“New India is scaling new d i m e n s i o n s , and leaving its mark on the whole world,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said during his address from the ramparts of the Red Fort last year. As the country celebrates its 75th Independence Day, developments of the past few years confirm his claim.
After the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had a disastrous impact on the global economy. However, as the latest World Economic Outlook points out, while developed countries, including the US, are facing recession, India has emerged as the world’s fastest growing economy, ahead of China.
India is now also America’s most trusted ally in the Indo-Pacific region. Such is India’s clout that the US Congress recently went out of the way to pass an India-specific waiver from the CAATSA law that provides for sanctions against any country purchasing military hardware from Russia.
Coming at a time when India stoutly defied the pressure from the US and its western allies to stop all purchases from Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, this showed that the US needed India as much as India needed the US.
While the Modi Government excelled in various fields of governance, it particularly stood out in designing and deploying a robust foreign policy that forced even bitter critics like former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan to acknowledge its merit.
After Modi came to power, there has been a radical shift in India’s foreign policy. It carried out surgical strikes across the border, both in the east and the west, to demonstrate its willingness to go beyond the conventional methods to deal with the scourge of terrorism.
By straying away from the old strategy of literal non-alignment, PM Modi has paved a way for unabashed and stronger ties with great and middlesized powers in India’s national interest. In doing so, he has turned India into a strategic player with a highly effective foreign policy.
Under PM Modi, India has assumed a leading role in facing challenges, including the rule-based world order in Indo Pacific, war against terrorism, handling the Covid-19 epidemic, evacuating Indians and nationals of other countries from areas of conflict and climate change. This has won appreciation from many world leaders.
As the world found itself in the throes of the coronavirus outbreak, India leveraged its prowess in vaccine manufacturing by launching its own vaccine and even exporting 65 million doses to more than 100 countries across the globe.
In the fight against climate change, India launched the International Solar alliance and ‘One-Sun One-world, One-Grid’ initiatives with international partners. In the World Trade Forum, conference in Paris and other multilateral forums, it effectively articulated the cause of the developing countries, winning new friends.
For the Modi Government, forging lasting relationships with foreign nations for mutual growth and development was just one facet of the foreign policy. The other important one was to ensure the safety of the Indians abroad. PM Modi is also the first Prime Minister of India who has used the Indian diaspora as an effective foreign-policy tool.
India’s increasing importance in the global arena has been acknowledged by all the world leaders. This is reflected in the increasing support it got from most major powers for its case for inclusion as permanent member of the UN Security Council.
India’s upcoming presidency of the G20 grouping, unarguably the sole remaining effective forum for global governance, presents an enormous opportunity to accelerate sustainable growth within India, in the emerging world, and beyond.
