eternal” allies or “perpetual” enemies. “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies,” he proclaimed loftily. “Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.” Given that hallowed precedent, New Delhi should have no difficulty rebutting the criticism of British Liberal Democrat politicians who are demanding a showdown with India for dealing with the “government of thugs” (their term) in Moscow which they blame for the tragically mysterious death of the Russian dissenter, Alexei Navalny.

What might help is a more diplomatic approach to shared anxieties. For instance, India can afford to demonstrate some sympathy for the cause that Navalny courageously espoused and which his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, swore to uphold at the Munich Security Conference in February, when he was barely dead. It would be even more in India’s interest to avoid taking the high moral ground or boasting of fictitious ancient glory. Such bombast inevitably encourages charges of posturing and hypocrisy. The BJP’s invocation of Ram Rajya -- literally Ram’s kingdom, a utopian paradise flowing with milk and honey -- for electoral purposes is seen as just that, and not taken seriously by thinking persons who cannot forget that 2.5 million Indians would not have migrated every year if India had really achieved so much.

The Abu Dhabi temple is understandably seen as some kind of victory since it is a Hindu place of worship in a Muslim kingdom and the 27-acre site was gifted by its Sandhurst-trained Muslim ruler, Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed al-Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates. But the spectacle of Mr Modi performing rituals accompanied by saffron-draped Hindu monks, and attended by high-ranking members of the UAE government, Bollywood actors and prominent Indians, will not remove the misgivings of India’s 200 million Muslims, many of whom feel discriminated against under the present regime.

Mr Modi’s highly advertised rapport with Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who will go down in history as the single man responsible for the death of thousands of Muslim Palestinians, can only compound the offence.

While India’s first Prime Minister was widely regarded as the architect of modern India, Atal Behari Vajpayee, the first BJP incumbent, marked a new turn in Indian politics. For Vajpayee, the United States was India’s “natural ally”. It was perhaps an understandable reflex after decades of carping at the US by Indian nationalists. Moreover, Vajpayee was responding to Cold War compulsions when the American umbrella seemed to guarantee security. But he may also have been an idealist who tacitly endorsed the Western division of the world into good and bad, and wanted India on the former’s side.

Although expected to lay the foundations of a new world order bridging East and West, colours and races, rulers and ruled, Nehru’s “Panchsheel”, the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence, has taken another beating in the high Himalayas where the Chinese have rebuffed India’s suggestion of reducing troops along the Line of Actual Control. That might explain Mr Modi’s revived interest in the US concept of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, also involving Australia and Japan, as a bulwark against China. The second anniversary of Russia’s devastating invasion of Ukraine, Israel’s ruthless bombing of Gaza and terror tactics against Palestinians in the West Bank, Navalny’s suspicious death, former President Donald Trump’s re-election hopes, the US Congress’ continued refusal to pass a support package for Ukraine, and Mr Trump’s seemingly reckless talk of letting Russia do “whatever the hell they want” with “delinquent” Nato members, all combine to make the world seem a not very secure place at all.

It was in this context that Mr Jaishankar told a German newspaper when asked if India’s purchase of Russian oil was a burden on its relationship with Europe that there are ups and downs in all ties, but that India had always “had a stable and always very friendly relationship with Russia”. India needs oil imports. It must buy where the cost places the least drain on resources. India also feels hard done by European ploys like shifting its energy procurement to West Asia -- traditionally, India’s main supplier -- when the Ukraine war began. “In many cases, our West Asian suppliers gave priority to Europe because Europe paid higher prices. Either we would have had no energy because everything would have gone to them. Or we would have ended up paying a lot more because you were paying more,” he added.

Foreign policy always implies compromise. The story is told of Anastasio Somoza García, patriarch of the family which ruled Nicaragua as a dictatorship for 42 years, and whom the United States recognised as a ruthless dictator but nevertheless supported because Nicaragua was a non-Communist stronghold, prompting President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s supposed remark: “Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch”.

Statecraft, whether that of Nehru or Narendra Modi, is seldom lily white.