Indian Politics & Policy Volume 1, Number 1, Spring 2018 | Page 11

Indian Politics & Policy
power) or the nature of the international
system (to be multipolar), and are
further geographically estranged from
the Act East policy’s core focus upon
the wider Indo-Pacific.
Identifying Modi’s Core
Strategic Aims
With the BJP’s ascendancy
to office, India’s Ministry
of External Affairs (MEA)
proclaimed a “renewed energy, vigor,
and planning in India’s engagement
with the rest of the world,” 22 as the tone
of their annual reports became consistently
more self-assured, visionary,
and global in scope. Resolutely reflecting
the pro-activeness associated with
BJP diplomacy, India was presented
as “a confident, articulate, (and) rising
power ... no longer content to merely
react to international developments.” 23
Officials similarly noted how “an India
that aspires to a greater global role must
necessarily have a larger diplomatic
footprint,” 24 a proclamation backed
up by the significant upswing in diplomatic
missions, visits, and summits
under Modi that has exceeded those
of Manmohan Singh during the previous
UPA. This use of personal diplomacy
led scholars to declare that the
new NDA was “a much more decisive
and confident government, which has
injected a new sense of dynamism in
Indian foreign policy.” 25 The NDA was
also less ambivalent in promoting India
internationally, and more explicit
in achieving greater status, recognition,
and power on the global stage. Central
to these arguments was an upswing of
the BJP’s characteristic pragmatism, 26
whereby hard-nosed and nationalist diplomacy
meant that “pragmatism, not
principle, and delivery, not doctrine ...
(are) the marks of Modi’s approach.” 27
The discourse of Indian foreign policy
has become permeated by such a
style/approach under Modi. Strong
personal drive and focus underpins
such an style, whereby—in Modi’s own
words—“‘whichever assignment is given
to me ... I am totally involved in it.
I never think about my past, I never
think about my future’.” 28
Gaining Great Power Recognition
Positioning India within the upper most
tiers of the global hierarchy as one of a
handful of the world’s great powers has
been the first major strategic aim of the
new NDA. Continuing the approach of
his predecessors, Modi is “unabashed
about India’s great power aspiration” 29
in his speeches and exchanges. As he
declared to his supporters in 2014—“‘I
assure you that this country [India] has
a destiny’,” 30 which would play a significant
role in international politics. Nationalist
sentiments have underpinned
such assertions, in combination with a
“self-perception of national and cultural
greatness,” 31 which has become increasingly
prevalent across most major political
groupings in India. Further encapsulating
these narratives, upon gaining
office Modi furthermore decried that
the twenty-first century was to be “‘India’s
century’” 32 during which the state’s
status ambitions would be fulfilled.
Central to being a great power
has been the Indian elites’ augmentation
8