Mr Modi's high-profile diplomacy not matched by substance

PM Modi's diplomacy yet to match the level of breakthrough diplomacy as achieved by Dr Manmohan Singh

Till May this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made about 40 foreign trips to countries in five continents. In the same period, he hosted more than 30 heads of state or government. True, his predecessor travelled almost as much in the same time span. But Manmohan Singh’s visits, despite including the large journalists’ contingents that Mr Modi jettisoned, never attracted the same intensive publicity, with selfies, tweets, rally-style speeches to non-resident Indian fans, meetings curated by Silicon Valley stalwarts, interludes for drum-playing, and informal tête-à-tête on ornate swings.

But the early promise of this new high-profile, down-home style of diplomacy does not appear to have been matched by substance. Mr Modi indicated a bold new direction by inviting India’s South Asian neighbours, including Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, to his inauguration. Since May 26, 2014, India’s relations in the region have not improved appreciably — although a long-delayed land boundary agreement has indeed been signed with Bangladesh. In Pakistan, despite the exchange of gifts by the leaders for their respective mothers and surprise birthday visit to Mr Sharif in Lahore, India has sustained major terrorist attacks such as at Gurdaspur and the Pathankot air base, and has been unable to persuade the Pakistanis to arrest Masood Azhar, the mastermind of the latter. In Nepal, India was caught on the wrong foot with a constitutional change, and its strong-arm response of belatedly championing the Madhesi cause, with engineered riots and supply blockades, saw relations between the two countries touch a new low with allegations of coup conspiracies and the cancellation of a presidential visit. Nepal, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, three countries previously well-disposed to India, are tiptoeing towards China’s zone of influence, with its awesomely efficient and large investments in infrastructure in those countries.

Indeed, when the scaling up of its sponsorship of Pakistan is considered, the People’s Republic of China has now been allowed to enjoy an unassailable position in South Asia. Despite the overt displays of friendship between Mr Modi and Xi Jinping in Ahmedabad in September 2014, the asymmetry of the power equation was embarrassingly evident in the grant and revocation of an Uyghur activist’s visa by India on the flimsiest of grounds. China, too, blocked a UN sanctions committee acting on India’s request to have Masood Azhar declared a terrorist.

Mr Modi was thought to have at least triumphed when US President Barack Obama accepted an invitation and braved the boredom of a two-hour Republic Day parade. But in retrospect, it is not clear what India has gained from closer US relations either. India has been shut out from Afghanistan, once a benign sphere of influence, has given way with regard to coal technology in the Paris climate agreement, and the ITeS sector has made no gains in terms of an easier visa regime. Meanwhile, the foundational agreements on defence remain incomplete principally on account of incomprehension on India’s part. It could be argued that foreign direct inflows have grown appreciably since Mr Modi’s accession; but FDI is determined by many exogenous factors. Dr Singh’s quietly persistent diplomacy eventually put India back in global reckoning with the statement on the Indo-US civil nuclear agreement in 2005, just one year into his first tenure. In two years, Mr Modi is yet to match that level of breakthrough diplomacy.