A new 'coalition of the unwilling'

JULY, 7, 2024

As Narendra Modi’s new government takes shape in India, the now three-term Prime Minister has done everything possible to emphasise continuity from his second term. The reappointment of seasoned diplomat Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar to his role as Minister of External Affairs is a vote of confidence in his stewardship of India’s foreign policy in perhaps the tensest geopolitical environment of the last half-century. India’s fleet-footed approach to her external relationships elicited reactions ranging from respect and acceptance to frustrated upset, particularly from the United States.

What India’s partners may perceive as unprincipled opportunism (actions such as dramatically increasing the imports of Russian crude oil, even in the midst of the Ukraine conflict, and re-exporting refined oil to Western Europe; or deepening relations with ‘autocratic regimes’ such as Myanmar and Iran), however, India’s leadership sees as a steadfast and necessary commitment to India’s national interest, and a corrective to the perceived idealism of the past. In his landmark 2019 lecture on the present phase of Indian foreign policy, Dr Jaishankar set out a very simple doctrine: “A clearer definition of interests is the next step and its determined pursuit of that the one thereafter.”

How India will define these aims depends on how it sees the world. India’s world policy should be seen as a mingling of three intellectual streams: a fierce and passionate nationalism, particularly when it comes to national defence; anti-colonialism, including opposition to what it sees as neo-colonial structures; and a civilisational aspiration to play a role in the world. These streams supply the rationale, for India’s approach to China, the United States, and BRICS and the broader ‘Global South’ respectively.

The first stream – nationalism – explains India’s hesitance towards China and its growing closeness to the United States. Contrary to what recent anxieties about a purportedly ‘Hindu nationalist’ foreign policy would suggest, India’s foreign policy has always had a strong nationalist streak which has included the idea of a ‘sacred soil’, in the words of the Parliamentary resolution passed in the wake of India’s 1962 defeat at the hands of China in a border war. Anxiety about a rising China’s capacity to use its military might to chip away Indian territory threatens India’s own sense of nationhood.

It is such anxieties which explain India’s enthusiasm to sign agreements with the United States. These include the four ‘foundational agreements’ signed between 2002 and 2020: the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA); the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA); the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA); and the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA). These agreements allow for greater information sharing between the two nations’ security establishments and interoperability between their armed forces. As commentators have pointed out, this orientation represents a definitive move away from India’s own ‘Monroe doctrine’ which once sought to exclude great powers from the Indian Ocean.

It is here, however, that the second stream cuts the first. India’s colonial past, alongside which are wrapped memories of American imperiousness during the Cold War, have engraved a historical memory in India which puts a hard limit on the extent of cooperation with the ‘Anglosphere.’ India’s abortive attempt at rapprochement with the United States in the 1960s is instructive in this regard. The 1962 border war, during which the United States aided India with massive airlifts of arms and supplies, sparked a positive change in Indo-US relations. Soon afterwards, however, the United States’ refusal to sell F-104 ‘Starfighters’ to India drove India to double down on its relationship with the USSR, and President Johnson’s desire to cut the ‘India lovers’ in the State Department to size sent relations on a downward course once again. Recent tensions between India and the USA and Canada over alleged assassination plots in North America have deepened the sense that there are limits to India’s relationship with the ‘Five Eyes’ nations. The US threat of sanctions over the Indo-Iranian deal to build the Chabahar Port – creating a link between India and Central Asia which bypasses Pakistan – is also likely to smart, serving as a reminder of the bygone days in which the USA used its technical and agricultural assistance to India as a lever of influence.

This history goes a long way to explain why India has been reticent to join the more explicitly securitised aspects of the Quad structure. India steered well clear of AUKUS, the Australian-British-American security alliance. Prime Minister Modi recently emphasised the need to correct the “abnormality in our [Indo-China] bilateral interactions.” For now, it may still be accurate to say that ‘China has lost India’ but India does not trust the United States enough to slam the door shut even on an increasingly assertive China.

It is the third stream of India’s foreign policy which presents the most unrealised potential: its renewed vision of a ‘Global South,’ realised through multilateral institutions such as BRICS. India has positioned itself as the ‘Voice of the Global South’ and taken on inequities in the global economic order, including issues such as intellectual property in essential medicines.

This is a vision that goes beyond the clichés of Cold War era non-alignment. India’s ‘Vaccine Maitri’ mission involved the gift of 14 million doses of covid vaccines to 98 developing countries, and the export of hundreds of millions of doses. A precarious but growing economy, a large population, and increasing capacity to deliver on its promises mean that India wishes to make its presence felt in the world. Other nations in the Global South are also likely to appreciate the prospect of a ‘safe harbour’ if the Sino-US rivalry intensifies.

Unlike in the 1950s, this role need not be based on sentiments of anti-colonial solidarity – real or imagined – but on a hard-nosed analysis of mutual interests. China and the USA are India’s largest trading partners, with the former claiming the top spot again this year. The same pattern repeats across much of Southeast Asia. Domestic political and cultural convulsions in the United States and Europe should also give pause to those Asian nations taking US-backed security structures for granted. Even a pre-eminent United States may decide to follow the example of the Emperor Hadrian, who, in Gibbon’s words, “confessing himself unequal to the task of defending the conquests of Trajan,” retreated behind secure borders to ensure peace and prosperity at home. The age of multipolarity is now dawning. Whatever its merits, the American writ will no longer run unchallenged throughout the world. India has the opportunity to work with like-minded nations, particularly in Southeast Asia, to create a ‘coalition of the unwilling’ – unwilling to compromise on their sovereignty, unwilling to enter entangling alliances, and unwilling to have their journey towards development derailed by a new global conflict.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.