THE world will be watching as the new BJP led government formulates its foreign policy priorities. During the 2014 election campaign, the main focus of Narendra Modi was on domestic issues. His stated top priority is good governance and reversing the country’s economic slide. However his remarks on illegal “Bangladeshi immigrants” and his attempts to differentiate between Hindu and Muslim immigrants, while campaigning in West Bengal and Assam have perturbed the government in Dhaka. Bangladesh is one of India’s closest regional allies. Prime Minister Modi’s hawkish views on Pakistan are already well known. He has said on several occasions that Islamabad is not doing enough to curtail anti-Indian terror activities on its soil. He had also boasted that if elected as PM, he would get Dawood Ibrahim, who is on top of India’s most wanted terrorist list back to India. It is well known that Dawood has residences in Dubai and Karachi. The political and military establishment in Pakistan views him through the lenses of the 2002 Gujarat pogrom. Privately, some Pakistani officials say that it will be difficult for the Pakistani political leadership to engage constructively with the new right wing government in Delhi, given Modi’s previous record of Pakistan bashing. However, the Pakistani Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif has formally congratulated the new Indian prime minister and invited him over for a visit. Both Sharif and Modi are known to be business friendly leaders. Expanding trade and commerce between the two countries could provide the right recipe for an expanded thaw in bilateral relations. There are also many in Pakistan who believe that it is easier for their government to negotiate with a BJP led government on key bilateral issues. They draw a comparison with the scenario in West Asia where the Palestinians and Arab governments prefer to do a deal with the more hard line Likud Party in Israel. The reasoning being that right wing parties will be better positioned to sway nationalist opinions. Relations with Pakistan and China could pose the biggest foreign policy and security challenge to the Modi government. The last Indian PM to visit Islamabad was the BJP Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee. Manmohan Singh, it is well known, had a great desire to visit Pakistan before he demitted office. He was afraid of the criticism and charges of appeasement he would face from opposition quarters, especially from the BJP, if he had gone to Islamabad. A Chinese think tank has described Modi as the “Richard Nixon” of India. Nixon was the right wing republican president of America who affected a dramatic breakthrough in Washington’s relations with Beijing in the early seventies. There are a few optimists among strategic thinkers and diplomats who believe that Modi could do the same for Sino-Indian and Indo-Pak relations. With the American forces winding down their presence in Afghanistan, significant changes in the politics of the country and surrounding region are expected. Abdullah Abdullah, who is known to be close to New Delhi, is the front runner in the Afghan presidential elections. This is a development that is causing considerable unease in Islamabad. The security establishment there is already perturbed by the growing influence of India in the corridors of power in Kabul. The Pakistani security establishment continues to view Afghanistan as their strategic backyard. The Taliban, lying low for some time, is expected to make its military moves after the bulk of the western troops depart. The leadership of the Afghan Taliban continues to have a strong links with the powerful Pakistani security establishment. If Afghanistan descends into another round of bloodletting, there could be repercussions for India. Many of the global “jihadis” fighting in Afghanistan could then turn their attention to Kashmir, as had happened in the nineties. And as Muslim alienation in India rises following the rise of the Hindu right wing and their lack of representation in the government, the country could provide a new recruiting ground for religious extremists. HAWKISH PERSONALITIES From available indications, Modi’s foreign policy advisers are most likely going to be personalities who have a reputation of being extremely hawkish on Pakistan and China. Any new terror incident that could be perpetrated by terrorists having links with groups across the border now carries the risk of spinning out of control and escalating beyond a war of words. On the campaign trail, Modi while thumping his “56 inch” chest has been threatening a robust response to any provocation from across the border. In Arunachal Pradesh, which China considers as a “disputed territory”, Modi said that under his watch not a single inch of Indian territory will be bartered away. There have been serious incidents along the LAC and the LoC in recent