It is less than a month since Narendra Modi assumed office as India's 15th prime minister but he has started work at breakneck speed.
While his government’s focus remains squarely on domestic issues, Mr Modi is also charting a rather ambitious foreign policy course. He has already visited Bhutan and his future destinations over the next few months are likely to include Japan, Brazil, Southeast Asia, Australia and Nepal. Meanwhile, the Chinese foreign minister has saluted the new Modi government for injecting “new vitality into an ancient civilisation”.
His decision to invite the member states of the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to his government’s swearing-in ceremony was widely viewed as a great move, underscoring his resolve to embed India firmly within the South Asian regional matrix.
The composition of Mr Modi’s national security team also gives a sense of his government’s foreign policy and national security priorities.
The baton of national security has been passed from Shiv Shankar Menon, a China specialist and a strategic thinker in the broadest sense of the term, to Ajit Doval who is widely viewed as an exceptional operations man. A former head of India’s domestic spy agency – the Intelligence Bureau – Mr Doval has accomplished some of the most difficult missions in the realm of Indian security policy. His knowledge of regional politics and the terror infrastructure targeted at Indian interests is also unmatched.
Mr Doval’s appointment is indicative of the fact that internal security will be Mr Modi’s top priority as longstanding inadequacies in intelligence and counterterrorism institutions need to be rectified.
Given his background in covert operations, Mr Doval is likely to be instrumental in shaping India’s intelligence and counterterrorism institutional architecture to meet security challenges.
Sushma Swaraj, the external affairs minister, is a powerful politician in her own right. As one of the BJP’s main national leaders for the last several years, she had been an advocate of a robust policy in the security realm, especially in responding to the challenge of Pakistan’s policy towards India.
Focus on South Asia is also emerging as a central strand in Mr Modi’s foreign policy. Invitation to SAARC leaders was just the start. Since then Mr Modi has also been to Bhutan because he wants to develop strong economic linkages among Indian’s neighbours and also to check Thimpu’s gravitation towards Beijing.
Ms Swaraj will be visiting Dhaka from June 25 to underline India’s seriousness towards its neighbours. The much-delayed Land Boundary Agreement and the Teesta Water sharing agreement is likely to be ratified during this visit. These pacts were signed by the previous UPA government but could not be ratified because of coalition compulsions. The Modi government will earn significant goodwill in Bangladesh if it can get these treaties ratified.
Another senior member of the BJP and one of Modi’s closest aides in the party, Arun Jaitley has been put in-charge of two important portfolios – finance and defence.
This underscores a recognition in the highest echelons of the Modi government that unlike the previous two decades, in the coming years India will have limited resources to spend on defence.
At the same time, Indian armed forces are facing critical shortages. It will be a delicate task to manage Indian defence modernisation programme, a priority of the Modi government, at a time of slow economic growth.
Delhi has been accelerating its programme of arms purchases, but has failed to broach the reforms that would be necessary for these to translate into improved strategic options. There is no substitute for strategic planning in defence.
The Modi government has promised to “carry out reforms in defence procurement to increase efficiency and economy.” It plans to “encourage domestic industry, including the private sector to have a larger share in design and production of defence equipments” through, among other things, a liberalised policy on foreign direct investment (FDI). There are reports that the government might allow FDI of up to 49 per cent in the defence sector without any mandatory transfer of technology.
The new Modi government is at work and already there are some clear indications of where its priorities lie in the realm of foreign and security policy. Modi’s success in achieving his domestic agenda will also depend on how successful he is in getting his external priorities right. The world will be watching as closely as the Indian electorate.
Harsh V Pant is a professor in international studies at King’s College London
