By D.C. Pathak 

 

 

IN THE background of India’s clear stand on the Hamas-Israel conflict denouncing the “terror” attack of Hamas on Israel on October 7 last year and endorsing the support of the US for the initial Israeli response to the same, and the country’s independent line on the much older Ukraine-Russia military confrontation, it was no surprise that at the Munich Security Conference, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar faced some searching questions on India’s foreign policy. The EAM did extremely well in detailing India’s policy approach in clear convincing terms, which is a tribute to his grip on India’s international relations as much as it is a confirmation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s successful stand that India’s foreign policy essentially rested on bilateral -- and even multilateral -- bonds meant to serve mutual security and economic interests without prejudicing the cause of world peace and global advancement of human development. S. Jaishankar chose the words “smart policies” to describe India’s handling of international relations in this light and in reply to a reference to “non-alignment” made by the convenor of the session, explaining that the global security environment is not “static” and that ideologically “fixed positions” could only come in the way of evolving a pathway of progress towards solution-finding for complex geopolitical and geoeconomic problems of today.

 

He indicated that being “smart” is being “positive” about serving the country’s national interests without hurting anybody else’s and embracing transparency in policy formulation. S. Jaishankar, in a brilliant exposition, explained that India was not “anti-West but non-West” and affirmed that India’s relationship with the US and Europe was getting strengthened constantly. He highlighted the positive role of India in BRICS and the country’s contribution towards the expansion of G7 into G20 -- all through the process of discussions and meetings -- and succeeded in presenting India as a major independent power helping the cause of world peace and economic development. The Munich Security Conference confirmed that India’s participation was acknowledged by the world as being of crucial importance and that it helped to evolve shared perspectives for leveraging the collaborative effort of India and the US to address common challenges and harness mutual benefits. India and the US, the two largest tested democracies of the world, recognise the importance of working together to save the ‘rules-based order’ at a time when forces of Marxist dictatorship and ‘fundamentalist’ dispensations were joining hands to destabilise the world.

 

India under Prime Minister Modi has been exceptionally successful in countering this trend by pushing up economic development in West Asia to the top of the regional agenda and pitching on the “connectivity” of the Middle East with the rest of the world as a means of furthering that project. India has done the right thing in denouncing the terror attack of Hamas on Israel and calling for caution on the part of Israel so that in its pursuit of Hamas, civilian casualties of the Palestinian population did not throw up a ‘human’ crisis. India also made it clear that it favoured the “two-state solution” in Palestine. India has joined hands with the US and Europe to launch the India-Middle East-Europe economic corridor to promote the cause of global economic growth and check the spread of Islamic radical forces in the region. India has taken an independent-looking stand on the Middle East just as it had shown an upright response to the Ukraine-Russia military conflict, with Prime Minister Modi declaring at the beginning of that confrontation itself that “this is not an era of war” and calling for a cessation of hostilities in favour of talks for peace in which security concerns of both sides would be given due attention.

 

The stand of India has been understood by the world at large. At the Munich Security Conference, S. Jaishankar convincingly reiterated how India’s responses to the Ukraine-Russia and the Israel-Hamas conflicts best served the cause of global peace without letting the old political constructs of “alignment” come in the way. For India, the priority was to constantly seek the betterment of its people through the pursuit of bilaterally useful economic benefits that did not hurt anybody else. Munich has helped -- because of the interventions of S. Jaishankar -- to project India’s foreign policy as the voice of sanity in today’s conflict-prone global scenario.