Continuity and Change in India's Foreign Policy
Plus, the latest on the disengagement process between India and China along the LAC
Hi there, I’m Aman Thakker. Welcome to Indialogue, a newsletter analyzing the biggest policy developments in India. The aim of this newsletter is to provide you with quality analysis every week on what’s going on in India.
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Continuity and Change in India’s Foreign Policy
This week’s opening section will be little different than normal. While the first section of the newsletter is usually devoted to the biggest policy-related issue of the week, I thought that I would spend some time this week synthesizing a number of foreign policy-related developments last week into what I see are trends of consistency, and of reorientations in Indian foreign policy.
I’ll caveat this segment from the start by saying that I remain, very much, a student rather than an expert of Indian foreign policy. So please, do feel free to share any comments and feedback via email (or if you feel comfortable, via the Comment function on Substack) on these thoughts, as I would benefit from learning from the readers of this newsletter as much as I learn from writing this newsletter every week.
It’s been a busy week for U.S.-India relations this week. The U.S.-India Business Council held its annual Ideas Summit this week, which saw policymakers from both countries - such as Prime Minister Modi, Secretary of State Pompeo, and Minister for External Affairs S. Jaishankar, among others - address the forum. Statements and speeches made by these three policymakers, in particular, generated a number of headlines.
Prime Minister Modi reaffirmed that the United States and India were “natural partners.” Secretary Pompeo described India as “an important partner and a key pillar in President Trump’s foreign policy,” reiterating a claim that the U.S. desires a “new age of ambition” in its partnership with India. Minister Jaishankar underscored that the United States and India have “the ability today, by working together, to shape the world.”
But it wasn’t just rhetoric. In the past week, the United States and India conducted a joint Passage Exercise (PASSEX) in the Indian Ocean which, according to the U.S. Navy, were “designed to maximize training and interoperability, including air defense.” The exercises came as the United States also conducted joint exercises in the Philippine Sea with the Australian Defense Force and the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force.
The U.S. Ambassador to India, Kenneth Juster, also addressed officers-in-training from the 2019 batch of the Indian Foreign Service at the Indian Foreign Service Institute. Here’s why that is important:
Deepening ties between the United States and India are not new. Bilateral relations have been growing, particularly in the defense and strategic arenas, since the turn of the century through the Bush-Singh, Obama-Singh, Obama-Modi, and Modi-Trump eras. But it is still important to recognize how new these developments are in the context of India’s 70-plus year foreign policy, and why this marks a change in relations.
Indeed, the alignment with the United States in the 21st century is a marked departure from India’s foreign policy during the Cold War, which saw great alignment with the Soviet Union during the latter part of the Cold War. It is this trough in relations that policymakers today now describe as the “hesitations of history” that prevented deeper alignment between, as PM Modi described the two countries last week, natural partners.
However, the development of this relationship has also raised questions, particularly with regard to the continuities in India’s foreign policy. What about India’s long-standing relationship with Russia? How does deeper alignment with the United States affect India’s long standing strategy of non-alignment? Won’t deeper ties with the U.S. only lead India to be drawn into issues that are not in its interest? Can India really rely on the United States?
External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar made a few comments this week that get at some of these questions. In a TV program titled “Geopolitics of Opportunity: As World Rebalances, How should India Capitalise?” on CNBC-TV18. There’s a segment on U.S.-India relations, from which I am going to transcribe some of his comments which I thought were important to highlight:
“Non-alignment was a term of a particular era and and a particular geopolitical landscape… There were two aspects to it. One was “Be independent.” I think that remains very much a factor of continuity… it is natural that there would be a very, very strong steak of independence… that is the continuity factor… I would the say that the era of great caution, and a very much of greater dependence on multilateralism, that era is to a certain extent behind us. And we have to step out more, we have to be more confident, we have to articulate our interests better. We need to take risks!”
He went on to say, in the same discussion, that, unlike U.S. alliances with Australia or Japan, India “will never be” in an alliance system.
