Nehru built institutions. Modi built a brand, and it is cracking

Personality politics will not make up for the Global South’s mistrust of India’s purely self-serving strategic autonomy.

United States President Donald Trump’s near-daily targeting of India in his second term has left Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government stunned. His description of the Indian economy as ‘dead’ and accusations that it funds the Russian ‘war machine’ in Ukraine by importing Indian oil reached a high point with the declaration that he upped the tariffs by another 25% to a punitive 50%.

This is among the highest rates imposed by the US on any country, including China.

India has accused the US of double standards on trading with Russia, claiming ‘India will take all actions necessary to protect its national interests’. It remains to be seen how this is achieved.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh has claimed that the ‘friendship’ between Modi and Trump has ‘proved to be very expensive’ for India.

It is not the misreading of the relationship with Trump that has led to India’s current denouement. The malaise lies in the mistaken belief that the personal charisma of a leader is sufficient to shape India’s relationship with the world.

Personal chemistry cannot be a substitute for building alignments based on shared perspectives. India’s strategic goals of trade, defence, energy security, and regional stability must form the scaffolding of India’s foreign policy. Failure to understand this and focusing exclusively on showcasing Modi as a global statesman has resulted in repeated shocks to India.

For the better part of the Modi regime — at least up to the Galwan military incursions by China in 2020 — he lived under the delusion that his personality was crucial in shaping India’s place in the world.

How else can one explain the raw informality with which he interacted with world leaders: hugging them, taking selfies with them, and bypassing protocol to turn up at the tarmac to receive those he wished to cultivate? He boasted that he referred to them by their first names. Visiting world leaders were subject to such moments of closeness before TV cameras, such as Modi having tea with Barack Obama, sharing a swing with Xi Jinping in Gujarat, and promoting Trump on public platforms.

At one point Modi even claimed that Xi had shown him ancient Chinese texts which recorded the visit of the famous Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang to Modi’s village Vadnagar, in Gujarat. Despite boasting of a Modi-Xi ‘deep bond’, the relationship came unstuck in 2020 because of Chinese assertiveness on the Line of Actual Control.

Despite this, there was no major course correction. Modi’s propaganda machine continued to claim that his ties with world leaders gave him leverage in times of crises. It was claimed, for example, that he silenced guns in Ukraine for the evacuation of Indians stranded there, with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar vouching for it.

As the rotational president of the G20, he dominated the stage in the annual summit of the group in New Delhi with the same narrative. Receiving international honours from the countries he visits is seen as an endorsement of his stature. Including big and small countries, Modi has received 25 such honours, making him the most internationally decorated Indian leader in history.

Perhaps Modi’s yearning for a larger-than-life image for himself and for India as Vishwa Guru, is the desire to get out of the shadow of the phenomenal success of India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru’s personality was undeniably a part of his foreign policy.

However, Nehru’s approach to the world was rooted in the moral values he wanted to promote in international relations — non-alignment, anti-colonial solidarity, and peaceful co-existence. He built institutions, and was uncomfortable with blind devotion. He never favoured a personality cult.

Nehru’s rapport with like-minded world leaders like Gamal Abdel Nasser and Josip Broz Tito was based on shared values. He shunned transactional diplomacy. Modi’s diplomacy, on the other hand, is not based on pure pragmatism or strategic autonomy without any larger moral anchoring.

Compared to Nehru, Modi has not built or strengthened any Indian or multilateral or regional institutions of any consequence. He has sought to amplify India’s visibility without any institutional credibility, strategic engagement, or inclusive regional alliances.

Personality politics will not make up for the mistrust of a purely pragmatic diplomacy. India’s neutral stance on the Russia-Ukraine war; turning a blind eye to Israel’s planned genocide in Gaza, and falling in line with US expectations on Iran even after its nuclear sites were bombed by Israel and the US are indefensible. The residual rationalisation in terms of strategic autonomy has eroded India’s moral standing with the Global South.

India’s role in BRICS is viewed with suspicion and it was even described as a ‘Trojan Horse’ for hitching its wagon to the US. India plays second-fiddle in an SCO dominated by Russia and China. It has also been unable to change the entrenched power dynamics that have kept it from occupying a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.

Is Modi then trying to recalibrate his foreign policy approach after setbacks with both Xi and Trump?

Modi’s interactions with Xi, especially at the BRICS Summit, appear to have become more guarded and formal. After the Trump rebuff, India seems keen to improve ties with China with Modi expected to meet Xi during the upcoming SCO summit.

The renewed attempt to resuscitate non-Western strategic forums is also evident in the attempt to revive dormant forums such as Russia-India-China (RIC) Trilateral Dialogue. The Global South Summit may also now receive an impetus. There may be other moves as well in the field of renewable energy, AI, and digital infrastructure for the Global South — in short, a bid to build alliances and coalitions of the Global South.

As Trump’s transactional style and unpredictability clash with Modi’s strategic autonomy, India may also have to rethink its role as the American cat’s paw against China in the Asia-Pacific region.

For India to pivot away from personalised diplomacy and past failure, perhaps there is a need to balance technocratic expertise in the foreign office with political vision and democratic accountability.

(Bharat Bhushan is a New Delhi-based journalist.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.