years. Last year, the incidents along the LoC had seriously escalated leading to prolonged shelling and killings of military personnel from both sides. Better sense had prevailed at the time and both sides de-escalated the skirmish. The BJP’s initial announcement in its election manifesto that if elected it would “revise and update” India’s nuclear doctrine sent shock waves in the international community. It was widely interpreted that the party would renege on India’s “no first use” (nfu) of nuclear weapons. India’s main military rival is Pakistan. The BJP leadership was quick to backtrack on the issue and gave an assurance that there was no move to revise the country’s nuclear doctrine. Under previous NDA and UPA governments the nfu pledge had been diluted considerably. India does not have to stand by the nfu pledge if it comes under chemical or biological weapons attack. In 2010, the National Security Adviser, Shiv Shankar Menon, had said that nfu would apply to only non-nuclear weapon states. Pakistan meanwhile is busy buttressing its nuclear arsenal to counter what it claims is a massive conventional military build up by India. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, a reputed American journal, in an article published in 2011, claimed that Pakistan by the end of this decade would have enough fissile capacity to build many more bombs than India. India’s superiority in conventional military forces vis-a-vis Pakistan has become meaningless given the reality of the nuclear parity that exists between the two countries now. It was the previous NDA government that went in for Pokhran-2. Pakistan followed with its own nuclear tests. The international community was forced to recognise the existence of two de facto nuclear powers in the region. Despite the Hindu right wing’s traditional animosity towards China and its support for the Tibetan cause, Modi wants India to emulate the Chinese economic model. As chief minister of Gujarat, he has earned considerable frequent fliers miles on trips to China. But many of the advisers and supporters also want Modi to copy the style of another right wing nationalist, Shinzo Abe, the current prime minister of Japan. In fact, Modi seems to be consciously aping the political antics of Abe. After becoming prime minister of Japan, Abe visited the Yasukuni shrine, where the remains of Japanese “war criminals” are interred. The Shinto shrine is revered by right wing nationalists in Japan. Modi before being sworn in as prime minister of the secular republic was seen performing Hindu rituals on the banks of the Ganga in Varanasi. Abe, like Modi, wants his country to become a leading global economic and military power. In pursuit of these goals, Abe is seeking to rewrite the Japanese “Peace” Constitution and lead an anti-China alliance of Asian countries. Then there is the “Abenomics” he hopes would dramatically make the Japanese economy boom once again. And in India, we now have “Modinomics”. IMMENSE PRESSURE There will be immense pressure from Tokyo and Washington on the NDA government to become part of Washington-Tokyo military axis to help in the Obama administration’s military “pivot to the East”. Under the auspices of the previous UPA government, trilateral military exercises have been conducted. But the UPA government has withstood pressure from Washington to provide forward operating bases for the American military on Indian soil. American politicians and think tanks have been critical of the UPA government for sticking to “outmoded” concepts like the non-aligned movement and “strategic autonomy”. Ashton Carter, a former US assistant defense secretary and the man tipped by many in Washington to be the next American envoy to India, recently wrote in the Foreign Policy Journal that Washington viewed India “as integral” to Obama’s “pivot to the East” military strategy. “From the conception of our new strategy, the United States has seen India as integral to a rebalance not just to the Asia Pacific region, but also within the region”, Carter wrote. He went on to emphasise that defence relations between the two countries had been significantly strengthened. Keeping in view the UPA government’s sensitivities, the defence relations were kept “below the radar” by the American side. It was after Carter took over the deputy defence secretary’s job that the US sold sophisticated weaponry to India. In 2013, India was the largest single purchaser of US arms. The US army has conducted more joint exercises with the Indian armed forces than with any other country. The 2008 nuclear deal was supposed to seal the India-US strategic partnership. But irritants like the “nuclear liability bill” and the “Khobragade” incident have soured relations a bit. Now Washington wants to make up for lost time. Even before Modi was formally sworn in as PM, Washington expressed the hope that naval cooperation with India could