This statement by the Minister captures the crux of what I wanted to raise in this opening segment of Indialogue this week. In addition to changes in Indian foreign policy in the 21st century, there are clear continuities - a desire to pursue an independent path, to make choices on partnerships and alignments on India’s own terms rather than due to external pressure, and to avoid formal alliances that would limit India’s choices. Some might argue that this is non-alignment by another name, but even if we adopt the mantra of “strategic autonomy” that is in vogue today, these continuities are evident.
As I spent the last week thinking and researching about how India can balance these changes and continuities, two views came to the fore. The optimistic view on this would be that India - unburdened by the alliance system - has greater flexibility and maneuverability in the complex international system. Moreover, it makes it easier to engage with a United States that seeks to pull back from the world, and calls upon its partners to increasingly burden-share, rather than depend on the United States for security. However, there’s another view - that alliances will continue to be the backbone of U.S. foreign policy, even in Asia, and that Indian desire to independence, and unwillingness to be an alliance partner, remains an impediment to deeper cooperation. Here’s one such articulation of this view:
There is a missing middle between these views:
As I close out this section, a number of questions for me remain: First, what does the future of this non-alliance partnership look like, and what both countries need to do to maintain alignment on not just their interests, but the strategies to address those interests? Moreover, while sufficient convergences may remain, how can both countries address the divergences in their relationship? Issues such as India’s relationship with Russia and Iran, or Indian concerns over U.S. retrenchment and diminishing strategic autonomy continue to loom large.
I hope to engage with these questions, and deepen my understanding of, both, the continuities and changes in Indian foreign policy, and what they mean for India’s engagement with the world moving forward. As I do, I would welcome your thoughts, feedback, or suggestions.
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The Latest on the Disengagement Process at the LAC, and on India-China Relations
For the past couple of weeks, Indialogue has covered the “slow, deliberate process of disengagement” of Indian and Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control. However, if reporting from last week is to be believed, the process has slowed to the point of being stalled. Here’s the latest.
Five points along the LAC continue to in focus:
Galwan Valley (Patrol Point (PP)-14): At this point, where the violence of June 15 occurred, it seems there has been a complete disengagement.
Hot Springs (PP-15): At this point, Army sources told Krishn Kaushik and Shubhajit Roy of The Indian Express that the Chinese “indicated they will move back without conditions”
Pangong Tso: Despite a partial pullback, China continues to occupy territory between Fingers 5 and 8, which India considers its own territory.
Gogra (PP-17A): Army sources suggest that 50 troops from both India and China “continue to be engaged” within one kilometer of each other.
Depsang Plains (PPs 10, 11, 11A, 12, 13): Reporting indicates that China has denied Indian troops access to five patrol points. There has been no reports of disengagement in this area
The last meeting between and Indian and Chinese representatives took place on July 14th, when Corps Commanders of the Indian Army and the People’s Liberation Army met for the fourth time. However, reports indicate that meeting ended without any breakthrough.
This week, representatives from both countries’ foreign ministries met under the aegis of the Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination on India-China Border Affairs. The press release from the meeting included largely boilerplate language, underscoring that the process continues to remain slow. The readout of the meeting also said that “another meeting of the Senior Commanders may be held soon so as to work out further steps to ensure expeditiously complete disengagement and de-escalation and restoration of peace and tranquillity in the border areas.”
Sushant Singh of The Indian Express gives us a rare insight (although sourced from unnamed sources, so please keep that in mind) into the Indian policy process that will play out in the lead up to Commanders meeting, which will likely take place this week:
The date for the talks will be finalized only after the agenda is approved, and can be expected to be held towards the end of next week.
“It is a very institutionalized process. Before every Corps Commander talks, the agenda is approved in Delhi. There is a meeting of the China Study Group which sits down and approves what the commander can propose and agree to. He is an instrument in the process, not the decision-making authority,” the government official said.
Very little is publicly available about the China Study Group (CSG), but here are some tidbits, pulled from here:
The CSG is the central and sole advisor to the government on policies related to China, and is currently playing a key role as the two countries try and chalk out a comprehensive disengagement process…
The CSG is a secretary-level grouping which includes the foreign secretary, home secretary, defence secretary, and the vice-chiefs of the three services, along with the chiefs of the Intelligence Bureau and R&AW. The group meets on its own, but the National Security Advisor convenes the meeting from time to time. At such meetings, the service chiefs also attend, and based on the issue at hand, the external affairs minister may also attend.
