 "Narendra Modi and Manmohan Singh")
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s three-day visit to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, from which he returned home Thursday, was probably his last foreign visit in his current term.
According to data available on the websites of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Modi has undertaken 76 foreign visits as prime minister since his maiden visit to Bhutan on June 15-16, 2014.
His predecessor, Manmohan Singh, completed 73 foreign visits in his 10 years at the helm, from his first to Thailand to attend the BIMSTEC Summit on July 29, 2004 to his last on March 3, 2014 to Myanmar, which ironically was also to take part in the BIMSTEC Summit — highlighting the increasing importance of multilateral engagements, especially in the Indian Ocean region, during his tenure.
Data suggests that while Modi has spent fewer days abroad than his predecessor — 275 days versus Singh's 306 — he has travelled more widely and strenuously than any other Indian PM. Modi has increased India's engagement at the highest diplomatic level with the country's immediate neighbourhood in South Asia and its extended ones in Southeast, Central, and West Asia.
Singh undertook 35 visits abroad in his first term and 38 in his second. Modi went on 49 overseas visits in his first term and 27 in his second term. Two years of the Covid-19 pandemic meant that the PM didn’t undertake a single foreign visit in 2020 and only three in 2021, while attending at least 16 bilateral and multilateral virtual summits in 2020 and at least nine in 2021.
A highlight of Modi’s 10 years of diplomacy was his outreach to the Indian diaspora. He also travelled more often to India’s South Asian neighbours as New Delhi tried countering the growing Chinese influence, particularly in Bangladesh. Modi visited Nepal five times, while Singh did not go to Kathmandu even once.
Another highlight was Modi's foreign policy towards the Arab world and West Asian. During his recent UAE visit, the PM noted that it was his seventh since 2015, when he became the first Indian PM to visit that country in 34 years. The UAE, he reminded the Indians gathered at Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Zayed Sports Stadium, had awarded him its highest civilian honour.
The PM de-hyphenated India’s relations with Israel and Palestine, visiting Tel Aviv in July 2017, the first ever by an Indian PM, and Palestine a year later.
A feature of the Manmohan Singh years was his deepening of P V Narasimha Rao’s ‘Look East Policy’, with as many as 14 visits to the Asean region, visiting each of the 10 member states at least once. Modi kept the engagement alive, but his visits to the Asean region were less frequent.
