India’s...

values, a transactional approach to power politics, a willingness to use or threaten to use military force, and a desire to shoulder global responsibilities” (Foreign Affairs, April 4, 2024).

The BJP government has promoted India’s global role by balancing a wide variety of seemingly clashing and delicate interests.

In the Middle East, India has formed strong relationships with Arab nations as well as Israel. India leads the biennial multination naval exercises known as “Milan” [ = friendship ]; this year, the navy of India’s close strategic partner, the United States, participated in Milan alongside the navies of Iran and Russia, two countries considered antagonists by the U.S., but with whom India has long had cordial relations.

India’s projection of its balancing role has also positioned it to claim a leading position among Global South nations – a stronger standing than that of Brazil, South Africa or Indonesia. At the Group of Twenty (G – 20) summit in New Delhi in 2023, India claimed that it had the ability to champion

Global South interests and build bridges with the West.

Modi himself has heavily advertised his own prime ministership and role to his domestic constituents as being instrumental in bringing about India’s prominent stature.

This bridging role – which can be expected to continue under a third Modi term – has been duly noticed both domestically and internationally.

Modi enjoys much popularity among voters as the champion of India’s national prestige, but the reception globally has sometimes been less laudatory.

For example, India’s main adversary (even before Pakistan), China, called the Milan naval drill an exercise in “vanity”.

And that is the crux of the problem for Modi and India’s foreign policy. There seems to be no window of opportunity for overcoming the simmering border tensions with China and Pakistan. And second only to the U.S., India is engaged in an intense overall competition with its northern neighbour. In this intense SinoIndian rivalry, the immediate South Asian nations have chosen to take a neutral, nonaligned stance between the ‘Dragon and the Tiger’ – except for

Pakistan, which is fully aligned with China, and Bhutan, an Indian ally in all but name.

The ‘collateral damage’ of this state of affairs is that India’s ‘near-neighbour policy’ has been an utter failure. Most regional experts wonder why India is boycotting the ‘South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation’ (SAARC), while closely embracing other multilateral forums like BIMSTEC and BRICS. It is indeed a question of injudicious and failed priorities.

The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@ hotmail.com

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect People’s Review’s editorial stance.

ensured only through economic prosperity. Such prosperity can be achieved through a practical and stable economic policy. In a Nepal-like country, where the organs controlling the market economy are not strong, a mixed economy, as well as, a political system based on socialism and checks and balances should be introduced. The foreign imported systems and politics didn’t work in Nepal.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect People’s Review’s editorial stance.