Comment by Riaz Haq on June 20, 2023 at 8:31pm

India, US need to refresh ties in new world of ‘frenemies’, says Jaishankar | Latest News India

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/india-us-need-to-refresh-...

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday said India and the United States will need to “refresh” ties as the old globalized world order built after 1945 gives way to an emerging arrangement marked by a “proliferation of frenemies”, friends who differ and competitors who cooperate.

The minister said the emerging order will be “multipolar” and “intensely competitive and driven by balance of power” instead of one based on “shared endeavours” and “collective security”. Competing powers will work together based on “convergence” of interests, not “congruence”.

The new era, the minister said, “calls for both India and the United States to press the refresh button of their relationship as the really important relationships in the world are the less transactional ones. They are driven by global assessments and are based on strengthening each other”.

Jaishankar did not explain what about the current state of India-US ties had prompted his call for hitting the refresh button, but he went on to express confidence in the state of the relationship.



“Recent events in our ties confirm that the deep convergences developed over the last two decades are now in full play. I am confident that a strategic appreciation of the emerging global landscape would only bring us closer.”



India’s relations with the US have been more transactional on President Donald Trump’s watch than in the past, as is true for all the other US relations.

The two sides are negotiating a trade deal to end current and outstanding issues going back by decades. They have also sought to manage competing interests regarding India’s traditional ties with Russia and Iran, one an arch-rival and the other a sworn enemy.

Jaishankar, who is highly regarded as a strategic thinker and is well known in US academia and policy circles, was speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a leading US think-tank, on “Preparing for a Different Era”, and his vision of a changing world order.

The foreign minister has had a series of think-tank events at which he has spoken expansively on all aspects of international relations with India in the middle — the US, Europe, China, the Gulf and the neighborhood. The host of one of them — not the CSIS — remarked the minister’s pronouncements could be the start of “the Jaishankar Doctrine”.

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 22, 2023 at 4:27pm

India may soon be forced to choose between Brics and the West


https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3231774/india-may-soon...

India has so far managed to stick to its non-aligned policy, but with China’s vision looking to win out in the Brics grouping, it will have to pick a side
If it chooses the West, New Delhi will stand on the wrong side of history, while Brics could benefit from the inclusion of Iran

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India’s foreign policy embodies elements of the thought of Chanakya, the philosopher and statesman from 300 BC, whose realist ideals helped create the first pan-Indian empire. His interpretation of human nature often led to a pragmatic but pessimistic outlook on the state’s functioning, one in which the national interest was key.


In his Arathshastra, he elucidated his Rajamandala theory, which sheds light on India’s foreign policy. He recommended forming alliances with countries surrounding the state’s hostile neighbours and preventing them from becoming too powerful and threatening its security.


There are echoes of this approach in Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s statement that, “this is a time for us to engage America, manage China, cultivate Europe, reassure Russia, bring Japan into play, draw neighbours in, extend the neighbourhood, and expand traditional constituencies of support”. He says India’s foreign policy today involves advancing its national interests by “exploiting opportunities created by global contradictions”.


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The loss of India may only be a short-term concern as Iran could be a valuable replacement for the “I’ in Brics. Iran shares many of the same concerns as China and Russia as it has borne the brunt of US-led isolationist tactics. Tehran has drawn closer to Moscow and expanded defence and economic ties, making it a key stakeholder for any alternative global framework.
India faces a crucial decision in the next decade: either embrace China’s mutually beneficial approach or risk being caught in a zero-sum game orchestrated by the US. Attempting to have it both ways is not a viable long-term strategy, and following an ancient playbook will relegate it to the pages of history.
Sameed Basha is a defence and political analyst with a master’s degree in international relations from Deakin University, Australia

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 12, 2023 at 8:21am

#Modi’s #India no Friend of the West . Biggest aspect of #Hindutva is “xenophobia. It may be muted “when and where the military and political strength of the foreigner” is overwhelming but thrives on an “incessant campaign of slander and denigration" #G20

by Pankaj Mishra

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/11/modi-s-new-india...

India is, suddenly, Bharat, and it could be asked, as Shakespeare wrote, what’s in a name? But Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who embraced the Sanskrit name for his country in the same week that he played lavish host to the G-20 summit in New Delhi, is trying hard to project India as a “vishwaguru” (guru to the world). It is time to examine his claims more closely, and also to see the present and the future of his “New India” without comforting illusions.

Take, for instance, the booklet, “Bharat, the Mother of Democracy,” presented by Modi’s government to visiting dignitaries at the G-20. According to it, ancient Hindu sages and kings were partisans of equality, inclusivity, and harmony. Even modern feminism was anticipated by the 5,000-year-old bronze statue of an “independent and liberated” dancing girl.

Such claims are part of an elaborate narrative that is decisively shaping the outlook of many Indians today — one in which a once-dynamic Hindu civilization was ravaged by vicious Muslims and exploitative Westerners.


