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Foreign policy consequences

• The devastation caused by the second Covid wave prompted India to accept foreign aid after a gap of 17 years.
• This is bound to have far-reaching strategic implications for India.
• As a direct consequence of the pandemic, India’s claim to regional primacy and leadership will take a major hit.
• India ‘leading power’ aspirations will be dented, and accentuate its domestic political contestations.
• These in turn will impact the content and conduct of India’s foreign policy in the years to come.

What would be the strategic implications?

1) Impact on India’s regional primacy

• COVID 2.0 has quickened the demise of India’s regional primacy.
• India’s geopolitical decline is likely to begin in the neighbourhood itself.
• India’s traditional primacy in the region was built on a mix of material aid, political influence and historical ties.
• Its political influence is steadily declining, its ability to materially help the neighbourhood will shrink in the wake of COVID-19.
• Its historical ties alone may not do wonders to hold on to a region hungry for development assistance and political autonomy.

2) Impact on India’s great power aspiration

•  India aspires to be a leading power, rather than just a balancing power.
• While the Indo-Pacific is geopolitically keen and ready to engage with India, the pandemic could adversely impact India’s ability and desire to contribute to the Indo-Pacific and the Quad.
• COVID-19, for instance, will prevent any ambitious military spending or modernisation plans.
• Covid-19 will also limit the country’s attention on global diplomacy and regional geopolitics, be it Afghanistan or Sri Lanka or the Indo-Pacific.
• With reduced military spending and lesser diplomatic attention to regional geopolitics, New Delhi’s ability to project power and contribute to the growth of the Quad will be uncertain.

3) Domestic political contestation  and its impact on strategic ambition

• Domestic political contestations in the wake of the COVID-19 devastation in the country could also limit India’s strategic ambitions.
• General economic distress, a fall in foreign direct investment and industrial production, and a rise in unemployment have already lowered the mood in the country.
• A depressed economy, politically volatile domestic space combined with a lack of elite consensus on strategic matters would hardly inspire confidence in the international system about India.

4) Impact on India-China equation

• From competing with China’s vaccine diplomacy a few months ago, New Delhi today is forced to seek help from the international community.
• China has, compared to most other countries, emerged stronger in the wake of the pandemic.
• The world, notwithstanding its anti-China rhetoric, will continue to do business with Beijing — it already has been, and it will only increase.
• Claims that India could compete with China as a global investment and manufacturing destination would be dented.
• India’s ability to stand up to China stands vastly diminished today: in material power, in terms of balance of power considerations, and political will.

5) Depressed foreign policy

• Given the much reduced political capital within the government to pursue ambitious foreign policy goals, the diplomatic bandwidth for expansive foreign policy goals would be limited.
• This, however, might take the aggressive edge off of India’s foreign policy.
• Less aggression could potentially translate into more accommodation, reconciliation and cooperation especially in the neighbourhood, with Pakistan on the one hand and within the broader South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) framework on the other.
•  COVID-19 has forced us to reimagine, to some extent at least, the friend enemy equations in global geopolitics.
• While the United States seemed hesitant, at least initially, Russia was quick to come to India’s aid. 

6) Implications for strategic autonomy

• The pandemic would, at the very least indirectly, impact India’s policy of maintaining strategic autonomy.
• As pointed out above, the strategic consequences of the pandemic are bound to shape and structure India’s foreign policy choices as well as constrain India’s foreign policy agency.
• It could, for instance, become more susceptible to external criticism for, after all, India cannot say ‘yes’ to just aid and ‘no’ to criticism.

Consider the question “Examine the strategic implications of Covid for India.” 

Way forward

• COVID-19 will also do is open up new regional opportunities for cooperation especially under the ambit of SAARC.
• India might do well to get the region’s collective focus on ‘regional health multilateralism’ to promote mutual assistance and joint action on health emergencies such as this.
• Classical geopolitics should be brought on a par with health diplomacy, environmental concerns and regional connectivity in South Asia.

Conclusion

While the outpouring of global aid to India shows that the world realises India is too important to fail, the international community might also reach the conclusion that post-COVID-19 India is too fragile to lead and be a ‘leading power’.

The article highlights the factors that make building sustainable partnership with Britain hard for India and suggests the ways to find fresh basis for bilateral relationship.

Need to tap potential for bilateral strategic cooperation

• The long-scheduled summit between Prime Ministers of India and UK will take place with a digital conversation scheduled for Tuesday.
• India and the UK must tap into the enormous potential for bilateral strategic cooperation in the health sector and contributions to the global war on the virus.
• Foreign ministers of India, Japan and Australia would also join this meeting to set the stage for the “Group of Seven Plus Three” physical summit next month hosted by the British Prime Minister.

Challenges in forming a sustainable partnership with Britain

• Few Western powers are as deeply connected to India as Britain.
• While India’s relations with countries as different as the US and France have dramatically improved in recent years, ties with Britain have lagged.
• One reason for this failure has been the colonial prism that has distorted mutual perceptions.
• The bitter legacies of the Partition and Britain’s perceived tilt to Pakistan have long complicated the engagement between Delhi and London.
• Also, the large South Asian diaspora in the UK transmits the internal and intra-regional conflicts in the subcontinent into Britain’s domestic politics.

Finding fresh basis for bilateral relationship

• The two leaders are expected to announce a 10-year roadmap to transform the bilateral relationship that will cover a range of areas.
• Both countries are on the rebound from their respective regional blocs.
• Britain has walked out of the European Union and India has refused to join the China-centred Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.
• Although both will continue to trade with their regional partners, they are eager to build new global economic partnerships.
• While remaining a security actor in Europe, Britain is tilting to the Indo-Pacific, where India is a natural ally.
• India needs as wide a coalition as possible to restore a semblance of regional balance.
• Britain could also contribute to the strengthening of India’s domestic defence industrial base.
• The two sides could also expand India’s regional reach through sharing of logistical facilities.
• Both countries are said to be exploring an agreement on “migration and mobility” to facilitate the legal movement of Indians into Britain.
• Both sides are committed to finding common ground on climate change.

Consder the question “What are the factors that introduce friction in the sustainability of India’s bilateral relations with the Britain? Identify the areas in which both the countries can find fresh basis for the bilateral relations?”

Conclusion

If leaders of both the countries succeed in laying down mutually beneficial terms of endearment, future governments might be less tempted to undermine the partnership.