 Hello, and welcome to News Clicks International Roundup. On May 26, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's NDA government competed four years in power. To talk more about the performance of the government in the field of international affairs, we have with us Praveer Purkayasar, founding editor of News Clicks, Mr. Praveer. So Praveer, Modi's government over the past four years, the kind of publicity it has done has actually talked a lot about how India's prestige on the global stage has increased, it has become a global player. Is there any truth to it at all? You know, India's always been a global player, even when it has been in a much weaker economic and military political position, if you will. Just after independence, India should have been a relatively backward country. It didn't have the kind of clout, for instance, the global powers had, including the big colonial powers in France, of course, UK, and Soviet Union and the United States at the time. India really played a far bigger role than what its, otherwise, what its economic size we have given it at that point of time. Of course, in terms of population, it was always very big. What we see is over repeated of time, India has actually seeded a lot of its global credibility, if you will, global manoeuvrability, if you will, and certainly the kind of voice it had in international affairs, India, in fact, hardly makes a noise on any of the big issues that take place in the world today, whether it's Ukraine, whether it is Syria, whether it is Iran, whether it is, of course, Israel and Palestine, even if it makes certain noises, for instance, when it did about the South China Sea and all. It appears to be very much related to India's immediate concern and shall we say narrow maneuvering within a certain space. So, I think it's fair to say that India today seems to count for far less than it did in earlier years. Even if we say 20 years, 25 years back, if you take the WTO negotiations, international issues, there was a sort of G77 group, which India was a much more important player. And it is because it headed, if you will, along with a certain other countries, that it headed this G77, it was able to make its voice heard. Over a period of time, and this is really the huge number of so-called strategic experts who seem to be in various think tanks created by the United States have been arguing, India should look after its self-interest, trying to talk about non-alignment, G77 is not the issue. It should look as if it is only itself and see what's the best bargain it can reach. So, it gave up its international clout for the so-called bargain that it could reach within countries like that. So, I think the decline of you were India as an international force is really predicated on this self-interest model that it is developed and that it should bargain with different countries. And close to 1990, with the fall of the socialist bloc, in the belief that therefore, it should come close to the United States is only global hegemony. Modi initially did try to do certain things, but it continued with this aligning itself with the United States. We know that a large number of agreements have been signed. It is the largest number of groups that have been set up to discuss each other's integration if you will. It, militarily it has signed on to some documents, some agreements which seem to be integrated itself within the United States larger military framework and it is negotiating right now with the United States for a further integration with what is called the ability to look at how the satellite signals will be used which also makes nonsense of what it is setting up itself its own geospatial satellites that it has sent up. And then also being able to integrate this communication infrastructure, military communication infrastructure within that of the United States, both of which are extremely dangerous in a long term sense. So, I think one part of it is giving up its strategic vision and second part of it deciding that with the most powerful military player in the United States, it needs to integrate as much as it can. In the last few months, there is a recognition that United States is willing to take from India, integrate it, but it is not going to give much in return. So, given that scenario whether it United States can give or not give is a different issue, but certainly not doesn't seem to be willing to give much in return and in fact, the ratcheting of the screws and various other issues. So, I think there is a belated recognition of that and therefore, some independent moves now to not cling so close to the US court tales which particularly after the first year's first year was very visible in the next, second, third year and much of the fourth year. Only now I think last three months, we seem to see a little more flexibility in India's policy and therefore, talking with China on the issue of Palestine, though it is supported Israel broadly, but it is also voted against it on the issue of Jerusalem. Some attempts to retrieve some lost ground as it were, but broadly it still remains very close to United States and is certainly not willing to take responsibility for any independent position of itself in world affairs and that I think is the basic reason why the Modi foreign policy has I think largely put India in a much worse situation than when he began. And you mentioned Israel right now for instance, so the Modi government is really accelerated and strengthened ties with Israel and this marks a very drastic shift from the previous Congress government maybe, but from the previous decades of Indian policy on this issue. Is there any likelihood of recovery in this area as far as we are concerned or are we headed towards even further strengthening of ties with Israel? Well I think the distinct shift in the Modi government has made that it has identified Zionism and Hindutva as twin entities which therefore need to support each other. So it is an ideological aligning that it has done, the fact it has gone to founding fathers of Israel, it has talked about therefore of things it shares with Israel and really what it shares with Israel is the identity, the Jewish identity as a basis of nationalism. So any Jew anywhere as you know in the world can be a citizen of Israel, but somebody who has stayed in that piece of land for 2000 years is alien by the definition that Israel would like to have because they are saying it is basically a Jewish state. So this kind of things of the Jewish state versus the what Hindutva would like to create in India as a Hindu state, the obvious shall be say matching of wavelengths, this is what I think distinguishes this government from its earlier governments. As we know Israel has successfully corrupted our defense procurement system, there have been enough cases of this count, people have been arranged, there have been cases abroad including in Israel on the corruption that Israel armed forces industry has done in India, but in spite of that the pace at which it continues to buy arms seems only to increase. So that is the other part that we see and also abandoning some of India's independent attempts to develop technology not in all areas, but certainly in certain areas like for instance in the missiles. We must also understand this integration with the United States is also facilitated by integration with Israel because Israel and the United States have a very close and integrated armaments industry. So in fact what is happening is the A team, B team model that you buy from US directly you also buy from the B team of the United States which is Israel as a whole bunch of arms and then of course you are dependent on both of these for any serious future engagement. Interestingly Russia which