Successive governments under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to build India’s external identity by combining two elements — India cannot tolerate any threat to its territorial integrity and sovereignty whereas it firmly believes in Basudheiba Kutumbakam to bolster ties with all friendly powers and it can assume a role of a Spiritual Guru to solve global issues and concerns considering its rich ancient cultural resources. However, India’s image under Modi has been confronting a conflict between the country’s projections of its image and its perceptions in the international community.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has formed government in India following 2024 General Elections. The party’s leader Narendra Modi has become the Prime Minister of the country for third consecutive time. The leader is second in attaining this remarkable feat after the first Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru. However, this time, it is a coalition government that has come to power following the mandate of 2024 General Elections. The impacts may be positive so far as the checks and balances on Prime Minister Modi led government’s centralizing propensities and right-wing proclivities are concerned. This may further build on and bolster Prime Minister Modi’s positive attainments towards greater international engagements and economic development along with corroborating India’s image within the international community. The flipside could be an unstable and weak government unable to assert India’s identity in international platforms.
While Modi’s government in its successive phases tried to send a strong message that it cannot tolerate any threat to its territorial integrity and sovereignty to forge its external identity primarily in relation to China and Pakistan, but at the larger level it sought to communicate that it firmly believes in Basudheiba Kutumbakam (world is a family) when its role as a leader of Global South or its participation on global issues was needed. Its external identity also included the ambition to become Biswa Guru – India needs to lead the world in the spiritual sphere due to repository of vast cultural resources in its rich civilization.
The unexpected surgical strike launched on the Pakistani side of the border during Modi’s regime in 2016 fed into the narrative that it is Modi who can put the threat of cross-border terrorism at bay. Similarly, the abrogation of Article 370 and integration of the province of Jammu and Kashmir as a union territory in 2019 also corroborated the perceptions that Modi can defend India’s territorial integrity by engaging in a tit for tat situation.
The BJP’s successive governments under Prime Minister Modi kept criticizing the Congress party over Nehru’s foreign policy regarding Pakistan and China arguing India kept paying a horrific price for the leader’s idealistic foreign policy which paved the way for the two countries’ illegal and forcible occupation of the Indian territory. The party blamed Nehru for prioritizing his own self-image over national interest. The BJP’s successive governments under Modi have been able to engender a perception that it is Modi’s leadership that can effectively counter the aggressive behaviour of these countries by engaging in tough military projection of power. India’s tough military posture during the Doklam standoff with China forcing the latter to withdraw from construction activities and its successful mobilization of global public opinion against Pakistani sponsored terrorism in international platforms strengthened such perceptions among many Indians. While less number of Indians would like to know about greater details of India’s foreign policy, they take note of the country’s foreign policy measures during critical junctures especially vis-a-vis Pakistan and China. As per the CSDS Lokniti Survey data many Indians gave credit to Prime Minister Modi for the Balakot air strikes, and among them a very large majority wanted Modi to continue as the Prime Minister and therefore voted for the BJP in the 2019 elections.
As the Non-Alignment foreign policy of Nehru which provided India with a distinctive identity in the global platforms has become irrelevant with the end of the Cold War, it is Modi who has successfully projected the country with a civilizational identity. The BJP government under Modi has innovated India’s foreign policy by infusing it with civilizational values as reflected in initiatives from Buddhist diplomacy to efforts to use Hindu sociocultural terms to promote solidarity among developing economies.
Successive Modi governments keep arguing that India needs to become a Vishwaguru as ordained by its rich civilizational resources. According to Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, the current External Affairs Minister this implied India’s desire for a ‘leading power’ status in contemporary international relations—a power equipped with a clear vision of how international affairs ought to be organized, not merely a power that accepts.
Similarly, Basudhaiba Kutumbakam, another phrase extracted from India’s ancient cultural resources has been successfully utilized by Modi’s consecutive governments to bolster ties with significant players in global politics and build collective synergies to address global issues.
These innovative usage of semantics culled from India’s rich cultural heritage along with emphasis on other aspects of the country’s civilizational resources such as Yoga and Ayurveda accompanied by Modi’s unprecedented oratory skills and style of presentation at global platforms helped India assume leadership positions in G-20 and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and many other platforms representing Global South while building robust relations with the powers of the Global North as well.
Prime Minister Modi’s consecutive regimes have attempted to create national identity around a host of ideas which included beefing up internal as well as external security through unity, law and order by imbibing masculine virtues, military preparedness and economic performance. But the party under his leadership believes foreign policy does not aim at security alone. There are many global issues and concerns which can only be addressed by invoking spiritual resources such as Vasudhaiba Kutumbakam, Yoga, Ayurveda and India can be an effective guide (Vishwaguru) in this context.
The Equation between Projections and Perceptions Forms Identity
However, the challenges to India’s identity formation are nevertheless significant. It is all about how far the image projected by India is perceived and accepted by the significant players of international community. There is a palpable ascent of disunifying tendencies with fomenting of the Hindutva ideology and rhetoric by the leaders of the ruling the BJP and its sister organisations such as RSS and Bajrang Dal strengthens a melting pot model of majoritarian rule where other smaller identities would merge within the larger Hindu identity rather than the Salad Bowl Model that has been historically prevalent in India where unity in diversity was maintained.
India’s image and foreign policy is also a victim to the fact that it is one of the largest importers of energy resources. As the country’s population keeps inflating and industrialization process remains largely dependent on conventional energy resources, India cannot but pursue a reactive foreign policy responding to volatility of energy politics. In this context, the remarks of India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar in response to the alleged accusation from certain quarters of the West that India was indirectly financing Russia’s war are germane. He said: “I have a country that has a per capita income of two thousand dollars,” and “these are not people who can afford higher energy prices”.
Jaishankar’s remarks smack of the pertinence and imperative of efficient redistribution of resources and swift transition to alternative sources of energy for India. Despite certain measures undertaken and commitment made by the government under Prime Minister Modi’s leadership towards indigenous production of renewable energy resources, the process has been sluggish and involves substantial costs. It is to be seen how the coalition government treads the path of managing perceptions on India’s identity.
[Photo by Prime Minister’s Office, India, via Wikimedia Commons]
Dr. Manoj Kumar Mishra is a Lecturer at the Department of Political Science, SVM Autonomous College, Odisha, India. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.
