Shortly after earning kudos for conducting a successful G20 summit that came out with a unanimous communique, Indian diplomacy and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitions to be a major global mover and shaker have hit a roadblock.
This has come in the shape of the continuing ugly diplomatic wrangle with Canada in the aftermath of the controversial assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist leader, as well as Modi’s initial outburst of personal solidarity with Israel in its conflict with the Palestinian people sparked off by the Hamas terrorist attacks threatening a larger conflagration in the Middle East.
While India is under growing pressure from its Western strategic allies like the United States and the United Kingdom to take a more accommodative position in its diplomatic row with Canada, Modi also appears to have angered most countries in the Middle East, disappointing even key economic partners like the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, and Iran for not taking a more nuanced stance on the escalating conflict in the region.
With Canada, India Needs More Subtle Tactics
On Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau’s dramatic allegation that the Modi government was involved in the killing of a Canadian citizen, Khalistani leader Jathedar Hardeep Singh Nijaar, New Delhi has chosen the path of not just outright denial but backed it with bluster and hostility.
As if to make a point, the government has taken a series of confrontationist steps threatening to strip the diplomatic immunity of 41 Canadian diplomats based in the Indian capital and also suspended visa services in Canada on the plea that Indian officials there were no longer safe.
The Trudeau government has hit back by peremptorily withdrawing the 41 diplomats accusing India of violating international norms with the result that the already embittered relationship between the two countries has further deteriorated.
What is worrying the South Block, which houses the Foreign Ministry, is the growing criticism on the matter from important allies in the West like the United States and United Kingdom who have been urging India to defuse the crisis with Canada over the Nijaar killing by working together in a joint investigation to find out the truth. The fact that a full-fledged diplomatic fracas has erupted instead has clearly distressed India’s backers in Washington and London, who have for the first time started getting openly critical of New Delhi’s approach to the problem.
“Resolving differences require diplomats on the ground”, declared a State Department spokesman in Washington DC last week expressing concern at the departure of Canadian diplomats from India. He urged India not to create conditions forcing the departure of Canadian diplomats from its soil and to cooperate with Canada in the ongoing investigation.
Significantly, he also appealed to the Indian government to uphold its obligations under the 1961 Vienna Convention for Diplomatic Relations, including the privileges and immunities enjoyed by accredited members of the Canadian diplomatic mission in India.
A remarkably similar advisory was issued by a spokesperson of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in the United Kingdom. “We do not agree with the decisions taken by the Indian government that have resulted in a number of Canadian diplomats departing India,” he asserted. Much like his US counterpart, the UK spokesperson also reminded New Delhi of its obligations under the 1961 Vienna Convention.
It is clear that despite India’s strategic importance to many Western countries as a counterweight to a dominant China they can neither altogether abandon Canada, a long-standing close Western ally, nor completely ignore international diplomatic conventions.
Therefore, more likely than not, India will be under constant pressure to display more subtle tactics in engaging with Canada even as it fiercely contests the charges levelled on the assassination of the Khalistan leader.
Modi's Dexterity With Israel and Arab Nations
Diplomatic finesse from the Modi government is the need of the hour in the Middle East where there is an impression that India has veered sharply to a position of blind support for Israel. This would be contrary to both its traditional support for the Palestinian people’s right to a homeland and the more nuanced stand in recent years steadily tilting towards the Zionist government but still engaging with both the Arabs and the Iranians.
Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the setting up of full-fledged diplomatic ties between Tel Aviv and New Delhi three decades ago, successive governments led by various prime ministers belonging to various parties and coalitions in India have moved closer and closer to Israel.
After Modi became Prime Minister a decade ago, Indo-Israeli relations reached a new level partly because of the personal chemistry between him and the Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and also because of the burgeoning military ties between the two countries making Israel the second largest defence equipment supplier to this country after Russia.
Yet at the same time, Modi adroitly managed to keep pace with the growing ties between Israel between United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, who are not only India’s largest trade partners in the Middle East but also key players in grand plans of an India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), along with Israel and Jordan.
At the same time, India had managed to keep a working if not close relationship with Iran to ensure vital supplies of cheap oil.
India’s Diplomatic Clout in a Multi-polar World
Unfortunately for the Modi government, the situation in the Middle East seems to have drastically changed after the Hamas terror attacks and the retaliatory blitzkrieg by the Israeli military machine on the Palestinian people along with the open threat of invasion and occupation of Gaza by the increasing unstable and unpopular Netanyahu.
Countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia who were preparing to do business with Israel are no longer in a position to do so considering the sweeping anger in the entire global Muslim community across all countries at the carpet bombing of non-combatant Muslim children, women and civilian population. There is increasing danger of Iran spearheaded by Hezbollah fighters getting drawn into the conflict.
Unlike Western powers like the United States and the United Kingdom who have a history of adopting an overtly pro-Israeli stance, India can hardly afford to put all its eggs in Israel’s basket.
Indian diplomats realise this and sought belatedly to soften the impact of Modi's tweet in the wake of Hamas terror by issuing a formal statement reiterating India’s support for a Palestinian homeland. Unfortunately, the domestic agenda of both the RSS and the BJP demonising Muslims has tended to colour the celebration of Palestinian suffering in the hands of Israeli forces in India social media by supporters of the Modi government.
This could have serious consequences for India’s diplomatic clout in a multi-polar world where people in a large number of countries in Africa, Latin America and of course the Muslim world feel uneasy about Israel’s colonisation of Palestine with support of the West.
The muscular approach by India towards Canada as well as an overtly partisan approach in the Middle East also does no good to Modi’s dreams of being a leader of the global South propped up the West petrified by the looming power of China's hand in glove with a rogue Russian state. The Prime Minister and his diplomats need to eschew rough and ready methods in an increasingly complex world and work out a more finely balanced strategy to navigate the troubled waters the world sails today.
(The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist and the author of ‘Behenji: A Political Biography of Mayawati’. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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