has been a major supplier of arms and it has been shown recently that the Russian arms are quite good. In fact in Syria they have shown that their air defense system is probably better than anything else in the world has seen. It has been able to intercept two-thirds of the missiles that were launched essentially launched by the Israelis using mostly American arms, all of that it was able to two-thirds of it was able to intercept into the Tomahawk missiles, the cruise missiles. So I think that we are really going in for a far more expensive procurement process while Russia has 10% of the budget of the United States. So talking of another global player India's relationship with China has also been very uneven during this period. I mean there is with the Doklam standoff was there and also even China's attempts at what do you call expanding or say increasing its zone of influence through the One Belt One Road initiative. India has been one of the countries which has stayed away from even the possibility of further trade relations. So is it a sustainable method of going forward maintaining this stance of confrontation with China or not confrontation at least lack of engagement? What we have seen in this period is almost the absence of the foreign office and its preparations creating a certain set of issues which we will engage with and then the visit. Instead Modi seems to decide today I need to make a foreign visit decides which country he has to go to and then visits the country. I think he has made many more visits than any other Prime Minister in the past. Fifty-three countries so far. The number of kilometres travelled, etc., etc. In Chinese case it was interesting that he thought a personal summit will solve all the issues and this Charm offensive will actually bring India dividends. Big countries do not operate on the basis. There are small players who are sort of overwhelmed by Charm and the red carpet and shall we say the atmospheric that you build around the visit. They are really looking at what are the issues? How do you engage? What do we engage on? And how far should we go? These are the hard headed calls that any country makes. In particular the size of India and China that is the way we should expect any engagement to take place. The first visit took place. The first state visit took place. It was the banks of Sabarmati and Ahmedabad. All these discussions are going on. We had a standoff at that very instance on the India-China border. And that led to very bad shall we say outcome that nothing really happened. Why did we have that standoff? What were the reasons for it? Was it something which was avoidable? Was it something that the Chinese had done? Was it something that we had done? That still remains to be seen. But it is unlikely that both sides should have had such a high visibility visit and that there was something which caught in the way which could not be stopped. Even there was something that had happened. I think there was enough at that point of time preparation we could have made to see that this does not derail the visit. Then we had the Doklam standoff which as you know did mean India got some cosmetic shall we say gestures from China. But on the ground we have accepted what the Chinese were saying all along. That is more or less there. And after Doklam we tried to play tough. We tried to get in with the United States, talked even of quadrilateral arrangements. Though we did issue separate press statements from the other partners of the quad as it were. I think the Belt Road Initiative is one of the most important economic initiatives of the Eurasian continent. It is something unlike a sea trade. It needs cooperation between all the countries participating because if one country does it then the entire Belt Road can at that point of time become a bottleneck. So, this also makes it much more of a cooperative venture than what other trading ventures would be which as I said on the sea you have a direct access with the sea is supposed to be open sea. So, I think India has made a big mistake of keeping out of it thinking that they will not be a part of a trading block like this which will be created around this Belt Road Initiative. But they will be able to create a separate block by themselves. You know our road initiative for instance with Burma, Myanmar is not really, we are not covering ourselves with glory. It is not proceeding the way it should have been. Myanmar is telling us keep please do something. Why is the road not being built? We keep on telling them every year another two years. So, this gets on getting postponed. Well the Chinese actually do deliver. We have the same issue in Sri Lanka. We do not deliver on the promises we make. It gets postponed and then we find all kinds of reasons why they we cannot do it anymore. But China seems to deliver on its promises. So, already we have that credibility gap in question. India was supposed to have a road to Burma, Myanmar and connect to Southeast Asia. But the Burma route is not taking place. We have to understand that if there is competition there is also cooperation. And I do not think international relations today it is an either or principle. Almost all countries compete as well as collaborate. India on China went into post-Doclam even before on to this tough stance military promise. We will you know talk about we can fight a two front war while at the same time we say that we do not have enough ammunition to last two weeks. All of this is not making India's position with China very shall we say very cordial. India's external affairs ministry has been more or less sidelined in the Modi's foreign tours. And that's also one of the reasons the preparation, the support, the professionalism which the Indian external affairs ministry has has not been put to use. I hope at least in China's case that changes. And actually on a related note, one of the fascinating or interesting aspects of Modi's foreign policy has been in a negative sense of course about how he's basically used foreign policy and foreign trips to pursue domestic politics. And no other Indian Prime Minister so far has done that. All his foreign trips have been extended campaign meetings so to speak. So that's actually a very dangerous trend which has very problematic effect for both for domestic and foreign policy actually. Well I think there's another part of it which also needs to be said that when it goes to England foreign states it is to the shall we say the overseas Indian community. When it goes to United States it's the overseas American Indian community. So Modi's foreign policy seems to be directed more at the diaspora than at the at the foreign powers themselves. And other part of it is the belief that if you go and talk nice then people will be nice with you. In the whole shall we say the belief that foreign policy is about your self-interest as a country and what is it that you want from others and what they will give you depends where their self-interest and our self-interest coincides. Of course a very narrow view. There is a larger view. What is your position in world affairs? How do you look at other countries? How do you look at global affairs? But I think you are right that Modi has tended to see foreign policy very much to an internal policy prism and therefore how much mileage you will get at home and how much mileage he will get to the overseas Indians which has been a very strong BJP constituency and who have also given in a huge amount of money in terms of shall we say election funds in terms of supporting the various BJP organizations on the ground. So that constituency is what seems to be nurturing as much as India's foreign policy. Thank you Praveen. That's all we have time for today. Keep watching us. Click.