What is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s agenda for foreign policy? The question was at the back of minds of all foreign policy-watchers in India and abroad as they watched the energetic, effusive Modi travel abroad and speak with passion and a touch of naivete about what India and other countries can do together. This was his theme song in every country he has visited since he took over as Prime Minister in May 2014. It seemed that Modi was disarming in his enthusiasm but he has not yet managed to get a hang of what foreign policy is all about, and what he wants to do with it.

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A clear answer has been provided by foreign secretary S Jaishankar in the Fullerton lecture he delivered at the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) in Singapore on Monday. He declared in very unambiguous terms the Modi agenda for India in the world: “The transition in India is an expression of greater self-confidence. Its foreign policy dimension is to aspire to be a leading power, rather than just a balancing power.

Consequently, there is also a willingness to shoulder greater global responsibilities.” It is a declaration of intent indeed. It is quite ambitious. 

We do not, however, get an idea of what India wants to do to become “a leading power”. Jaishankar has meekly quoted the relief work that India has carried out during the disastrous earthquake that struck Nepal, and the evacuation of Indian and other foreigners from civil war-torn Yemen. The examples are supposed to convey India’s willingness to shoulder greater global responsibility. But everyone would realise that these were quite modest attempts at being a leading power. 

India did not have any role to play in the Iran-West nuclear talks. The only response from India after the agreement was reached in Vienna was a sigh of relief about the easing of its trade ties with Iran with the lifting of the UN economic sanctions against Iran as a corollary to the agreement. 

India is quite shy of playing any role in strife-ridden West Asia, whether it is in Syria, or Yemen, or in the Palestine-Israel dispute. Syria and Palestine look to India for political, diplomatic and moral support. But India does not know how to respond to the complex situation in the incendiary region.

India remains a passive spectator in the Taliban-Afghanistan talks, where the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab countries are playing the mediatory role. The Afghanistan government does not seem to feel the need to consult India on this strategic issue though it is a well known fact that the Afghan leaders are worried about the tacit support that Pakistan is extending to the Taliban and the passive role that the United States is playing.

Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had once talked of ‘strategic neighbourhood’ while addressing the army commanders and he had in mind the Central Asian republics, also known as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). But despite the diplomatic bonhomie between India and the CIS, India has not made any strategic headway in the region, which is hedged by China on the east and Russia in the north. Though India has managed to win the membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (CSO) along with Pakistan, there was not a word from the official sources or from the unofficial and semi-official community of strategy experts about the significance of India’s membership in the SCO. It seems Pakistan has played the party-pooper. It appeared that there was nothing to boast about the membership in the SCO if India is treated on par with Pakistan. It is indeed a dampener on the Modi government’s desire to be “a leading power”. 

The foreign secretary has also claimed on behalf of the Modi government that the US, China and India will shape the Asian balance of power. He said “the inter-play of India with the US and China is among the key factors that will determine the strategic balance in Asia and beyond.” The claim would make limited sense in terms of trade, where India as a big market along with China and could absorb the goods of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). But it is doubtful whether India has any strategic say in the balance of power in Far East Asia, in South-East Asia, in West or in Central Asia. India does not have the military muscle to make its presence felt across Asia. 

It is a fact that the smaller South-East Asian countries would look to India as a counterweight to China in the markets, but in the strategic and security sphere it is the US that these countries look to for the military umbrella. 

In the course of his speech, the foreign secretary stated the real position of India on the economic front. He said, “India is endeavouring to modernise in the fullest sense of that term,” and “At the end of the day, India’s future is of a human resources power.” These descriptions indicate unwittingly that India is still in the process of catching up with the developed world, and that India’s main strength is not its military or diplomatic power, nor is it that of a manufacturing hub or that of an economic powerhouse. India remains a rich resource. This is not a position that goes well with the aspiration to be a leading power in the world.

It appears that in comparison to India, the Chinese are stating their position with Confucian cunning. The Chinese leaders profess that China is a developing, and not a developed, country. They point out that China is still to get rid of poverty, and they claim that the Chinese aim is to be a moderately affluent, middle-income country. Indians will have to learn to think in realistic, if not in modest, terms. 

In 2005, then US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice had claimed that the US will facilitate the emergence of India as a world power. It was both a patronising and a laughable statement because no country can ever help another to emerge as a power. A decade later, India declares its intent to be “a leading power”. It is not how the power game is played on the world stage. India will be accepted as a leading power the moment its economy dominates the world, and its military power helps in protecting its own interests and that of its allies across the globe. It is to be debated whether India can attain that position in the medium term, and whether it a desirable position in the first place. 

The author is a consulting editor with dna