India from a balancer to a lead power

Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India for the first time aspires to become a ‘leading’ power in the Indian Ocean, seeking to take on greater roles and responsibilities in the region. Modi has launched significant initiatives to develop India’s port infrastructure, seeking to use the civilian maritime sector as a driver of unemployment and economic growth. He has also placed an emphasis on coastal and maritime security in counter-terrorism

As the Modi Government in India enters into its fifth year, a number of changes were introduced in the domain of foreign policy from first neighbourhood to a balancer in the world politics. Despite these changes, there are many challenges.

The emerging India-US multilayered strategic dialogue with the latest addition of 2+2 and at the same time the US attempts to pressurise India on Iran issues have created a chasm between India and America.

Modi reconfigured India-Russia relations in the light of emerging world politics. The first neighbourhood policy has also many narratives, each south Asian country has a different story to tell. Critics blame that the failures of the first neighbourhood policy is not true. The failures are visible due to the external power. The external force is China which is trying to sabotage India’s friendly terms with its neighbours. It could be seen in the context of Nepal, Maldives and Sri Lanka.

Through the cheque diplomacy, China is pulling out smaller neighbours from the side of India. But India has restructured itself as a swing state or a balancer in the world politics. Its actions and decisions would change the contours of the world politics.

India’s role in Indo-Pacific

The Indo-Pacific Ocean was one of the areas which has been an ignorant part of Indian foreign policy for decades. The term ‘Indo-Pacific’ defines a vital and contiguous arena encompassing the eastern Indian and Western Pacific oceans. This moves along with the new synergy of Quadrilateral Security Dialogue among the United States, Australia, India and Japan.

The Quad was previously initiated in 2007 by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The Indo-Pacific construct has economic and strategic values.  Prime Minister Abe widely cited “Confluence of the Two Seas” speech delivered before the Indian Parliament in 2007.  Australia’s 2017 foreign policy White Paper referred to a vision of an ‘open, inclusive and prosperous Indo-Pacific region, in which the rights of all states are respected.

US President Donald Trump’s five-nation tour of Asia last year was successful as it was here where he advocated strongly about Indo-Pacific region’s importance. It is clear that the Indo-Pacific construct is a response to perceptions that China is deploying infrastructure development and investments in the region for geopolitical gain. Indo-Pacific explicitly includes an emerging India, whose significance to the future balance of power in Asia is obvious. It also focused on rules based system on the high water.

The current Indian Government, perhaps even more than its predecessors, also places great value on India’s relationships with ASEAN member states through a revamped ‘Act East Policy’. The US National Security Strategy provided India opportunities to balance Chinese power through its Act East Policy.

China’s presence in Indian Ocean

One of the major policies of China is to prevent India from emerging as a regional power in Asia. That is how it started different initiatives to hold back India in its own periphery. The initiative’s flagship project, the $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), seeks to link China to the Indian Ocean through Pakistan’s Gwadar port. In parallel, the BRI’S Maritime Silk Road traverses key strategic nodes across the Indian Ocean.

In 2017, China established for the first time a permanent naval presence in the Indian Ocean through its first overseas military base in Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa. New Delhi’s concerns centre on both Beijing’s increasingly assertive policies and China’s growing influence in the Indian Ocean, which appears to India as a strategy of encirclement. China’s initiatives include port development projects at Hambantota and Colombo in Sri Lanka, Gwadar in Pakistan, Chittagong in Bangladesh, Kyaukpyu in Myanmar, and reports of the leasing of islets for this purpose in the Maldives, as well as a significant increase in naval deployments in the Indian Ocean, including submarine visits to the ports of Colombo and Karachi.

China is also emerging as a supplier of critical naval hardware in the region: it sold two refurbished diesel-electric submarines to Bangladesh in November 2016 and is constructing eight submarines for Pakistan. It aims to selectively challenge China’s infrastructure projects in South Asia with Indian alternatives, including economic support, and port and energy development. China has stepped up assertive patrolling in the South China Sea and increased naval deployments in the Indian Ocean, concerns in India about active patrols by nuclear powered Chinese submarines have resulted in a greater emphasis on nuclear deterrence at sea.

India’s major initiatives under Modi regime

Under the current leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India for the first time aspires to become a ‘leading’ power in the Indian Ocean, seeking to take on greater roles and responsibilities in the region. In 2015, Modi engaged in a purposeful spree of island hopping, visiting the Seychelles, Sri Lanka and Mauritius, where India has sought to expand bilateral maritime-security and defence cooperation with island and littoral states. The Modi Government has provided defence-related lines of credit, and overseen the launch of a coastal-surveillance radar project in the Seychelles; it plans construction and upgrading of an airstrip in many littoral states.

He became the first Indian Prime Minister in decades to unveil an Indian Ocean vision. China is not a natural part of the Indian Ocean. The Indian Ocean has two more characters. Modi has launched significant initiatives to develop India’s port infrastructure, seeking to use the civilian maritime sector as a driver of unemployment and economic growth. He has also placed an emphasis on coastal and maritime security in counter terrorism. The Modi Government has overhauled coastal security, and maritime-domain awareness is a central theme in the 2015 Maritime Security Strategy.

Future trends of power symmetry in the region

The South China Sea is fast becoming the world’s most important waterways. As the main corridor between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the sea carries one third of global maritime trade, worth over $5 trillion, each year. China has begun to assert its claims more vigorously and is now poised to seize control of the sea. It brings all the major powers in the close proximity.   The dominant powers are India, China and Japan. The US likes to be behind the scene, promoting joint ventures of India and Japan.

Modi’s smart diplomacy: Synergy with Russia and US

During the Cold War India was the biggest loser in world politics, it did not use the US nor it cultivated a strong multilateral dialogue with the erstwhile Soviet Union. Much later it signed the special friendship treaty in 1971 with Russia. By the time strategic and military mettle of India was much inferior to many of the smaller countries of the world. It all happened due to the ideological flavour of Nehruvian silver coating dictated the directions of Indian foreign policy. Things changed during the Vajpaye era, but it was a baby step in the right direction.

The Modi’s bold policy brought America and Russia both to acknowledge India as a leading power in the world politics. The 2 plus 2   agreements with America and Vladimir Putin, the Russian president visit to India established this theory.

The recent visit of Russian President in India could be seen from different perspectives. One of them is to act together as a swing state to change the world order. Russia-India relations have drifted away with the impact of changing contours of the world politics. The Quad challenged the Russian geopolitical space in the East Asia and the Pacific. India’s overtures to America were bad taste for Russia. On the other hand Russia’s reach out to Pakistan was a clear signal of mutual trust deficit, lingering between the two trusted friends. Russia-China ballooning bonhomie is another blow to India. The emerging conflicts between America and Russia also affected India-Russia relations.

The world is once again in flux, alignment and realignments are taking place. The Trump threat to break away from INF treaty, 1987 is trending. The Europe and major countries of Asia are eyeing to set it connections either with US or China. The reconfiguration of China-Russia terms are also on scrutiny. The assertive move of India as a swing state has created new image of India as a decisive power in the world politics. Since Indian vision of the world is not myopic, nor it gets motivated by ideological baggage, it is gaining space through its own manoeuvring. This policy needs to be continued for another five years. That is why electoral victory in 2019 becomes a necessity.

(The writer teaches Political Science and IR at MMH College Ghaziabad, CCSU)