NEW YORK, Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s mishandling of the deadly coronavirus pandemic is an \u201cembarrassing\u201d setback for India, leaving \u201cin tatters\u201d his hyper-nationalistic domestic agenda that includes the ambition of making the country a \u201cVishwaguru\u201d (or master to the world), according to an article in Foreign Policy, a prestigious American magazine.<\/p>\n
In the article, entitled \u2018The End of Modi\u2019s Global Dreams\u2019, Sushant Singh, a senior fellow with the Centre for Policy Research in India, said after consistently campaigning on \u201cvirulent nationalism\u201d and self-reliance, Modi took a U-turn by accepting help from 40 nations to deal with the pandemic\u2019s second wave.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe world may be working with each other, but it is not working for Modi in the realm of foreign policy,\u201d the Indian scholar wrote, adding that India will have to work harder to justify its role in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), the US-led alliance aimed at countering China.<\/p>\n
\u201cChina has redoubled its efforts in India\u2019s neighbourhood since the second wave began, strengthening its existing ties with South Asian countries and contrasting its strength and reliability with India\u2019s limitations,\u201d Sushant Singh said.<\/p>\n
The mishandling of the pandemic, he said, has dealt India a weaker hand in ongoing back channel talks with Pakistan and border negotiations with China. \u201cBut even longer-lasting damage has been done to India\u2019s soft power, which was already dented under Modi\u2019s authoritarian regime.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Indian scholar wrote, \u201cFront page images and video clips of constantly burning pyres and dying patients may recede from the foreground with time, but rebuilding India\u2019s diplomatic heft and geopolitical prominence will need more than the passage of months and years. It will take a concerted effort, and S Jaishankar, Modi\u2019s chosen man to be India\u2019s foreign minister, has so far appeared unequal to the task.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn March, when the second wave of the pandemic started unfolding in India, Jaishankar\u2019s ministry was busy issuing official statements and organizing social media storms against popstar Rihanna and climate change activist Greta Thunberg. On Thursday, at the peak of the health crisis, Jaishankar\u2019s focus in a meeting with all the Indian ambassadors to various global capitals was on countering the so-called \u2018one-sided\u2019 narrative in international media, which said Modi\u2019s government had failed the country by its \u201cincompetent\u201d handling of the second pandemic wave.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil recently, Jaishankar was also the most enthusiastic promoter of the government\u2019s Vaccine Maitri (or \u201cVaccine Friendship\u201d) programme, under which New Delhi supplied around 66.4 million doses of the India-made AstraZeneca vaccine to 95 countries in packing boxes marked prominently with large pictures of Modi. These vaccines were either commercially contracted, given as bilateral grants, or transferred under the World Health Organization\u2019s COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) scheme for poorer countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cMeanwhile, India\u2019s own vaccination rollout has been dismal. Around 2 percent of Indians have been fully vaccinated, despite the country being the world\u2019s biggest vaccine manufacturer\u2014a misstep that has emerged as one of the key culprits for India\u2019s uncontrolled second wave.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving exported doses in a quest for personal glory, Modi is now awaiting 20 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines from the United States after abruptly reversing 16 years of policy, as indicated in its disaster management documents, against accepting bilateral aid.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is bad enough that India is getting help from traditional partners like the United States and Russia, but it is also accepting supplies coming from China, with which India\u2019s relationship has been increasingly strained under Modi. And it must have been particularly galling to the prime minister that even Pakistan made an offer to help with medical supplies and equipment. So woeful is India\u2019s situation that it has started importing 88,000 pounds of medical oxygen daily from the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost Indians acknowledge their country was in an economic recession last year, and accepting bilateral aid is more of a compulsion than a choice. But how will they reconcile that with the fact that work on a $2 billion project to reconstruct a government office complex in the national capital, including building a new residence for Modi, continues unabated as an \u201cessential service\u201d during the pandemic?<\/p>\n
\u201cModi boasted of having made India a Vishwaguru and personally enhancing national prestige through his numerous global trips. His ultra-nationalist supporters had started assuming India was already a global power in the same league as the United States and China. This feeling tied in with his domestic political positioning. Hindutva, or homogenized Hindu nationalism, was offered as the ideology that had made this supremacy possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut now Modi\u2019s supporters find their dreams of a global power shattered. They must instead confront the harsh reality of being citizens of a so-called \u2018third world country,\u2019 which is dependent once again on the largesse of others. As the Indian economy continues to be hammered by the pandemic, there is little Modi can offer economically to his base. The edifice of nationalist pride, prestige, and global respect built by Modi on his so-called foreign-policy prowess has been demolished by the pandemic\u2026<\/p>\n
Sushant Singh noted that that in the race between the two Asian giants (China and India) to be an attractive and reliable partner in South Asia, India seems to have finished behind China.<\/p>\n
\u201cA similar impact will be felt during New Delhi\u2019s ongoing back channel talks with Islamabad, where Pakistan will likely try to take full advantage of any chinks in India\u2019s armour. India cannot afford to walk away from those talks as it has already been forced to engage with Islamabad due to its own inability to handle a two-front threat from China and Pakistan. An economy and a country ravaged by the pandemic makes the dual threat an even more challenging proposition for India\u2014and hands Pakistan an unexpected advantage in the talks,\u201d the Indian scholar wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough Indian diplomats may still be able to contain negotiation damages with Beijing and Islamabad, they can do little to undo damage to the country\u2019s soft power.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndia\u2019s reputation as a liberal democracy had already been dented, but the country\u2019s ability to manage all its internal contradictions was still seen as worthy of emulation by the developing world. Now, with its bungled response to the second wave and canceling vaccines committed to other countries in Asia and Africa\u2014an allocation they were banking on, it will be hard to recover.<\/p>\n
\u2018Indians are currently dealing with a humanitarian catastrophe of Modi\u2019s making. New Delhi\u2019s ambitions to be a global power have been dealt a blow. Under Modi, Jaishankar once boasted, diplomacy \u2018is having many balls up in the air at the same time and displaying the confidence and dexterity to drop none.\u2019 Now that all the balls are lying on the floor, the country will need humility, honesty, and extraordinary effort to pick them up and start again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW YORK, Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s mishandling of the deadly coronavirus pandemic is an \u201cembarrassing\u201d setback for India, leaving \u201cin tatters\u201d his hyper-nationalistic domestic agenda that includes the ambition of making the country a \u201cVishwaguru\u201d (or master to the world), according to an article in […]<\/p>\n
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