11 Years of Modi: How Popular Is India, Really?

In his eleven years in office, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has continued much of India’s traditional foreign policy agenda, giving it a new twist here and there to suit the changing times and carving out what his supporters believe is a bold, new high-profile foreign policy that has elevated India’s global standing. Much of this is hype and exaggerated claims by loyalists. India’s growing economic clout, it is the fourth largest economy in the world today and its huge domestic market lends heft to India’s status as an emerging power. The economic reforms of 1991 and opening Indian markets to foreign investors kick-started the country’s growth story.

Ties with the United States have grown since the civil-nuclear agreement signed during Manmohan Singh’s tenure, Modi has nurtured and furthered the relationship that rests on strategic convergence and the rise of China. So have relations with Europe. From the time of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and the anti-imperialist struggle, India has been a leading figure of the Global South. But today there is stiff competition from China for that position. Modi has deftly managed relationships with old allies like Russia while making surprising inroads in the Gulf, transforming ties with the conservative sheikhdoms into robust strategic and economic partnerships. Yet, ironically, it is in India’s immediate neighbourhood—once the centrepiece of his early foreign policy—that Modi’s outreach has yielded mixed results, hampered by political instability, border tensions, and growing Chinese influence.

Neighbourhood First Policy

The rise of China, its economic clout and desire to extend its influence in India’s periphery have given smaller South Asian nations a choice between the two Asian giants. In the past, India was the only big country in the neighbourhood, and often termed as the Big Brother or Big bully by its smaller countries. It had little to do with whether the Congress or BJP was in power. But a country they could ill afford to offend. But today China is all over the sub-continent wooing India’s neighbours and allowing nations the opportunity to play one against and other and get the best deal for its citizens. The China card has been effectively used by neighbours like Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the Maldives. 

Narendra Modi’s neighbourhood first policy began on day one when he invited all South Asian leaders for his 2014 inauguration, including Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif. After the customary visit to Bhutan, Modi went to Nepal in August 2014 and addressed the Nepalese Parliament then engaged in drafting the country’s first Republican Constitution. Modi said all the right things and touched on every issue that was of concern to his Nepalese hosts. His visit was a tremendous success and Modi was viewed by ordinary people as a prime minister who cared for the smaller neighbours. But that changed after the new Constitution was adopted in September 2015, where Nepal’s Indian origin Madhesis living in the Terai areas were seen by New Delhi as not being given a fair deal. The blockade of landlocked Nepal for five months that year led to enormous suffering for ordinary citizens with shortages of essential supplies, fuel, and medicines. Kathmandu turned to China for help and India’s image took a nose dive. Nepal-India relations have since improved but anger against the blockade continues among people who feel China is a better bet than India.

The ouster of the friendly government of Sheikh Hasina last August has led to a dramatic deterioration of relations between New Delhi and Dhaka. In Maldives President Muizzucame to power with his “India Out” campaign. Again, relations have now been normalised, yet Maldives cannot be counted a friend. China is also very much a player in the island. New Delhi went out of its way to bail out Sri Lanka during the financial meltdown and has improved ties with President Anura Kumara Dissanayake or AKD as he is commonly known. While the President who is from the JVP, once a virulently anti-India outfit, is now seen as a friend, he is attacked often in the press and by the opposition for being soft on the Modi government. Here too China is a powerful antidote to India.

Fault Lines Exposed 

Prime Minister’s style of personal diplomacy, his relations with world leaders is good for optics but the fault lines were exposed following Operation Sindoor, triggered by the Pahalgam terror attack. Every country condemned the terror attack but did not point fingers at Pakistan as New Delhi may have hoped. Instead, President Donald Trump claimed he was responsible for stopping India and Pakistan plunging into a full-scale war. He announced a ceasefire hours before either New Delhi or Islamabad did. 

“I said, come on, we’re going to do a lot of trade with you guys. Let’s stop it. Let’s stop it. If you stop it, we’ll do a trade. If you don’t stop it, we’re not going to do any trade,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “And all of a sudden, they said, ‘I think we’re going to stop,’” he added, according to reports in the American media. He admitted there were other reasons too, “... but trade is a big one.” 

Once again, India was being pigeon holed with Pakistan, a comparison odious to New Delhi and something on which it had spent diplomatic capital for over two decades to overcome. For Indian policymakers, the statement was more than a diplomatic faux pas—it was a symptom of a deeper problem. The all-party delegations sent out by the Modi government to explain India’s views to the world and to pinpoint Pakistan was a result of the lukewarm response from the rest of the world. What the delegation achieved will be hard to quantify until another crisis blows up. Significantly despite Modi’s neighbourhood first policy, the delegation did not visit any of the South Asian capitals. Officials say this is because India is targeting countries that are members of the UNSC at present or will step into the UNSC council next year. Whatever the reason, an all-party delegation to South Asia would have played well in the neighbourhood.