India’s development agenda shaped MMS foreign policy; Gulf, Quad focus rooted in his initiatives


NEW DELHI: Manmohan Singh believed that India’s development priorities should shape its foreign policy and, in his own words, create a conducive global environment for India’s growth. With this in mind, he met with President Bush in 2005 on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly and asked if the United States could help India access clean energy in the face of the numerous embargoes it had faced since the tests. nuclear weapons of 1998. The rest, as they say, is history.
India and the United States finalized the civil nuclear deal three years later, paving the way for a Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) waiver for India to carry out nuclear trade without signing the NPT but, more importantly, for a seat on the high world table of diplomacy.
It is well documented how he overcame stiff opposition from left-wing parties and others, even risking his coalition government. Singh, a man of conviction, believed that the deal with the United States was in India’s interest, and it helped that Sonia Gandhi probably felt the same way and supported it. Singh knew not only how hard Bush had worked to achieve the deal, but also how interested he was in having strong ties with India. This was India’s opportunity and it would not be allowed to remain destitute.
The spirit behind this historic agreement, which brought India and the United States together after years of mistrust, continues to act as a guiding framework for the bilateral relationship, even as it moves into another potentially transformative phase with the recently launched Initiative on Critical and Emerging Issues. Technology (iCET).
Apart from India’s development priorities, there were many other factors – or more specifically five principles – that coalesced to form Singh’s foreign policy agenda. These included his firm belief in stable, long-term and mutually beneficial ties, greater integration into the global economy and a “shared destiny” of the Indian subcontinent that required greater regional cooperation and connectivity. Finally, according to Singh, foreign policy should not only focus on interests, but also on the values ​​​​dear to the Indian people. “India’s experiment in pursuing economic development within the framework of a plural, secular and liberal democracy has inspired people around the world and should continue to do so,” the former prime minister said, addressing ambassadors and high commissioners of India in 2013.
While the nuclear deal with the United States was notable for the message it conveyed to the world about India’s arrival on the global stage, there were other important foreign policy issues that Singh tackled with gusto. Singh’s handling of China, his efforts to solidify relations with ASEAN in the form of the 2012 strategic partnership and efforts to accelerate India’s global trade and integration into the global economy to reduce poverty are also found among the highlights of Singh’s outward approach.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi is credited with transforming ties with the Gulf, it was Singh who launched India’s Look West Policy to boost ties with the region. In fact, many of the policies that India has currently been pursuing, whether those related to ASEAN or even YardThey remain rooted in initiatives undertaken under Singh. According to former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Ruud, it was the joint response to the 2004 tsunami by the United States, Australia, Japan and India under the Singh government that was at the center of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts. to launch Quad.
He remains the only prime minister in recent decades who has come close to resolving the Kashmir issue. As a Wikileaks cable revealed in 2011, Singh confirmed to a visiting American delegation two years earlier that he and Pakistan’s then-president Pervez Musharraf had agreed, through clandestine talks, on a “non-territorial solution” to the dispute.
As Musharraf As he had said earlier, it was a four-point peace plan that included free trade and movement across the LoC, demilitarization, maximum autonomy and joint management of the area. Singh himself did not elaborate on the content of the so-called peace formula, but told the US delegation that India and Pakistan had made great progress on the issue until early 2007, when Musharraf began having internal problems. The Pakistani government that followed dismissed the peace plan as a personal initiative of the former president.
A “non-territorial” solution would have been a tough sell, as Singh learned right at the start of his second term, when his party all but abandoned him to face attacks from the opposition for agreeing to include a reference to “threats in Balochistan” in the joint declaration. broadcast from the Egyptian resort city of Sharm-el-Sheikh. However, there was no doubt that his intention was a rapprochement.
While the opposition often accused Singh of being soft on Pakistan, the former prime minister never traveled to the country during his 10 years in office, even if he had been tempted to visit his Pakistani hometown of Punjab.
Singh acknowledged growing Chinese assertiveness and said he himself did not understand this behavior, but maintained that engagement with Beijing was the right strategy to follow for both India and the United States. Contrary to what some may now believe, he was not naive in dealing with China. This is evident in his consecutive visits to Arunachal Pradesh in 2008 and 2009, despite Beijing’s angry response. He used the 2008 visit to announce a major package to address the state’s critical infrastructure and connectivity needs that included highway projects, an airport and helicopter services.
Singh also had his own way of dealing with Chinese border transgressions, most of which during his time were successfully resolved. As in one case in 2013, amid a standoff in eastern Ladakh, Singh decided at the last minute to extend his bilateral visit to Japan by a day, even without fixing any commitments for that extra day. The significance of the decision would not have been lost on Beijing at a time of rising tensions with Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands.





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