In Modi’s own account, Hindus were enslaved by Muslim invaders for 750 years and then for an additional 250 years by white British colonialists — a version of history used in India today to justify the degradation of Muslim and Christian minorities, the destruction of mosques and British-built buildings, the purging of textbooks, and now the unofficial renaming of India.

Modi’s own popularity, unconnected to his party’s variable fortunes, stems from what is a potent promise in a country full of humiliated peoples: to destroy the corrupt old political order and, as he put it in his Independence Day speech last month, to ensure a fully modernized New India enjoys a “golden” period “for the next 1,000 years.”

Such millenarian bombast — also echoed in the speeches of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping — belongs to a longer tradition of anti-Western demagogues proclaiming themselves heirs to distinguished ancient civilizations, including the Germans and Italians who sought to build the Thousand-Year Reich and the Third Rome, respectively.

It is a common mistake to suppose that German and Italians Fascists rejected modernity in favor of an idealized past. On the contrary, they pursued, often with help of Western nations they derided as “decadent,” ultra-modern technologies, modernist architectural plans, advanced transport systems and awesome public works. Like Hindu nationalists today, they used mass media, sporting events, and scientific breakthroughs to raise the pitch of collective emotion and project the image of a united and resurgent people.

Of course, since technological and military power still clearly lay with Britain, France and the US, the peoples failing to catch up with the West tried to feel superior to it in the realm of culture and philosophy. Invoking their great ethnic or racial past even as they sought grandiosely to supervise the future of the modern world, they became exemplars of what the American historian Jeffrey Herf has called “reactionary modernism.”

Presenting ancient Indians as pioneering democrats and feminists (also, the world’s earliest plastic surgeons), Modi belongs to this extended family of catch-up nationalists. His nation, too, seeks to blend neo-traditionalism with modernization while measuring itself, with volatile feelings of insecurity and resentment, against a weakened but still superior West.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 23, 2024 at 9:00am

Pakistan’s potential BRICS entry seen as benefiting China at India’s expense

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3279471/pakistans-p...

In November 2023, Pakistan submitted a request to join Brics this year. If successful, China might use Pakistan’s entry to further Beijing’s interests, Sharma said.

“India started its diplomatic initiatives such as the Global South Summit and got support for its cause from Western countries like the US, Italy and Germany, and groupings like the EU and G7, unlike China,” Sharma said.

“Therefore, China sees India as a growing competitor in this space. Hence, with Pakistan’s inclusion, China will try to block India’s positions as a proponent of Global South interests,” he added.

Saheli Chattaraj, an assistant professor of Chinese studies at Somaiya Vidyavihar University, said China started the process of expanding Brics when it served as the bloc’s chair in 2022, a move supported by Russia.

“This move might have many implications. Brics as a grouping has often been a China-centric group, often primarily pursuing anti-US agendas,” Chattaraj said.

“Russia’s support for Pakistan to enter Brics means Pakistan would be a part of one of the greatest emerging economic cooperation groupings, which implies that China would also have more leverage to push its agendas within the grouping with one extra member’s support,” she added.

Russia will hold the Brics summit in Kazan from October 22 to 24. With the country holding the Brics presidency this year, Moscow would focus on furthering the bloc’s partnerships in politics and security, the economy and finance, and cultural and humanitarian ties, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov told state news agency TASS in March.

As of 2023, the original five Brics countries represent 40 per cent of the world’s population and 31.5 per cent of global gross domestic product, surpassing the G7 nations’ 30.7 per cent share, according to a report published in March last year by the news analysis website countercurrents.org, citing data from the macroeconomic research company Acorn Macro Consulting.

Under Brics rules, leaders of the founding countries will decide on new membership applications after full consultation and consensus.

If India were to object to Pakistan’s application, it was hard to see how the rules could be circumvented, said Antoine Levesques, a Research Fellow for South and Central Asian Defence, Strategy and Diplomacy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). The pace of Islamabad’s membership could be “slow and conditional”, Levesques told This Week in Asia.

Pakistan had an interest in seeking closer ties with Russia and China, the latter of which was already one of its top trading partners even as it sought more engagement with the US, Levesques said.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 23, 2024 at 9:13am

Pakistan and BRICS: An inevitable development to US inattention
Why should Islamabad continue to beg for favors from an inattentive and even hostile Washington, especially when there is another global pole that looks politically and economically more inviting?

By F.M. Shakil


https://thecradle.co/articles-id/26968

Is Pakistan about to join the BRICS in earnest? Is it stepping off its US-centric trajectory and reassessing its foreign policy priorities in response to Washington’s increasing interest in cozying up to India – or is there a tactic in play to force the Americans to revert attention back to Islamabad?

Experts and scholars believe that Pakistan is walking a tightrope and cannot afford to rock the boat right now, especially when it finds itself in dire need of financial support from its traditional partners. This is a critical moment for the economically depleted South Asian nuclear power. By all accounts, the US appears to have moved on from this relationship – for one, it no longer relies on Pakistan's assistance since pulling out of Afghanistan following a deal with the Taliban in Doha.

