It may now seem a distant memory, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first foreign policy initiative in 2014 was potentially a tactical and diplomatic masterstroke: inviting leaders of all the South Asian nations to his oath-taking ceremony. It signalled a desire for India to act as a magnet for South Asian regional unity. Eleven years later, any hope of a revival in the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) has evaporated as internal politics, nationalist fervour, economic distress and mutual antagonisms re-surface in unimagined ways. In the process, the Modi government’s much-hyped ‘Neighborhood First’ sloganeering lies in tatters.
Take the latest example of the violent protests ravaging Nepal, a country beset with chronic instability for over a decade now. Since 2015, when a new constitution came into force, Nepal has seen as many as nine governments, with a tenth one on the horizon. Poverty, unemployment, corruption and misgovernance are a deadly mix that has caused a volcanic eruption of mob fury, which has singed the Himalayan republic. New Delhi’s foreign policy mandarins may not readily admit it but the scale and intensity of the protests led by the country’s youthful demographic has clearly caught the Modi government off guard.
It may again seem like a fading memory but Nepal was the second foreign country (Bhutan was the first) the peripatetic Modi visited as prime minister. The images of the Prime Minister praying at the Pashupatinath temple went instantly viral: it was seen as emblematic of a Hindutva-centric leadership that was intent on retracing the deep religious and cultural roots between the two nations. It did not take long for the well-choreographed optics to give way to harsh realities.
A five-month unofficial ‘blockade’ of the Indo-Nepal border in 2015-16 was seen by many Nepalis as a wrongful attempt by New Delhi to dictate terms to Kathmandu. It soured relations to the point where Nepal even attempted to redraw the map and extend its territorial claims across the border. The escalatory moves reflect just how Nepal’s politicians have periodically fuelled anti-India politics for local cross-party support.
In a sense, Nepal’s GenZ protests mirror what unfolded in Bangladesh last July. If in Nepal, a social media ban was the trigger point, in Bangladesh, student anger against a reservation policy in civil services rapidly spilled onto the streets and eventually led to the ouster of the long-serving but increasingly authoritarian government of Sheikh Hasina. Like in Kathmandu, in Dhaka too, simmering public discontent against corruption and nepotism transformed into a wider anti-elite, anti-establishment movement for change.
Here again, the Modi government, which had invested considerable political equity in the Hasina government, suddenly found itself on the backfoot, not having foreseen the dramatic turn of events. The rise of radical Islamist forces with a strident anti-India, even anti-Hindu vocabulary, meant that New Delhi was trapped in its own ideological positioning. Did a government accused by its critics of pushing a Hindu majoritarian worldview really have the moral standing to remind Bangladesh of the urgent need to restore ‘secular’ values and protect its Hindu minority population?
Not surprisingly, more than a year since the 2024 uprising, New Delhi has struggled to reset its ties with Dhaka, the lingering presence of Sheikh Hasina on Indian soil posing a further challenge to any attempt at rebuilding ties with a suspicious, if not hostile neighbour.
Let us now switch to Sri Lanka, another nation in the neighbourhood, which has seen much upheaval in recent times. Here too, a corrupted political establishment when pitched against ballooning inflation, fuel shortages and a deepening economic crisis was forced to beat a hasty retreat. The Rajapakshe brothers, seemingly in absolute control of the island nation, were literally pushed out of the country almost overnight: images of the Presidential Palace being taken over by citizen protestors were symbolic of just how even the most powerful of regimes are vulnerable to a mass agitation. Here, the Modi government, again initially blindsided – Prime Minister Modi had built a strong personal equation with the Rajapakshe family – was at least able to recover a measure of political saliency by stepping in quickly to financially assist a beleaguered economy.
While India isn’t directly responsible for the travails of the aforementioned nations, the diplomatic standoff with tiny Maldives in 2024 was entirely avoidable. Hyper-nationalistic social media armies of the ruling party directed their ire at the Maldivian government led by Mohamed Muizzu, almost pushing Male to embrace a dangerous ‘India Out’, ‘China In’ platform. While Muizzu’s anti-India rhetoric was needless provocation, the call for a travel boycott of Maldives led by celebrities and netizens was a worrying example of using social media to politicise sensitive foreign policy issues only to cater to jingoistic domestic constituencies.
The recent visit of Prime Minister Modi to Maldives suggests a welcome dialing down of the heat, but the friction is a reminder of just why India needs to avoid excessive bombast even in dealing with the smallest of the nations.
Which leaves one to address the more familiar and perennial ‘enemy’ across the LOC. Undeniably, Pakistan’s sponsoring of cross-border terror as an instrument of state policy has been primarily responsible for upending South Asian regional solidarity. The Modi government’s approach to Islamabad has veered between unexpected bouts of ‘dosti’ – recall the Modi-Sharif hug-fest in Lahore in December 2015 – to an escalatory spiral of retaliation where every terror attack is now to be treated as an ‘act of war’.
Pakistan is a seemingly irredeemable failed state, unable to extricate itself from the army-jihadi trap. But Pakistan’s shenanigans cannot mask the failure of New Delhi to build a coherent and inclusive South Asia policy that focuses on shared interests and thereby wield greater influence in the region. For a country that has ambitious plans of leading the Global South and become a forceful voice on the global high table, the constant upheaval in the neighbourhood poses a genuine challenge.
India’s claims to be a ‘Vishwaguru’ (or Global Teacher) needs an urgent reset: instead of this overarching desire for Western world affirmation, keep a firm ear to the ground to what is happening closer home. Neither bullying nor benign neglect towards border nations is a viable option in an uncertain world.
(Rajdeep Sardesai is a senior journalist and author.)
