The new great game

Dubai eye

In the run up to India’s 2014 General Elections, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi promised ‘achche din’ (good times) and ‘sab ka saath, sab ka vikas’ (inclusive society, development for all) at every poll rally. And the voters, weary of numerous scams that dogged the then Congress government, took those promises seriously, handing Modi an impressive victory.

Over the past two years that the BJP has been in power, the great secular and socialist republic, as envisioned by the framers of Indian constitution, has undergone extraordinary transformation, shifting decisively rightwards.

There has been a sharp spike in religious intolerance and violence across India. Religious minorities are increasingly being targeted, in most cases, by the rabble rousers of the BJP and numerous outfits of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological parent of the governing party, in the name of love jihad, eating beef, and deification of the nation. Hundreds of authors and intellectuals have returned their awards to protest the rising intolerance.

Modi has maintained his enigmatic silence all along, refusing to rein in his ministers and lawmakers, calling for ‘disciplining’ Muslims – and worse.

Belying the growing turmoil at home, Modi’s frequent foreign sojourns and his hard-selling of India’s soft power paint a rosy picture of a country which is at total peace with itself and is ready to lead the world.

Wherever Modi goes, he makes it a point to address large meetings of the diaspora with Indian missions and affiliated organisations preparing for months ahead to ensure they are well attended. His Dubai event was attended by more than 50,000 wildly cheering expats.

It’s not mere PR that has been driving the Modi juggernaut though. He has been a man on a mission making a sustained pitch for India’s arrival as the next great power, led by him of course. In the process, he has been trying to win friends and influence people in unexpected places. Modi has been, in particular, reaching out to countries traditionally close to India’s arch enemy Pakistan. Delhi has unleashed a massive diplomatic offensive to put pressure on Pakistan by forging ties with some of Islamabad’s closest allies.

As BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav said ahead of Modi’s Saudi visit, “We have to do everything to deal with Pakistan – use economics, strategy and emotional ties to win the hearts of Islamabad’s friends.”

It was perhaps not unusual that Modi invited himself to the UAE last year. What was remarkable though was the extraordinary welcome that the Gulf state rolled out for him. It had little to do with the fact that the UAE is home to more than 2.2 million Indians and India is the second biggest trading partner of the UAE after China.

It was more to do with Pakistan’s refusal to join the Saudi-led coalition against Yemen’s Shia Houthis. Given the complexity of the situation in Yemen and the fact that its forces are entrenched along the border with India and Afghanistan, the Pakistanis weren’t too excited about joining the alliance despite the debt they owe the Arabs.

In view of its own large Shia minority, Islamabad is understandably wary of getting drawn into an internecine Arab-Iran and Sunni-Shia conflict. Besides, Iran and Pakistan share a long border and much else. So after putting the issue to debate in the National Assembly where lawmakers overwhelmingly opposed the idea, the Nawaz Sharif government excused itself.

However, the decision is turning out to be unimaginably expensive for Pakistan. It is seen as a ‘betrayal’ by Pakistan given the fact it has over the years received billions of dollars in doles from Arab states. UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash warned Pakistan of paying a heavy price for its ‘ambiguous stand’ on Yemen.

Modi effortlessly stepped into this Arab-Pakistan breach, using it to expand India’s political and economic clout as well as to undercut that of Pakistan. The UAE-India communique left no one in doubt where it’s targeted: “The two nations condemn efforts, including by states, to use religion to justify, support and sponsor terrorism against other countries. They also deplore efforts by countries to give religious and sectarian colour to political issues and disputes and use terrorism to pursue their aims.”

If that wasn’t clear enough, addressing Indian expats, Modi launched a blistering attack on Pakistan in Dubai: “Today a message has gone out from here to the world. Those who are involved in terrorism should be punished. Those who need to understand this will understand.”

If the UAE visit was a strategic move on the diplomatic chessboard against Pakistan, Modi’s Saudi sojourn earlier this month is nothing short of a stroke of genius. Saudi Arabia is not just the largest oil producer and leader of the Arab-Islamic world, it is a close friend, ally and a key donor of Pakistan. In 2014, the Saudis gifted Pakistan $1.5 billion to prop up its economy.

That is why the exceptionally warm welcome accorded to Modi in the birthplace of Islam surprised everyone, including Pakistan. The Saudis even conferred their highest civilian honour on Modi, ignoring his past tainted by the 2002 Gujarat pogrom that killed more than 2000 Muslims.

India and Saudi Arabia signed five agreements, broadening their economic partnership and investing heavily in massive infrastructure projects. Saudi Arabia is the largest supplier of oil to India while Delhi happens to be the largest trading partner of Riyadh after China.

What was remarkable in the Riyadh Declaration was the new focus on the military and strategic ties, including intelligence sharing and cooperation against terrorism.

This couldn’t have come as music to Islamabad, considering India has long accused Pakistan of sponsoring terrorism and Kashmiri militants. Especially this bit: “The two leaders called on all states to reject the use of terrorism against other countries; dismantle terrorism infrastructures where they happen to exist and to cut off any kind of support and financing to the terrorists operating and perpetrating terrorism from their territories against other states.”

This marks a strategic shift in Arab equation with India and Pakistan. India-Arab ties have always been defined by Pakistan with Muslim states routinely backing Pakistan on the question of Kashmir. This is changing fast.

And it’s not just the Arab states who are being aggressively wooed; India is reaching out to all of Pakistan’s neighbours – Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asian countries – virtually encircling Islamabad from all sides.

India has been building the Chabahar port in Iran overlooking the Gulf, close to Iran’s border with Pakistan and only 72 kilometres from Pakistan’s strategic Gwadar Port, developed by China.

Gwadar is part of the $46 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor that allows Beijing direct access to the Gulf and is considered a game changer, generating millions of jobs and economic opportunities.

The Iranian port allows India to bypass Pakistan to reach Afghanistan and central Asia using a sea-land route. India also wants to develop Chabahar as a counter to Pakistan’s Gwadar Port.

So India is closing in on Pakistan from all sides, isolating it one country at a time. And whatever be Modi’s troubles at home and his domestic agenda, his foreign policy appears to be shaping well, especially against Pakistan, which has always been a favourite whipping boy of the Hindu Right.

A longer version of this article originally appears in the Straits Times published from Singapore.

The writer is a Middle East based

columnist.

Email: aijaz.syed@hotmail.com