NSG seat or not, Modi's diplomacy must be hailed

It's going right down to the wire. Indian diplomacy has never looked more self-assured and confident.

India is openly taking on China in a manner few states have dared in recent times. By doing so it is laying down new terms for global politics and setting new parameters for Indian foreign policy.

India may or may not get a seat at the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) this week, but Indian diplomacy will never be the same again.

Summit

Foreign secretary S Jaishankar is in Seoul, South Korea, to attend the NSG's plenary meeting scheduled for today and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tashkent to make one final effort to change China's stand on India's entry into the NSG.

India's entry into the 48-member elite nuclear club, whose members can trade in and export nuclear technology, has emerged as the latest battleground in the growing Sino-Indian contestation.

Also read - NSG bid: How India plans to win this round of Chinese checkers

Where the US and other supporting members have called for India's inclusion based on New Delhi's non-proliferation track (NPT) record and the US-India civil nuclear accord, China has made the NPT signature its central argument to scuttle India's' entry.

Beijing is claiming that a "compulsory" requirement for the NSG membership is that "the NSG members must be signatories to the NPT".

Apart from the rhetoric about the NPT, China has also encouraged Pakistan to apply for NSG membership so as to link New Delhi's entry with that of Islamabad's, knowing well that there will be few takers for Pakistan's case.

After consistently refusing to entertain India's case over the past few weeks, China has indicated that it will "play a constructive role in the discussions on India's NSG membership." Taking a swipe at the US, it has argued that "the US is one of those who made the rule that non-NPT countries should not join the Nuclear Suppliers Group".

Pakistan, meanwhile, has already claimed that it has "successfully" blocked India's bid to gain membership of the NSG.

The US has struck back by revealing that entities of the Pakistan Energy Commission (PAEC) have been continuing to supply restricted items and equipment with a direct bearing on the production of nuclear weapons to North Korea in violation of UN sanctions and China has tried to keep this information secret so that it doesn't jeopardise Pakistan's NSG bid.

All to ensure that India does not get an entry into the NSG!

Bureaucracy

Indian diplomacy can claim credit for setting the contours of great power politics today even as it pursues Indian interests with a singular clarity. This is a tribute to the Modi government's deft handling of foreign affairs.

It has managed to energise a risk-averse ossified bureaucracy, which goes into spasms of hyperventilation just hearing the term "lateral entry".

India's foreign policy bureaucracy is realising that a new form of "lateral entry" has forced it to shape up and that's primarily due to Modi and his foreign policy team.

Disruptive

Modi's style of foreign policy has been so disruptive that a new paradigm of diplomacy is being created which will have long-term implications.

Those who criticise that Modi has only brought in a new style of Indian diplomacy and no substantive change has been in the offing should now recognise that stylistic changes in foreign policy have their own logic eventually leading to a new conceptualisation.

As India's dynamic diplomacy on the NSG issue underscores, Modi's style is already having a significant impact and will gradually end up overturning long-held shibboleths of the country's foreign policy.

Also read - Foolish to even think China will support India's NSG bid

If India succeeds in getting an entry into the NSG, it will be a feather in the cap of the Modi government.

If it fails due to China's obstinacy, it would have revealed to the world - and Indians - that China has no intention of accommodating Indian aspirations.

For India's traditionally conservative foreign policy, it's not a bad place to be in.

But more heartening is the fact that India is finally proactively shaping global outcomes, not merely reacting to the actions of the others.

(Courtesy of Mail Today.)