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#NepalEarthquake: India Establishes Quick Response Credentials 

Journalist Subir Bhaumik believes quake in Nepal has helped Modi Govt establish India’s ‘ first responder’ status.

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India’s recent use of battleships and giant transport aircraft alongside civil passenger aircrafts of the national carrier in Yemen has attracted much attention in South Asia, if regional press is an indication to go by.

The message of Prime Minister Narendra Modi sending his junior foreign minister V K Singh to supervise the Yemen rescue effort was not lost on neighbours.

Now the vicious earthquake in Nepal has helped India cement its image as the ‘first responder’ in the region.

Responding to the Crisis

The way Modi got together his team of key ministers and bureaucrats to respond to the crisis after describing ‘Nepal’s pain is India’s pain’ has not only earned the prime minister much praise but has helped India establish her credentials in a way that all other South Asians would look upto it in the event of a major crisis.

Journalist Subir Bhaumik believes quake in Nepal has helped Modi Govt establish India’s ‘ first responder’ status.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi waves to the media upon his arrival for the SAARC summit in Kathmandu on November 25, 2014. (File Photo: Reuters)

Modi not only became the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Nepal in many years, not once but twice within a year of taking charge. And now in Nepal, he has taken the initiative to turn disaster management into diplomacy.

The mobilisation of India’s airlift capability to rush specialist relief personnel and material to Nepal within hours of the disaster is intended to drive home the point that India not only talks and promises, but it also acts when necessary.

Modi’s effort to establish the ‘act rather than talk’ credential for India is key to recovering its influence in the extended neighbourhood at a time of considerable global flux.

India Needed for Counter-balance

Many nations, specially in South and south-east Asia, want an Indian presence to counter-balance Chinese influence. But they see India often as unwilling to assert or just given to making tall promises without any intent or ability to fulfil them.

Journalist Subir Bhaumik believes quake in Nepal has helped Modi Govt establish India’s ‘ first responder’ status.
China’s President Xi Jinping with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his India visit. (Photo: Reuters)

That is where Modi is trying to make a difference – not only ‘make in India’ but make India move. The man from the land of the Gir lions has less patience for India’s elephant image – he wants to follow on the footstep of the ‘Dragon’ up north.

To be fair to his predecessor, Indian navy was the first to rush relief supplies to tsunami-hit Sri Lanka in 2004.

But there was no attempt to evolve a culture of action from such efforts, many of which were not adequately noticed.

Is India the new Big Brother?

For Modi, it is as much doing as tweeting, which means not only will be get India to act and emerge as ‘first responder’ to regional disasters but his publicity machinery will drive home the point that India is a benign Big brother all can count on in moments of crisis.

Journalist Subir Bhaumik believes quake in Nepal has helped Modi Govt establish India’s ‘ first responder’ status.

There is another side to the Nepal operations – planes landed with supplies for Nepal but returned with stranded Indian tourists or mountaineers.

Beginning Yemen, Modi’s message for his own countrymen, with inevitable impact in the diaspora, is loud and clear – here is a government that cares for its own people.

(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)

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Topics:  Narendra Modi   Nepal Earthquake   SAARC 

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