P. STOBDAN
President Barack Obama's historic second visit to India is viewed as a major success in the West in terms of weaning India away from its long-pursued posture of neutralism to finally join the global line-up drawn by the US. However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stood firm in terms of not compromising upon India's independent foreign policy, not buckling under US pressure to ink a climate deal, and his disagreement about Russia's bad behaviour. Even Henry Kissinger interprets the China-centric "Joint-Strategic Vision" document as India entering the "Asia equation" and a system of US-China relationship.
Having remained sceptical of the US rebalancing strategy, India has come a long way in global politics in a short span of time. Realists now find good reasons for joining the balance of power game especially as the best way to boost its immunity against threats, the best recipe to advance economic and military strength, and the shortest way for regaining India's supremacy.
The vision statement carries the most definitive intent in terms of curtailing the spread of the Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean, which India considers to be within its sphere of influence. It is also reflective of India's seriousness in standing up against repeated incursions in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh, the growing presence of Chinese construction troops in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and continued arms supplies to a Pakistan that sponsors and propels terrorists across to India. Clearly, India wants to create compelling pressures on China to stop nibbling away on issues that concern its core security interests. Many would argue that China respects the balance of power and refer to how Beijing started taking India seriously only after the 1998 Pokhran tests and the 2008 nuclear deal with the US, compelling it to sign a Guiding Principle agreement to solve the boundary problem with India. Perhaps this assumption proves right.
However, Obama's real strategic message came in his parting shot when he tried to nudge India to ensure freedom of religion, which many in India construed as conveying the point that a close strategic partnership will come only if India sheds its growing sentiment for cultural exclusivity. The subtle meaning was that the West still considers India potentially a virgin and fertile ground for harvesting souls and that India will succeed only so long as it ensures freedom to practice and propagate religion.
Curiously, this puts Modi in a paradoxical situation of whether to counter the Chinese expansionist threat or the Western messianic idea that his party cadre strongly despise. After all, the idea of India's revival embeds into it a new era of Hindu resurgence along with its territorial, demographic and materialistic vitality. The rising discourse demands an end to the ideological infiltration, separatism and terrorism posing an enduring existential threat to the Indian (Hindu) culture. They want missionaries to stop conversion through allurement and exploitation, and seek a ghar wapasi movement for converts to return to Hinduism. It is hard to argue and link Obama's subtle message with those prospects of Catholic missions, but one cannot scoff at the notion that the Western world always sought its political and trade interests in Asia in a certain amorphous way.
This should lead India to understand the Chinese position, whose contestation vis-a-vis the West and China is surely not about trade, military and power equations, but about Beijing's firmness to eschew external ideological infiltrations, i.e., neoliberal, jihadi, evangelical, etc., which it thinks tends to subvert the core of the Chinese nation. China has long identified itself as being one of the targets and as such has adopted tougher "ideological security" measures against the increasing influence of messianic orders that come in the garb of soft power. In fact, Beijing finds itself locked in a zero-sum soft conflict with the West on this front.
India's seemingly conscious aligning with the US requires analysis in terms of how it confronts an admittedly difficult conundrum. How will the government reconcile the US advocacy of religious diversity with its own vision of containing external ideological forays and expanding its own? Will Modi push the Hindutva agenda on the back burner in the interest of containing China's rise? US Congressmen are already seeking inclusion of religious freedom in the India-US strategic dialogue.
However, many still hope that Modi's diplomacy is not about joining the American bandwagon and putting a common front against China, but about leveraging Washington to get the best deals out of the US-China rivalry. For now, Modi will do well to find a balance between the American relevance in the economic arena and the need to collaborate with China on both economic and cultural revival theory. This is necessary because, as the Russians say, "markets alone cannot substitute for ethics, religion, and civilization". The shift is, therefore, not ideological but only indicative of the transformation and refinement in the conduct of Indian diplomacy, which is becoming more robust and crafty for achieving national goals.
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