 Hello and welcome to NewsClick and there's a series of interviews analysing three years of the Modi government. Today we are in conversation with John Charyan, Senior Journalist and Associate Editor at the Frontline Magazine where we will speak with him about foreign policy. John, welcome to NewsClick. Thank you. In the arena of foreign policy, it's said that shifts take place incrementally often over decades because of a big sort of country that India is. If you look at three years off the Modi government, do you see a certain level of continuity with the previous UPA regime or is there some shift that we can glean? Foreign policy under Modi I think is a bigger disaster than it was under Manmohan Singh. Under UPA there was a certain degree of finesse which is lacking under NDA too. When Modi started, you remember he called all the leaders of the South Asian region including Nawaz Sharif for his inauguration. The idea he tried to project was that under him India would have zero problems with its neighbours but that's not the case today. After three years you find that India is having problems with virtually all its South Asian neighbours. Especially the NDA's policy towards Pakistan I think is a total disaster. Kashmir today is in flames and there have been no talks for the last three years with Pakistan. Can you imagine three years without any high-level talks except some photo-off. Under NDA, Kashmir is back into international focus. I mean staying on the point of South Asia, India sort of ensured that the 19th Sark Summit and Pakistan collapse. So Sark seems like it's dead in the water. What is your assessment of the Sark forum itself? This government has indicated that it doesn't give too much importance to Sark. It wants to build up an alternate grouping of countries towards the east of India. Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand. But Sark as an institution I think will continue. It has to continue and it's not the first time that the Sark Summit has been postponed. It has been happening even during the UPI time and before. I think on an average the Sark Summit now takes place once in two years. But the Sark Summit has to be held in Islamabad. So maybe that could provide a breakthrough for talks hopefully. But not many are hopeful about talks taking place during the tenure of Mr. Modi. Talks with Pakistan. What are the sort of most strategic shifts that you see under Modi in terms of India-U.S. relations? You have now apparently India being a major defence partner. You have a logistics agreement. What is all this going on? I think, yeah, I'm assigning of the logistics agreement and virtual granting of military basing facilities. That I think is a dangerous step this government has taken. I don't know if either is true, but there are reports that American naval ships can now dock on the Gujarat coast and they can be serviced. And, you know, there is also talk about Americans being offered lily pad bases in the country. So I think this India government has bent over backwards to be on the right side of Washington. But I think they are again miscalculated because the Trump administration has different priorities, as has been obvious. Ever since he has come to power, he has not even bothered to give an official invitation to Mr. Modi for a visit to Washington. President Xi had a highly publicized summit with him. And the focus of the Trump administration, at least now, is not on the military pivot to the east, which Obama was focusing on. And the Americans needed allies against China. Just to get some more detail on the China point. So for China, clearly India seems to be in the U.S. camp in terms of Asia. And for instance, you have the Belt Road initiative, Conclave happening in Beijing. It's going to conclude today. In spite of getting invitations, India has refused to go citing the China-Pakistan economic corridor and the sort of sovereignty concerns around that. As you remember, the Chinese President Xi was the first, one of the first world leaders to visit India after Modi came over. They had the highly publicized meeting. He only recently again made a statement on Kashmir saying that, you know, they are neutral on the issue. The Chinese ambassador here made a speech saying that they are willing to accommodate India's concern on the Belt Road initiative. So India suddenly, they put up this objection about the Belt Road passing through the disputed territory of Gilgit Baltic Sun. Now, as the Chinese have been pointing out, and that's the only way for the road to pass because there's no other way. And they are not in any way saying that this, that area belongs to Pakistan. And they even were willing to change the name of the, all the countries, major countries in the world were present at the Belt Road summit in Beijing. India was a sole absentee. Even Americans, even the Americans signed a delegation. John, on the issue of West Asia, which you've written much about, the question of Palestine, the ongoing conflict in Syria, do you see any sort of shifts? Has there been any contribution from this government in terms of addressing some of the concerns? Well, the only good thing I can say about this government is that they have not openly taken a stand against the government of Syria. But in practice, they have strengthened relations with countries like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, and of course, Israel. I mean, these are all sworn enemies of Syria. It has not made any statements where, for instance, when America sent its Tomahawk cruise missiles to, against attacking Syria, there were no statements condemning the attack as such. So, India is sitting on the fence as far as Syria is concerned. But relations with Israel have been further strengthened to such an extent that, for the first time, the Indian Prime Minister will be visiting Israel. Israel today has now become the number two arms supplier to India. And India is going to, probably it can even become number one. America, as you know, is now the number one supplier and Russia is number three. And it has, for the first time under the NDA, under this government, India abstained on an issue, on a resolution on Palestine, on human rights issues. Palestinian people and the Arab Street knows that India now is a virtual ally of Israel. John, my last question is about the opportunities that the sort of multipolar world that's evolving, you know, offers to India, which is to reinvigorate forums like the Non-Aligned Movement, the G77. You have BRICS, which is a new constellation of rising powers. The Prime Minister didn't go to the last NAMM summit in Venezuela. There was a 60 years of Bandung summit as well in 2015. India sent a junior delegation. So clearly, you know, you're not sort of putting any efforts into reinvigorating these platforms. I don't think India is serious anymore about multipolar world. It wants, it has somehow come to the conclusion that there's only one superpower, the United States, and it's good to be an ally of the United States. They try to explain it by saying that this is what China did in the late 70s, you know, after Deng Xiaoping opened up and that's one reason why China could, you know, focus on development and then its economy started booming. So they are trying to replicate the Chinese model here, but I don't think that's really possible here in India. I mean, the Chinese case was totally different and China never openly sided with the United States on foreign policy issues. Of course, it did here and there like they supported the Americans in Afghanistan and then Cambodia against the government there at that time, but they never allowed, gave the Americans basing facilities or joined, allowed their troops to use Chinese territory. So, and on BRICS also, I mean, in the last BRICS summit here in Goa, India tried to use that as a platform to attack Pakistan. I mean, and of course, because of the dominant role played by China and Russia in the BRICS grouping, they try to issue statements which call for multiplicity. But the factor of the matter that in BRICS is India is tilting towards Washington, so is Brazil. So, BRICS, you know, I don't know what the future is there for BRICS. Yes, the very fact that Modi didn't bother to attend the NAM summit, India being one of the founder members of NAM, I mean, that speaks volumes. Anyway, this had already started during the Congress-led regime too. I mean, they were also downplaying the NAM movement. But at least they bothered to keep up appearances by sending the Prime Minister to all the NAM summits. So, that's all the time we have, John. Thank you very much for your assessment of the foreign policy record of the Modi government.