Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would, however, testify to the fact that the 2007 was different.

At one stage during the year, the Prime Minister himself put the survival of his United Progressive Alliance government at stake as he defended his key foreign policy move to go ahead with the process of operationalising the contentious nuclear deal with the United States against stiff opposition from the Left partners.

At the root of the raging foreign policy debate is the Left’s contention that the government is pushing India into the US lap as a close global strategic partner and, thus, readying to play the role of a supplicant and ignoring the imperatives of maintaining friendly ties with countries in the neighbourhood region, including China and Iran.

The Left’s dislike of the US is rooted in its very political ideology. But by casting a second vote in the IAEA against Iran early during the year over Tehran’s alleged nuclear ambitions, the Manmohan Singh government had appeared to be accommodating US interests in the midst of the Indo-US nuclear negotiations. Tehran, of course, has been “hurt” over the Indian vote. For the first time, the US, China and Japan participated as “observers” in the SAARC summit held in New Delhi last April. Interesting stories about the diplomatic power-play were available on how each of these three countries, besides others, obtained a foothold in the SAARC as observers. The crux of these stories is that the US and Japan got observer status as a quid pro quo for China’s entry. It is a result of diplomatic interplay among SAARC countries and it is being said New Delhi was active in bringing the US and Japan into the SAARC orbit. The changing contours of diplomacy, at least as perceived in Beijing, has introduced new elements of challenge to Delhi’s China diplomacy. Of course, its early signs were evident in the wake of US President George W Bush’s visit to India in March, 2006 as Chinese leadership raised some questions.

Changing contours

The Indian Left has factored these elements in its posers to the government, though it was not articulated very aggressively. The result was UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s significant visit to China a few weeks ago, the first international leader to visit that country after the latest Congress of the ruling Communist Party of China.

If Sonia Gandhi took the important initiative to visit China, in the South Asian region it has been a year of diplomatic stagnation for India in the South Asian region. It was the quietest year on the Indo-Pak diplomatic front; the composite dialogue process to resolve major issues of contention has not made any perceptible forward movement. Much of it is though due to prolonged political crisis in Pakistan.

Nepal has been a challenge to India’s diplomatic engagement – the process towards restoration of peace and democracy has just about moved forward towards the year end. On the eastern front, Delhi’s perceived support for military-backed interim administration in Bangladesh and the military junta in Myanmar has come under criticism though it has gamely defended the policy on grounds of India’s vital national interest.

These, together with the festering ethnic crisis in Sri Lanka, remain the stumbling blocks to the goal of economic development at home.