Amid talk of India’s rising global role, not even a whisper on China intrusion

There was a time when socio-economic desperation relegated foreign policy to the backburner during election season. Not any longer. Today, India’s purported “arrival” on the world stage as a “Vishwa Guru” has ignited imagination to stratospheric levels, where calls from New Delhi can ostensibly halt wars in distant lands! Events like the hosting of the G-20 summit are emblazoned across all visibility platforms, speeches, with creative suggestions that belie actual outcomes and functional technicalities like rotational methodology to host the same, as irrelevant. The political dividends of positing the newlyminted “muscular” foreign policy seem electorally obvious, as the social media is on overdrive with the external affairs minister “taking down” journalists who dare question the Indian government about any of its decisions.

The common street refrain is “poori duniya mein waah-waah ho rahi hai (the entire world is praising India)”.

But is it really so? There is obviously much exaggeration and also a lot of sweeping under the carpet of some unsavoury commentary, in parallel. Many uncomfortable statements and global indexes about the state of democracy, a free press, personal freedoms, hunger, are instinctively slammed as the knee-jerk reaction of “enemies” who are jealous of India’s march to “superpower-hood”! That those in the immediate neighbourhood (beyond Pakistan and China) are indeed nursing their own grouses against New Delhi like Nepal, Sri Lanka or the Maldives (India’s latest nemesis, Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu, has just won a “super majority” in Parliament by securing 70 of the 93 seats) is deliberately ignored. In the ensuing melee of alternative reality, everyone is seeking India’s hand and with the current government anything is “mumkin” (possible)!

But perhaps the most deafening and telling silence amidst such a high decibel of foreign policy “success” is in the absence of China, in the postulated admixture. This despite the fact that China has emerged as the undisputed “enemy number one” given the wounds (intrusion?) in the summer of 2020, and thereafter. The stakes against China entail concerns of territorial sovereignty and integrity, which ought to be above everything else. However, since the violent flare-up on the India-china borders in 2020, the highest executive office of the land, which is normally very explicit, brazen, and voluble on most matters, tended to remain inexplicably and unusually reticent and guarded. The Opposition parties routinely probed the outcome arising from the Indian Prime Minister personally meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping 18 times (since assuming office in 2014), 21 military-to-military engagements after the standoff, and the spiking of Chinese imports by 45 per cent. However, the topic was deferred to the external affairs ministry to handle and comment on, who then subjected the same to platitudinous generalities or guarded assurances.

Cut to the ensuing shrill, bite and clutter of the electoral campaign trail where nothing is too sacred any more to be afforded any restraint — however, “China” remains an ominous exception. The ruling party’s manifesto (with the insistence on the word “guarantee”) finds no specific mention of the Chinese “transgression” in Ladakh. Neither the “guarantees” in the section titled “Vishwa Bandhu Bharat” nor of “Surakshit Bharat” bear any specific concern and redressal on Chinese expansionism. Instead, the foreign policy/security guarantees of “following the Neighbourhood First policy”, “strengthening the maritime vision” and “ensuring robust infrastructure along the borders” find tepid mention.

Obviously, the manifesto of the principal Opposition party is most explicit (though they too have much to account for in the past) with their section of “defence” matters with the statement: “The Chinese intrusions in Ladakh and the Galwan clash in 2020 represented the biggest setbacks to Indian national security in decades. On June 19, 2020, PM Narendra Modi gave a clean chit to China that considerably weakened our negotiating position. Despite 21 rounds of military-level talks, Chinese troops continue to occupy Indian territory and deny Indian forces access to 26 out of 65 patrolling points, equivalent to an area of 2,000 square km in eastern Ladakh. A Chinese buildup in Doklam threatens the Siliguri Corridor that connects Northeast India with the rest of the country.”

While it is indeed easier for the Opposition parties to point concern on matters pertaining to the tenure of the ruling party (whilst remaining silent of their own prior missteps) as part of competitive partisanship — the virtual obliteration of “China” in the dominant discourse is worrying. This is tantamount to downplaying the threat or even the recent past to suggest that there much to hide, and that cannot augur well for the nation.

It is not that the nation seeks braggadocio, chest-thumping, or any more fantastic “guarantees” as afforded in other spheres, but at least an acknowledgement of the seriousness and specificity of concern that is emanating from China. But it is always conflated and contextualised to the larger realm of security or neighbourhood affairs, which disallows specific queries on the same. The question on the restoration of the status quo ante after four years remains blurred. While certain caution and restraint on the specificities of security matters (like in the case of sensitive social matters that could potentially tear up, divide and polarise societies) is always prudent, it is strange that caution is thrown to the wind on almost all matters, but not so for China. Yet in opinion polls, the foreign policy-centric “raising India’s global stature” has emerged as the second biggest achievement in recent times, after the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.