While the process continues at the border, Indian experts have begun contemplating, sometimes publicly, about what India can do to push China to move forward with disengagement at the border and return to the pre-standoff status quo. The most obvious area where India has been attempting to place such pressure on China is in the economic realm.
On July 23, India announced that it would impose restrictions on government procurement from “bidders from countries which share a land border with India,” citing the need to protect the defense and national security of India. It went on to exempt “countries to which Government of India extends lines of credit or provides development assistance” With Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, and Nepal qualifying for this exemption, it was pretty clear which country would be directly affected by this move. The decision comes on the heels for India’s decision to ban 59 Chinese apps on national security grounds, as well as limit investment from countries which share land borders with India (another indirect way of targeting Chinese investment).
However, others have discussed the possibility of maintaining troops along the LAC for the long haul. Yet others have discussed whether the time has come for military options, either to push China back by force or to engage in a tit-for-tat, where India would attack vulnerable areas along the LAC to force China to pull back in exchange for Indian withdrawal in those new fronts.
We will need to take all of these writings with a grain of salt, particularly as they are based on limited information (compared to what is available to policymakers), and therefore may not reflect the thinking of policymakers. For now, we will need to continue to keep an eye on the disengagement process, and see what the result is of the next meeting of the Corps Commanders scheduled for this week.
Expert Voices:
Dr. Samir Saran, President of the Observer Research Foundation: Letters from Peking: What Galwan Valley taught us this summer
Air Vice Marshal (retd.) Arjun Subramaniam, visiting professor at Ashoka University and the O.P. Jindal Global University: Can counter-coercion work against a belligerent China?
Dr. Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, Distinguished Fellow & Head, Nuclear & Space Policy Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation: This time the US is taking India’s side against China
Dr. Tanvi Madan, Director of the India Project at Brookings Institution, in conversation with Avijit Ghosh of Times of India: ‘United States administrations have seen India as a geopolitical counterbalance to China’
[WEBINAR] Amb. Nirupama Rao, former Foreign Secretary of India, and Jeff Smith, Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation: India-U.S. Realignment: The China Factor
A Discussion on India’s Navy and the Indo-Pacific
A group of three alumni from my alma mater - the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs - recently started a podcast called Geopolitics Rundown, analyzing the biggest headlines in foreign policy every week.
This past weekend, as part of an ongoing series titled “Security Sundays,” the hosts - Hunter Headapohl, Ramya Mukalla, and Ryan Shanahan - invited me to talk about the India’s maritime interests and ambitions in the Indo-Pacific. In the podcast, we discuss India’s interests in theIndo-Pacific, India’s force projections in the Indian Ocean Region, India-China naval competition, and India’s engagement with members of “the Quad.”
You can listen to our conversation on the Geopolitics Rundown website, Spotify, or on the Apple podcasts app. You can also check out the full archive of episodes published by Geopolitics Rundown, and follow the podcast’s account on Twitter here.
News Roundup
The Consumer Protection Act, 2019, which was approved by both houses of parliament during the post-election Budget session in 2019, came into force on July 20th, 2020. The law aims to “empower consumers and help them in protecting their rights” through the establishment of the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) to promote, protect and enforce the rights of consumers, as well as through provisions such as “Consumer Protection Councils, Consumer Disputes Redressal Commissions, Mediation, Product Liability and punishment for manufacture or sale of products containing adulterant / spurious goods.”
The first batch of five Rafale aircraft, purchased for the Indian Air Force, will be inducted at Air Force Station Ambala on July 29.
In related news this week, government sources told Asian News International that the Indian government would use its emergency defense acquisition powers to purchase the Highly Agile Modular Munition Extended Range (HAMMER) missiles from France. The missiles have the capability to take out targets at a range of 60-70km, and would be equipped on the Rafale aircraft.
However, the spokesperson for the Indian Air Force refused to confirm or deny the report.
Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson, Anurag Srivastava, highlighted a “historical milestone” in India-Bangladesh relations as the first ever container cargo from Kolkota reached Agartala in Tripura via Bangladesh’s Chattogram port. Such transport of cargo is likely to reduce the time and distance of cargo headed for India’s northeastern states, leading to “further development of the north eastern region”
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Subordinate Legislation will write to the Ministry of Home Affairs over its failure to notify necessary rules under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), 2019. The The Manual on Parliamentary Work states that the requisite Ministry or Department must frame the necessary rules within six months of the passage of the legislation, or request the Committee on Subordinate Legislation for an extension. The Home Ministry, in this case, has yet to do either, despite the CAA having been passed more than six months ago on December 11, 2019.
The Indian High Commission in Sri Lanka announced that the Reserve Bank of India had signed an agreement to extend a $400 million currency swap facility to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. The agreement is slated to be in force until November 2022.
The Indian Air Force held the first meeting this year of its bi-annual Air Force Commanders’ Conference from July 22-24 to review operational preparedness and outline milestones for the transformation of the IAF over the next decade. Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Bipin Rawat, Chief of the Naval Staff (CNS), Admiral Karambir Singh and Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), General MM Naravane also addressed the Conference to discuss jointness and integrated war fighting.
Indian airline, IndiGo, announced last week that it would layoff 10 percent of its workforce due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The Ministry of External Affairs held its sixth round of Foreign Office consultations with the Spanish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation.
Five to Read
From cogent analysis to potentially big news that you should keep an eye on, here are a few commentaries and other pieces of writing that I found particularly enlightening:
Omar Abdullah, former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and Vice President of the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference, argues: “The special constitutional status enjoyed by J&K was not a favour done to the state. It formed the basis of the state’s accession to India. At a time when states were asked to choose between acceding to India or to Pakistan, religion was the overwhelming determinant. For Muslim-majority J&K to accede and then fight alongside Indian forces to push back Pakistani invaders in 1947 was without parallel. It allowed India to proudly stamp its secular credentials for all to see. All that J&K asked for was to have certain safeguards built in the Constitution to protect this unique status. There was no time stamp on these safeguards.”
Dr. Rohini Pande, Henry J Heinz II professor of economics and director of the Economic Growth Centre at Yale University, Dr. Simone Schaner, assistant professor of economics at University of Southern California, and Dr. Charity Troyer Moore, director for South Asia Economics Research at Yale University’s MacMillan Centre, write: “Like many others, we favour providing food to all who arrive at ration shops seeking it, regardless of identification. Waiting for all systems to be fully operational and online for the One Nation, One Ration Card scheme could cause fatal delays. This is especially critical to ensuring that returning migrant workers without ration cards can access food transfers. In the short-run, it will also ease implementation bottlenecks.”
Ben Thompson, author of Stratechery, a newsletter providing analysis of the strategy and business side of technology and media, writes: “On one hand, Jio brought the Internet to hundreds of millions of Indians that would never have had access, and the benefits of that investment are only going to increase as Jio’s services and partnerships come on line. On the other hand, locking in a monopolistic player, particularly in the context of a government that has shown a desire for more control over the flow of information is a real downside… In a Jio-mediated market it is U.S. tech companies that make less than they would have, and not only does India collect more taxes along the way, Jio’s vision of being a national champion abroad could be a huge win for India in the long run.”
Sylvia Mishra, a researcher based in Washington, D.C., and Hamzah Rifaat, a broadcast journalist based in Islamabad, argue: “Last year’s conflict between India and Pakistan ended peacefully five weeks after it began. However, the global information system of which social media platforms are a part may be remaking the rules of war and contributing new dangers to already unstable relations between the two nuclear powers.”
Amb. Shyam Saran, former Foreign Secretary of India and senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research, writes: “India should not arrive at hasty conclusions and damage its relations with Iran, which remains strategically important. The pursuit of a closer security partnership with the US does not mean that India should follow the US lead on its other important relationships. It has quite rightly remained engaged with Russia even though Russia-China relations are the closest they have been historically and Russia’s confrontation with the US has sharpened further in recent years. The same logic applies to our relations with Iran, which have served as a restraint on Pakistan.”
Thanks for reading this latest edition of Indialogue. Please let me know if you have any thoughts or feedback by emailing me at aman@amanthakker.com.