The Theatre of India's Foreign Policy Post Pahalgam

While the jury of military experts is still to deliver its verdict on how decisive a victory India scripted for itself in Operation Sindoor, there is near unanimity among foreign policy experts that Indian diplomacy—from the time of the Pahalgam massacre on April 22, 2025, to the announcement of a ceasefire between India and Pakistan by US President Donald Trump—was sluggish and strangely stolid during these critical days.

After Pahalgam, we beat the war drums very, very loudly; and, in that din, forgot to notice that Pakistan had managed to secure its International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan; and, it is not known whether India made any serious diplomatic efforts to stall this loan. Indian diplomacy proved quite ineffective, because the movers and shakers at the IMF needed to be told about and convinced of the Pakistan state’s complicity in the massacre at Pahalgam, a more than sufficient ground to withhold the loan.

It has been noted by foreign policy experts that during this crisis, none of India’s BRICS partners (Brazil, Russia, China, South Africa), spoke up in support of us. Worse, suddenly it appears that as far as the US is concerned, there is an—ugly and unacceptable—equivalence between India and Pakistan. The perpetrator and the victim of terror are being dished out the same platitudes and the same incentives. In the exotic language spoken by the ‘strategic community’, India and Pakistan have been hyphenated again—an insult to our national self-esteem as well as a roll-back of the Indian foreign policy gains made in the last two decades.

To this decisive diplomatic setback can be added the far from warm and friendly relationship between New Delhi and most of the capitals in our neighbourhood. Except for Bhutan, none of our neighbours are inclined to show us the kind of deference and respect we think is owed to us; rather, there is sullenness and joylessness in dealing with New Delhi.

Why have we reached such a stage of friendlessness? Why has the Indian Foreign Service with its long record of brilliant officers and proven institutional capacity for diplomatic diligence, reduced itself into an uninspired corps?

The reason for the Indian diplomats losing their sure touch is perhaps the worst kept secret in New Delhi. Because since the very beginning an assertive Modi regime has behaved at home as if history commenced only in May 2014, it was only natural that this predisposition should have contaminated the conduct of our foreign policy; and the Indian foreign service, like all other Indian institutional counterparts, quickly adjusted itself to the whims and fancies of the new rulers back home. Indian ambassadors were soon spreading out yoga mats in their embassy compounds on International Yoga Day and faithfully filing compliance reports to the headquarters; the missions abroad learnt to spend more time looking after the visiting Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh brass than on cultivating and courting influential segments in the host country. The loss of institutional capacity for reflective diplomacy is all too palpable. Our diplomacy’s craft has become blunted and our imagination stunted.

Admittedly, a prime minister, his personality, his political and ideological orientation and his experience and exposure to global affairs do determine how the national interests are understood and defined; the prime minister’s personality is more crucial in this age of face-to-face diplomacy. For example, the last two prime ministers, Dr. Manmohan Singh and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, both came to office with considerable experience of how the global levers of power and influence were operated. Both had a kind of matched temperament, with a decent respect for rivals’ strengths and skills as well as an awareness of the home audience’s expectations. The two of them were deeply conscious of Indian realities and historical short-comings and they preferred a non-flamboyant style, at home and abroad. Both ended up earning their global interlocutors’ admiration for restraint; both added to India’s stature and image.

On the other hand, the incumbent prime minister had no experience of a national office or global assignments. He arrived in New Delhi with a compact carry-on bag of self-beliefs, conceits and cunning. The central and unwavering theme of the Modi prime-ministerial innings from 2014 onward at home and abroad has been simple: all problems—whether economic, political, national security related, diplomacy, or strategic—can be addressed, managed, and resolved to our satisfaction provided there was a ‘political will and resolve’. The unstated assumption was that before 2014, the national leadership lacked the requisite will and resolve; and, now, everything would be hunky-dory.

The prime minister’s exaggerated self-belief was soon seized upon by the national security establishment to propound a kind of ‘Doval Doctrine’. In its simplest expression, the doctrine postulated that India had been punching way below its weight and the time had come—because we have a strong, clear-headed leader—to take on our opponents aggressively and bravely. The courtiers in the foreign policy establishment seized on this prime ministerial belief; our diplomacy began to shoe-horn itself in the growing personality cult back home.

From the famous swing on the Gujarati jhula with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the banks of the Sabarmati River to the demonstrative hug of this or that world leader, it is the prime minister’s personality that has impacted the substance and style of Indian diplomacy in the last decade.

And, though face-to-face diplomacy is the currently preferred foreign policy tool, it has always been a mixed bag. A leader can and does make incomplete, even wrong, assessments of this or that interlocutor and often ends up initiating defective policy choices. The entire Bharatiya Janata Party ecosystem has conspired to make the prime minister feel as if he is among the senior-most world figures, a ‘vishwaguru’ whose wise counsel is sought by lesser presidents and prime ministers. Not long ago, we blithely convinced ourselves that India could wield an influential voice and role in bringing about peace between Russia and Ukraine.

Yet, in a democracy, it is the elected leader who gets to have his style influence the conduct of foreign policy, and his positioning and packaging reflect the rhythm of Indian diplomacy. It is equally true that it remains the primary task of the foreign policy establishment to fire-wall our national security interests from the prime minister’s/foreign minister’s personality quirks. To that extent, our Foreign Office has been a disappointment.

Dennis Ross, a seasoned diplomat-turned scholar, defines the essence of diplomacy (for American decision-makers, but the advice is equally relevant for leaders across the world): It is incumbent upon a nation that “appreciating our power while also respecting its limits; to assessing more completely how the international landscape is changing and what new challenges we now face, and to understanding how to use all the tools in our toolkit of power and influence to maximize what we can achieve at manageable costs.”

The sad part of India’s relationships with countries in our neighbourhood is that our diplomacy and its imagination have become hostage to our domestic political quarrels and calculations. This is starkly so in our approach to Pakistan. In our domestic political discourse Pakistan stands designated as ‘enemy number one’; no leader has elbow room to explore the possibility of working out any kind of détente with Islamabad.

Confrontation, hot or cold, with Pakistan emboldens those who profit from a politics of polarisation. Snubbing, humiliating, cold-shouldering Pakistan gives enormous satisfaction to a section of articulate public opinion in India. We applaud our leaders for their verbal aggression against Pakistan; and, we feel offended when third-rate demagogues in Pakistan talk back to us in the same rough language. The nationalistic lobbies in both countries get comfortable in their respective trenches. Jingoistic constituencies in the two countries acquire new adherents.

Whatever our domestic political and electoral calculations, our diplomats have a professional obligation not to take their eyes off the ball. It is only in the aftermath of Operation Sindoor that our ruling establishment seems to have woken up to the usefulness of diplomacy as a tool of statecraft. After all, good diplomats do sometime make good generals.

(Views expressed are personal)

Harish Khare is a Delhi-based senior journalist and public commentator

This article is part of Outlook’s 1 June 2025 issue, 'Gated Neighbourhood', which examines the state of diplomacy, media, and democracy in the wake of the ceasefire. It appeared in print as 'Let The Guns Rest.'