Book review: Scholarship lost in hagiography

Sreeram Chaulia is a well-known commentator on foreign affairs. However, in this book he has wilfully abandoned all academic restraint in extolling the foreign policy achievements of the Indian Prime Minister in just over two years. Mr Modi, for Chaulia, is “a force of nature”, with “infinite energy and boundless enthusiasm”. He has imbued Indian foreign policy with “farsightedness, organisational and planning insight”, and has the unique trait “of making the world cheer for India as it rises”.

Extolment of Mr Modi is not enough for Chaulia; he feels compelled to criticise the serious shortcomings of almost all previous Prime Ministers, particularly his immediate predecessor, Dr Manmohan Singh. Earlier, in his view, there was “strategic laziness”, a “lack of profound interest in foreign policy” and a “smallness of thought and action”.

Chaulia asserts that now a “Modi Doctrine” has been shaped by the Prime Minister that will be the lodestar of the “overriding goal that India must become an acknowledged great power”. It is in effect a magic wand in the hands of an inspired leader that will make India “an independent third power centre in world politics”.

The Modi Doctrine has diverse roots: the five S’ of the BJP’s diplomatic strategy — Samman (national honour), Samvaad (extensive diplomatic interaction), Samriddhi (shared economic prosperity), and Sanskriti evam Sabhyata (cultural linkages). In Asia, it is guided by three C’s: connectivity, commercial ties and cultural bonds, while globally India’s strengths are defined by three D’s: democracy, demography and demand. Overall, the diplomatic effort has three attributes by 3 P’s: path-breaking, proactive and pragmatic. This alphabet soup, Chaulia insists, is effecting a “paradigm shift” in India’s role in world politics and the global economy.

When Chaulia removes his panegyric hat, he can be quite insightful. He rightly notes that the triangular ties between the US, China and India will be central to the world order in this century. He recognises that US-India ties, while solidly founded on a broad range of shared strategic and economic interests, are limited by the two countries’ differing perceptions on Russia, Iran and Brics, and above all, Pakistan, which the US continues to arm with advanced weaponry.

Chaulia is also clear-headed enough to note the positives in the bilateral relationship with China and see value in regular high-level interaction and counter-terrorism military exercises, and the need to work with China on multilateral platforms where common interests can be promoted. On Pakistan, he supports engagement, while being aware of that country’s deep-seated association with terror. He is, however, much too complacent when he says that “the insurgency in Kashmir cannot be revived to its former peak ever again”.

But such thoughtfulness and moderation are rare in his book. Chaulia just cannot resist extravagant exaltations of his hero; thus, he says: “It would not be far-fetched to argue that Modi helped Obama redeem America’s destiny in Asia”; or, again, at multilateral settings there are “international expectations that he (Modi) would show the way or offer fresh vistas to steer the international community in futuristic directions”.

Beyond these unabashed and cringe-making encomiums, the author also makes several erroneous assertions. He criticises the UPA government for not defining India’s identity and thus failing to define India’s core interests, but later criticises it for its “parochial national identity and outlook”.

Chaulia seems to be confused about India’s position in the US-China-India triangle: he asserts it is Mr Modi’s singular achievement that India is no longer seen as a “swing state” but as a power centre in its own right. However, a few pages later, he says that Washington wishes to coordinate geopolitically with New Delhi “to maintain a stable balance of power”; no mention here of a separate power centre.

The book’s section on West Asia is replete with errors. Chaulia says that Mr Modi has cleared the “cobwebs of doubt and incertitude” in ties with Israel. Given the robust bilateral relations flourishing for over two decades, he is completely out of date. Chaulia says that under Mr Modi, ties with the Gulf Arab states have transcended issues relating to oil, trade and community. Wrong. Fact is that our political ties have been growing over the last 15 years, the strategic content being imbued into the relationship during Dr Singh’s historic visit to Riyadh in 2010.

While Chaulia correctly advocates a greater Indian role in the promotion of Gulf security, he makes the extraordinary suggestion that this should be done “by riding on Iran’s coattails”!

Finally, Chaulia is uncertain about the importance of domestic factors in ensuring the success of the Modi Doctrine. At one point he says that “the Modi Doctrine is vested in connecting India’s domestic and foreign odysseys into a comprehensive national strategy”. But, later, possibly influenced by the parlous domestic scenario, he castigates those who advocate greater focus by the Prime Minister on domestic issues by insisting that “they must be ignored because they are the negative energies... and had crippled India’s march to great power status in the past”.

As Chaulia knows well, foreign policies are shaped in complex scenarios, with several players asserting their own world-view and interests in ever-changing circumstances. These scenarios demand accommodation of diverse interests, founded on the understanding that there cannot be zero-sum relationships but only compromises to obtain the best outcome in difficult circumstances. Diplomacy is the realm of sophistication, nuance and subtlety, and its hallmark is patience and restraint. A diplomatic approach that is in near-permanent “operational” mode and is robustly personalised is not conducive to reflection and hardly ever yields results of long-term value.

Chaulia would have done his nation and his Prime Minister far greater service if he had pointed out these realities, instead of this frenzied applause of the first efforts of a government that is seeking to define and pursue India’s interests in an increasingly challenging world order.

Talmiz Ahmad is a former diplomat