 "Modi's foreign policy push trips in the neighbourhood")
But the Modi government's foreign policy in India's neighbourhood lies in a shambles barely 18 months into the life of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. From being a leader who came across as empathetic towards India's smaller neighbours, Modi and his National Security Advisor (NSA) A K Doval are now being seen as unreasonable for trying to impose solutions tailored in New Delhi without understanding the internal complexities and challenges of a Kathmandu, Male or Islamabad.
Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar, rated highly not just for his understanding of diplomacy but also for his astute assessment of politics and its messaging, is busy rushing from one neighbouring capital to another to fire-fight and smoothen ruffled feathers. But this happens at a cost: he has to be able to find the time from his busy schedule of ensuring that the PM's public events in foreign lands are a success.
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In the meantime, New Delhi-Islamabad relationship has soured. The Nepalese people are livid and increasingly looking to China to compensate for the scarcity in the supply of essential goods because of a blockade by the people of the plains. Sri Lanka is yet to totally shrug off its Beijing bear hug for investments, while Myanmar is becoming increasingly wary of New Delhi following its chest thumping at entering its territory to neutralise anti-India militants.
Bhutan, as ever, is uncomplaining, particularly as the Modi government has been more accommodating towards Thimphu after the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)'s fiasco in mid-2013 when it cut fuel subsidies to Bhutan. The only success story, and a country where Modi continues to be immensely popular, is Bangladesh after the PM managed a unanimous vote in Parliament to get the India-Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement passed.
Nepal
The mess in India-Nepal relations is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. What the fracas has accomplished is to wreck one of the biggest achievements of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation or Saarc countries in recent years. It was at the behest of Narendra Modi that Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal signed the "BBIN" Motor Vehicle Agreement at the Saarc Summit in Kathmandu in end-2014.
But a political misreading of the political alignment of democratic forces has led to the isolation of the parties in Madhes, which are now looking to India to bail them out. A recent blockade of border roads by parties in the plains of Nepal has not only stopped the supply routes into landlocked Nepal, it has also forced Kathmandu to look towards Beijing for its fuel needs. In the process, the BBIN agreement stands defunct as not just India but its other two signatories, Bhutan and Bangladesh, can't send essential supplies to Nepal.
Observers who had helped the UPA government strike a balance in its Nepal policy are aghast at how quickly the wheel has come a full circle from the PM's two visits to Nepal in 2014, the first by an Indian PM in nearly two decades, when he had drawn adulatory crowds in Kathmandu to the current situation where anti-India protests have become a daily occurrence.
"The PM displayed the right instincts in the case of Nepal in the first few months of his tenure. But now the bureaucracy seems to have overwhelmed him," said a veteran observer of India-Nepal relations who has strong links with both the Nepali Congress and the communists. The animus is such that neither diplomats nor Bharatiya Janata Party leaders handling the party's Nepal strategy are hopeful of an early resolution.
Pakistan
New Delhi has brought to a halt its high-level engagement with Islamabad, as it was piqued about the visiting Pakistan foreign secretary in 2014 and later Sartaj Aziz, the advisor to Sharif on foreign affairs, intended to meet Hurriyat leaders during their New Delhi visit for talks with their Indian counterparts. This, when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif signed the Ufa declaration in July that neither spoke of Kashmir nor Balochistan.
But a flip-flop is also evident in the way South Block has appointed its officers on the Pakistan desk. On October 8, Gopal Baglay, a 1992-batch Indian Foreign Service officer, was appointed the joint secretary (JS) to head the crucial Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran (PAI) desk. He replaced Rudrendra Tandon, an officer two years Baglay's junior, who had handled the JS (PAI) desk since June 2013. It is usual for joint secretaries to serve at least three years as the head of an important desk like PAI.
Baglay's transfer came days after South Block announced the appointment of Gautam Bambawale as its next high commissioner to Islamabad. Bambawale, a China expert, had served in Afghanistan briefly, but never in Islamabad. Apart from Bambawale, neither of the other two calling the shots on India's Pakistan policy, Tandon and Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar, had ever served in Pakistan.
Although any South Block team handling Pakistan is assured of the extensive experience of NSA Doval, it became apparent to the PMO and South Block that they needed to bring in somebody with ground experience of having served in Islamabad. Baglay had been the deputy high commissioner in Pakistan and had returned to be the joint secretary to liaise with state governments.
As for the revival of the dialogue, recent history has shown that India, from taking a maximalist position, has always had to climb down. The PM is slated to visit the next Saarc Summit to be held in Islamabad in 2016, and it is likely that the dialogue is resumed sometime before that. But till then, from 'neighbourhood first' it is 'security first'. The domestic management of the relationship with Pakistan is also absent and elements like the Shiv Sena are threatening to become pivotal factors in a sensitive engagement.
The Maldives
India-Pakistan relations have never been easy, but it is of some concern when the Maldives embarrasses New Delhi. They told External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, when she visited Male in early October, that India should not interfere in their country's domestic politics.
The MEA put out an anodyne press statement about Swaraj having conveyed to the Maldivian leadership India's security concerns. It was contested soon after with the Maldivians putting the record straight. The foreign secretary had to visit Male assuage its leadership.
The Maldives have also started to look more at China for help in building its infrastructure. But sources now claim that the India-Maldivian equation will soon be on an even keel.
Bhutan
Bhutan was the first country that the PM visited after being sworn in, and New Delhi-Thimpu relations have followed the set pattern. Bhutan, like the Maldives, is also keen to host wealthy Chinese tourists, if not turn to Beijing for help in the infrastructure sector, but understands India's security concerns as well. The plan to develop 10 hydropower projects by 2020, which was signed in 2008, continues to languish. Only three are complete and seven not even at the drawing board stage.
Bhutan is the only country apart from India, which continues to have a land boundary dispute with China. If this is resolved, Thimpu will no longer invest its relationship with India with the salience it does currently.
Myanmar
Myanmar is preparing for elections to be held later this month. Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy is likely to win the elections. In a recent interview, Suu Kyi said her government would insist that any Indian "hot pursuit" into the territory of Myanmar to neutralise anti-India militants should be based on transparency. "It is the lack of transparency that creates all kinds of speculation and suspicion. That erodes the very foundations of friendship," she said.
In June, Indian armed forces entered Myanmar territory to attack a camp of anti-India militants. The number of those killed still remains uncertain, but it was the chest thumping by senior Modi government ministers of having entered the territory of a foreign country to neutralise terrorists that left the neighbour fuming. Suu Kyi's recent visit to China brought home to India forcefully that Beijing is working assiduously to make up for past errors and correct its priorities in the military-civilian relationship in Myanmar.
Bangladesh
Bangladesh is the only country among all of India's neighbours where Modi remains popular. Modi had reached out to the opposition, including Congress President Sonia Gandhi, to ensure the passage of the long pending India-Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement. The Bill was passed unanimously in both Houses.