The Creeping Influence of populism on Indian Foreign Policy

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On 16th of June, New Delhi woke up to the shocking news of the brutal killing of 20 soldiers of the Indian Army in a border clash with the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA). The recent tensions surrounding India’s borders with China, Nepal and Pakistan took no time in being subjected to emotional debates on India’s national and social media platforms. In a short span of a few days in the month of May, India found herself embroiled in a fresh round of tensions emerging from its ongoing territorial disputes with her neighbours. New Delhi’s decision to reassert its claims on what it terms as Pakistan occupied Kashmir turned out to be short lived after reports of PLA’s border intrusions surfaced in Ladakh (formerly part of Jammu and Kashmir). This was supplemented with renewed assertions from Nepal which has long accused India of occupying some 300 square kilometres (115 square miles) of territory located at the India-China-Nepal border trijunction. The ongoing domestic uproar is not new as similar frenzy was noticed a few years ago when India and China locked horns in another border standoff in 2017, or for that matter last year when the nationwide sentiment called for an all-out retaliation against Pakistan after a suicide attack claimed lives of more than 40 troops in the Kashmir valley in February 2019.

The ease with which foreign policy issues have found their way into aggressive domestic debates has lately caught attention of India’s foreign policy experts, who have rightly noted how creeping threat of populism could influence foreign policy issues, thereby cautioning the government to avoid falling into any kind of a sentimental trap. This is not to ignore Beijing’s aggressive forays vis-à-vis its neighbouring countries, but rather to plan pragmatically given such realities.

The issue at hand is the BJP-led government’s use of foreign policy issues to influence the domestic politics, the resultant increase in media coverage of foreign policy matters and the exponential rise in the number of defence and strategic affairs experts with mass social media followings, who, in turn have acquired the status of informal arbiters between the citizenry and the government. Amidst this, the inevitability of the present state of affairs misses the desired scrutiny.  That is, to understand how populism exerts pressure on the government, it is imperative to investigate how foreign policy became a topic for populist consumption in the first place before the complexities of populism itself are examined.

To begin with, one could go back to the pre-2014 political situation in India that facilitated the smooth rise of the BJP as the leading alternative to the then ruling Congress led UPA government. Besides strong charges of corruption and nepotism, the Congress was also accused of having a weak foreign policy, particularly in the neighbourhood with regard to Pakistan over Kashmir, and China, owing to the unresolved boundary dispute. The smaller South Asian states became the latest addition after their respective polities and economies became sites of aggressive Chinese inroads. Furthermore, the Congress Party, much to its detriment, fell victim to the additional baggage of history that came to haunt it in 2014 general elections as accusations of a weak foreign policy were portrayed as stemming from the blunders committed during the Nehruvian era, when India lost parts of Jammu and Kashmir to both Pakistan and China in the wars of 1947-8 and 1962 respectively.

This ‘critical’ genealogy – that portrayed foreign policy blunders as being synonymous with the workings of the Congress party – deliberately omitted the role of the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi under whose tenure (1966-77 and 1980-84) Pakistan was bifurcated, ties with the USSR acquired a greater strategic depth, nuclear explosion was carried out (amidst strong international pressure) and India even occupied the Siachen Glacier. It became possible to sidestep all of her contributions since in the prevalent political narrative, Indira Gandhi did not fit comfortably into the domestic political discourse as her disastrous handling of the Sikhs was significant enough to negate her foreign policy legacy for the domestic audience.

During the run up to the 2014 elections, the BJP, in its electoral campaigns called for rectifying the foreign policy “blunders” the Congress Party and particularly Prime Minister Nehru had never been held accountable for. What is interesting to note about the BJP is that even as an opposition party, its Hindu nationalist credentials were strong enough to police the Congress led government’s policies towards Pakistan. As the BJP’s election manifestos repeatedly stressed the need for an assertive foreign policy, tying it up with the domestic politics and mass social media debates played a significant role in legitimizing the BJP’s overall image, which, in turn, allowed the party to speak on behalf of entire India and transcend its image of representing North, Western and Central India.

Following its electoral triumph, it was natural for Prime Minister Modi to command a strong legitimacy on foreign policy matters owing to the promises made by the party and the long built domestic resentment against policies of the previous dispensations. A precarious outcome was an increased dependence on foreign policy issues to influence domestic politics that only emboldened the need for a ‘tangible’ response in order to differentiate its policies from that of its predecessors. For instance, the government’s Pakistan policy has been predicated precisely on this factor and it has delivered on these lines if one factors in New Delhi’s surgical strikes policy. Rather than the efficacy of decisions on the long-term strategy, the larger focus turns out to be on Modi government’s willingness to cross the erstwhile psychological red lines that defined the previous governments’ Pakistan policies. As a result, in response to a suicide attack on Indian troops in February 2019, Indian forces launched airstrikes inside the Pakistani territory, a decision hailed as a paradigm shift.  

Unfortunately, the situation is more complicated in case of China, given the magnitude of trade dependency (approximately $ 70 billion with Indian imports constituting roughly 80% of the total trade value) and its strategic ties with Pakistan (with an India-centric focus). While Sino-Indian border quarrels are a regular affair, the brutal attack on Indian troops was the first of its kind in the last five decades. It is not a coincidence that this comes in the backdrop of New Delhi’s decision to abrogate Kashmir’s special status in August 2019, followed by its growing public assertiveness calling to “recapture” part of Kashmir under Pakistan’s control. Notwithstanding the political intent, familiarizing the masses with key security issues and altering the erstwhile status-quo approaches became the cornerstone of the Modi government’s foreign policymaking.   

As reports of intrusion by the PLA and the killing of Indian troops made headlines, a strong domestic backlash emerged on expected lines, with demands ranging from an outright military retaliation to cutting trade and investment ties with China. Prime Minister Modi’s attempts at pacifying the domestic sentiment was received with mixed reactions. Following his statement denying Chinese intrusions, more clarity was sought on the nature and extent of intrusions if there were any. After social media debated Prime Minister Modi’s media address, the government took notice of the “attempts…to give a mischievous interpretation” to his remarks.

As prospects of regional peace remain elusive (yet manageable), present developments only reveal the risks involved in taking foreign policy issues to the masses.  To conclude, the inseparability of populism from foreign policy issues and the growing domestic pressure could risk distracting New Delhi from making carefully weighed decisions. As Professor Harsh Pant has stated in his recent article, a calculated understanding of its capacities and limitations, along with a decoupling of strategic planning from domestic sentiment needs to be adopted to constructively contribute to the foreign policymaking.