S Jaishankar's book offers a practitioner's view of Indian foreign policy

While many academics and diplomats have penned books and memoirs on foreign policy, S Jaishankar's work offers a blend of hands-on experience, insight, and analysis

Why Bharat Matters

Author: S Jaishankar

Publisher: Rupa

Pages: 226

Price: Rs 695

  At a time when India’s external image has acquired a degree of robustness and resonance, a book on India’s foreign policy written by someone who plays a role in shaping it must be considered a valuable addition to the existing literature on the subject. This is the second book by S Jaishankar on foreign policy, after the The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World, published in 2020.  The title of the book, Why Bharat Matters, is suggestive of India’s ascendency in the world viewed through the prism of the current foreign policy establishment. Dr Jaishankar justifies the use of the word Bharat in the title of this book by interspersing snippets from the Mahabharata and Ramayana in various chapters that capture the complexity of statecraft and realpolitik. Such references are included separately in various chapters instead of being interspersed in the text so as not to interrupt the flow of the author’s argument on how India’s traditional knowledge and wisdom have impacted the strategic culture of the country’s foreign policy.

 

The 11 chapters of the book are not written in silos but form a seamless narrative woven together rather like a necklace with the preface being the pendant. The author is not just a practising diplomat; the book brings out the thinker in him. This is only to be expected given his illustrious pedigree as the son of the late K Subramanyam, the pioneer of contemporary strategic thinking in India, and founder-director of India’s premier think-tank, the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, which was renamed the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. His DNA, academic background in the Jawaharlal Nehru University from where he obtained his PhD, his vast and varied experiences as diplomat, particularly in the US and China, as former foreign secretary and now as external affairs minister, inform the insights he provides in the book. Given that he is yet to be liberated from the apron-strings of the establishment, the reader needs to read between the lines to understand the nuances of his arguments. In a caveat in the preface, he writes that it is not his intention to pen his memoirs, certainly not while still in the midst of discharging ministerial responsibilities; “but because this has been deeply transformational era, it is also imperative that an objective explanation of this change is provided to the public”. His memoirs, when he gets down to writing them, are likely to be more insightful and revealing.

 

Although foreign policy is traditionally viewed as “change with continuity”, leaders occasionally take the initiative to redefine its contours. Alluding to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s imprint, Dr Jaishankar writes, “If India’s diplomacy appears more nimble and creative now, much of the credit should go to a leader who has consciously striven to make it more contemporary and responsive.” He counts as examples Mr Modi’s bold and courageous decisions and initiatives such as saying no to Regional Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (RCEP), and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s pet flagship programme, the Border and Road Initiative (BRI), as its China-Pakistan Economic Corridor passes through Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) violating India’s sovereignty. India also banned Chinese apps, including TikTok, and put restrictions on Chinese investment in certain sectors of the economy during the pandemic. India also did not permit 5G mobile network trials by Chinese companies. These decisions, he says, are in contrast to earlier deferential approaches to China. He lists other achievements like the  United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference (COP21), the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), the Voice of Global South Summit, India’s Vaccine Maitri, all of which, the author thinks, have enhanced India’s international stature.

 

China’s rise and Sino-US rivalry permeate large swathes of the book. In the chapter titled “Quad: A Grouping Foretold”, the author says the world has entered a new phase in international relations and the reverberations of China’s re-emergence will be felt more strongly in its immediate vicinity.  China’s belligerence in the South China Sea, in the Taiwan Strait, in Hong Kong and also nearer home along the Line of Actual Control on the Ladakh border vindicate the author’s observations. Securing the agreement on full disengagement in the LAC ahead of the meeting between President Xi Jinping and Mr Modi on the margins of the BRICS leaders meeting in the Russian city of Kazan in October also suggests that India is not at the receiving end of the India-China slugfest. The India-China détente is, however, a work in progress and clarity on its outcomes is yet to emerge.

 

Many academics have written books on foreign policy. Similarly diplomats have written memoirs and treatises on foreign policy. But Dr Jaishankar’s book offers a blend of hands-on experience with insights and analyses. Being a diplomat and serving minister, his treatment of the issues is, however, largely idiomatic and abstract, leaving the readers to infer the essence of his arguments. Still, this book serves as a useful guide to understanding current foreign policy thinking.

 

The reviewer was a senior fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. The views are personal