India’s public diplomacy falls flat

Does the Narendra Modi government have a stance on the Ukraine conflict at all?

Apropos the recent Raisina Dialogue in Delhi, Politico wrote, quoting an Estonian diplomat that “engaging with Russian lawmakers was a waste of time given Russia’s autocratic system.” He disdainfully added, “Why should we? On a list of people who matter, members of the state Duma of the Russian Federation do not appear.” Show me the world map. Where is Estonia? 

What was the point in hosting a clutch of inconsequential New Europeans for a cogitation on Ukraine? The United States and Russia have decided that peace talks to end the war will be at the bilateral level, and even Old Europeans will be excluded lest they act as spoilers undermining the dialogue process to continue with the war. Russia is adamant that it will not accept any form of European deployment (Old or New) on Ukrainian soil.

All things taken into account, the Raisina Dialogue 2025 turned out to be a wasteful extravaganza. Someone in authority should order an auditing. 

This is not to suggest that the Raisina Dialogue per se is a bad idea, but only to flag that there must be some way to make it purposive and cost-effective. For that to happen, a sense of direction is needed. When Europeans have been washed ashore like beached whales, we held a jamboree with 11 of the 20 ministers drawn from Europe and turned it into a circus for poking the bear! 

What is it that the Narendra Modi government hopes to achieve by trying to embarrass its Russian friends? Simply put, we exposed ourselves as clueless, ungrateful people after having profited from the Ukraine war by cashing in on discounted Russian oil and fertilisers, and, thereafter, claiming to be the voice of the Global South. Never once did we show the courage to call out the collective West for fuelling a proxy war that threatened Ukraine’s existence. 

We kept quiet when Joe Biden and Boris Johnson undermined the Istanbul agreement in April 2022 when the conflict had just begun, and struck a Faustian deal with Kiev to choose instead the military path with Western backing. (here and here) We never took a position on the root cause of the conflict — NATO’s expansion towards  Russia’s borders in a strategy of encirclement. One is confused. Does the Modi government have a stance on the Ukraine conflict at all? 

Ukraine’s capitulation is now a matter of time. The Europeans are in no position to replace the US in the war. Indeed, the big picture is worrisome — Modi government’s unipolar predicament even as the Trump administration is transitioning to multipolarity and seeking a concert of three superpowers.

Aren’t there conflict situations close to our hearth which should have been prioritised? The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is itching for a war with Iran and is hoping to draw Trump into it, who is torn between his obligation to the Jewish lobby and the near-certainty that a war with Iran will wreck his foreign policy agenda, just as Jimmy Carter’s. 

Given Modi’s bromance with Netanyahu and hug diplomacy with Trump, he has a role as peacemaker cut out for him. Alas, this year’s Raisina Dialogue could have been put to use to calm tensions in the Gulf region and build up a collective voice against war in our extended neighbourhood, where India has high stakes. Indeed, why is India not having the spunk to advise Netanyahu and Trump that ‘this is not an era of war[s}’? Such pusillanimity cannot be attributed to ‘national interest’. 

Again, following up the CIA’s coup and regime change in Bangladesh, the US Pacific Command is shifting gear to use that country as the base camp for intervention to force regime change in Myanmar. Even as the Raisina Dialogue was in session, Lieutenant General Joel ‘JB’ Vowell, Deputy Commanding General for US Army Pacific, a veteran with three combat tours in Afghanistan and two in Iraq, sneaked into Dhaka one night as part of the “planning to launch a major military offensive to capture three remaining towns in the Rakhine State – Sittwe, Kyaukphyu and Manaung – where the Myanmar military continues to hold out.” 

No doubt, Sittwe is of vital importance from the Indian perspective. Why not include the Myanmar / Bangladesh conflict zone as an agenda for the Raisina Dialogue? Surely, there are any number of topics of vital concern for India that should be engaging the attention of our public diplomacy. In about a week’s time, Trump’s tariff war will come to India’s doorstep. Again, BRICS is in Trump’s crosshairs. Aren’t these worthy enough topics to cogitate? 

Public diplomacy is not about event management. The MEA may be favouring some non-official agency for reasons best known to its decision makers, but it should be anchored on India’s interests. Is poking the bear in India’s interests? This is not an occasion for good times and tan lines.

The Indian leadership should honestly find an explanation as to why the two superpowers decided on Saudi Arabia as the neutral venue for holding their peace talks. Remember Nehru’s role in ending the Korean War or India’s leadership in the International Commission for Supervision and Control to oversee the implementation of the Geneva Accords in Indochina (1954)? 

To be brutally frank, why is New Delhi ignored today, our mantra about the futility or irrelevance of war notwithstanding? Actually, the whole world could see that India is being patently dishonest — a country that is figuring year after year as the world’s biggest buyer of weaponry in the world market espousing peace in speeches and podcasts and TV interviews! Poker-faced moralising engenders only contempt.  

India’s ‘neutral’ position on Ukraine is laced with the angst to harmonise with the collective West. True, it was done with elan, but so are most acts of dissimulation. The grotesque truth came out nonetheless at the Raisina event last week. In another week’s time, Trump will decide whether Modi government deserves his pity. 

M K Bhadrakumar is a former diplomat.