In truth, the change in the US's stance toward Pakistan has left the country out in the cold, to the point where even Afghanistan has started to bite the hand that fed it so long and afforded the Taliban to take the reins in Kabul, not once, but twice.

To counterbalance China's growing influence in the region, in recent years, the US has quickly sought out a closer strategic partnership with India, especially in defense and security matters. Islamabad has not weathered the American approach to India well, particularly considering India's efforts to strengthen its position in Afghanistan and its aspiration for dominance in South Asia and beyond.

Dr. Syed Hussain Shaheed Soherwordi, Chairman of the Department of International Relations at the University of Peshawar, tells The Cradle that Pakistan’s financial woes, internal strife, growing religious intolerance, and political instability leave the country in a bit of a pickle, making it tough to find solid ground for navigating its foreign policy in the current geopolitical landscape.

"There might be a few hiccups and tweaks along the way, in line with the daily ups and downs, but they can't really be called a policy shift in the grand scheme of things," he noted.

Soharwordi points out that when it comes to Pakistan's financial and economic problems, the US holds the cards in the global monetary institutions that are crucial lifelines for Islamabad:

"As the saying goes, a beggar can't be a chooser; right now, Pakistan is in a tight spot with no room to maneuver during this crucial moment when its economy is scraping the bottom of the barrel."

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Even though Indian officials did not publicly react to Islamabad's declaration, Pakistan may face tough resistance from some founding BRICS members, including India, which, according to Mushahid Hussain Sayed, chairperson of Pakistan Senate’s foreign affairs committee, may play a "spoiler" over Pakistan's application for membership. Not that this is something new.

"India will always have challenges, whether in politics, diplomacy, or cricket. But they are not the sole player in the game,” Mushahid told a media outlet. India's alliance with the American or Israeli camp is more evident in the current Middle East conflict than it is in the larger global south. India is on the wrong side of history when you consider the big picture, he added.

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 26, 2024 at 9:40am

India makes it clear it's not interested in a Western alliance
As the dispute over assassination plots lingers, the Modi government rebuffs U.S. attempts to woo India

Evan Dyer · CBC News · Posted: Oct 25, 2024 1:00 AM PDT | Last Updated: October 25

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/india-china-canada-u-s-nijjar-pann...

A meeting Wednesday between India's Narendra Modi and China's Xi Jinping in Kazan, Russia, was the first in five years, and will likely be viewed with dismay in Washington, Ottawa and other Western capitals.

While it probably doesn't mark the beginning of a new Beijing-New Delhi axis, it does seem to signal that India is not about to sign on to an anti-Beijing Western alliance either, despite the best efforts of the U.S. and some other countries to persuade it to do so.

"Would the U.S. be disappointed? I imagine," said Sanjay Ruparelia, a close observer of the Modi government who teaches at Toronto Metropolitan University. "I don't think publicly they would express it, but privately."

Ruparelia said U.S. relations with India have always been complicated, and that complexity has always required the U.S. to split the relationship into silos.

"On the one hand, ties have grown despite many disagreements, and quite serious ones. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, most importantly," he said.

"But you know, we've seen in the last year a new agreement on critical emerging technologies. You've seen growing defence and security partnerships. [U.S.] President Biden was reportedly the third leader in history to have his Indian counterpart at his own private residence. And that was this year — after the FBI foiled the plot to allegedly kill Mr. (Gurpatwant Singh) Pannun."

Most recently, the U.S. signed a deal to sell India Predator drones, the primary weapons used by the U.S. in its own campaigns of extraterritorial killing targeting such groups as al-Qaeda and Islamic State.

"And I'm not surprised by that," said Ruparelia. "I mean, the U.S. is the great power and they practice realpolitik more than any other power in the world."

Ruparelia said that while he takes the RCMP's statement that they have evidence linking agents of the Indian government to homicides and other acts of violence in Canada "seriously," the U.S. government clearly has "compartmentalized the issue" in order to continue working with India.

Murder claims may take a back seat to larger issues
There are multiple factors at work in Modi's decision to seek rapprochement with China. But the tensions with the West over India's alleged program of assassinating dissidents in Canada and the U.S. could not have helped to sell him on the idea of ditching India's traditional non-alignment and jumping into an alliance with the countries that have accused him.

At the same time, the geopolitical stakes between nations as large and powerful as the U.S., India, China and Russia all but ensure that the assassination allegations will end up taking a back seat to other, bigger considerations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, host of this year's BRICS summit, will be delighted with the meeting between Xi and Modi in Russia and may seek to take some of the credit.

Putin was careful to seat himself between the Indian and Chinese leaders, offering a visual symbol of his role as facilitator of their coming-together, said Prof. Ho-fung Hung of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

"This kind of photo-op meeting, in which Putin is showing up side by side with all these world leaders, is a win for Putin because it's a kind of defiance of the U.S. attempt to isolate Russia," he said. "Putin can show to people back home that actually [he has] friends, and Russia has friends, despite all these U.S. efforts. So the U.S. is failing in isolating Russia."

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