be further expanded. Admiral Jonathan Greenert, the chief of the US naval operations said in the third week of May that he would like India’s participation in joint exercises in the Western Pacific region, where according to the Pentagon, the Chinese Navy has become more assertive in recent years. China is already involved in an increasingly acrimonious territorial dispute with Vietnam in the South China Sea. India’s ONGC has a stake in a gas field near the disputed waters in the South China Sea. There was a confrontation between Chinese and Vietnamese naval ships in April after China installed a drilling rig in an area that is also claimed by Vietnam in the South China Sea. Vietnam is now closely coordinating its diplomatic moves with countries ranged against China. Hanoi wants India to supply sophisticated missiles and other military hardware to the Vietnamese military. Beijing will be closely watching India’s diplomatic and strategic moves towards countries like Vietnam and Japan. President Obama during his recent visit to Japan pledged to come to Tokyo’s aid in case hostilities break out with China over the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea. Many commentators warn that there is a serious danger of an all out war breaking out in Asia once again. The new Indian government has to carefully weigh its options before taking sides. IDEOLOGICAL SOUL-MATES IN EUROPE The Obama administration has been quick to congratulate Modi on his victory and extend an invitation to new Indian PM to visit Washington. The US had revoked Modi’s visa in 2005 for his role in the 2002 Gujarat riots. The European Union (EU) too had followed suit and had denied a visa to the Gujarat CM. But many of the EU member states had mellowed towards Modi much before his election to the PM’s office. The UK was among the first to do so. In many major West European countries like France and the UK, right wing and Islamophobic parties are on the ascendant. The British Prime Minister, James Cameroun, catering to the right wing sentiments, had recently described Britain as a “Christian” country. Modi will find many ideological soul-mates among leaders in Europe. The previous UPA government, given India’s membership of BRICS and close relations with Moscow, had generally adopted a cautious stance on Syria and the crisis in Ukraine. Western governments and their regional allies were unhappy with the positions New Delhi has been adopting on some other issues too. There will be renewed pressure on the NDA government to support calls for military intervention in Syria. The Israeli media is claiming that Modi is the “best friend” the country has in the whole of South Asia. Israel has poured billions of dollars as investment in the “model state” of Gujarat. Israeli commentators are saying that under Modi, ties between the two countries will be deeper. India’s indirect support for Israel’s brutal invasions of Gaza is a graphic illustration. India and Israel already cooperate closely on counter-terror and homeland security issues. The former NDA national security adviser, Brajesh Mishra, had said in a speech delivered before an American Jewish audience in 2003, that he would like a Washington-Tel Aviv-Delhi axis to “jointly face the ugly face of terrorism”. The NDA government had extended the notorious Ariel Sharon a red carpet welcome in Delhi. Israel last year sold more defence weaponry, worth more than $10 billion to India, outpacing even Russian military sales. Washington would want New Delhi to side with the West in the looming new Cold War with Moscow. The crisis in Ukraine has already caused dramatic re-alignments. The sanctions and the war of words unleashed against Moscow, has forced President Vladimir Putin to reorient his foreign policy. The Russian president visited China in May to further strengthen defence and commercial links between the two countries. A historic natural gas deal worth over $400 billion was signed during the visit. This deal further cements the alliance between the two countries. Russia is all set to sell a squadron of Su-35 jet fighters to China. India has observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) but has not actively sought full membership. Russia and China want to build the SCO as a counterweight to NATO. Both Moscow and Beijing have been feeling the heat from the West and are therefore busy formulating policies that would give them more room to manoeuvre. India too has to formulate policies that would help insulate it from the machinations of outside powers. India’s relations with Iran under the new dispensation in Delhi will also be keenly watched. The previous government had fallen in line with many of the unilateral sanctions imposed by Washington. Companies like Reliance which had a booming business in the petro-chemical sector with Iranian companies, had pulled out. Iran which was once the biggest oil exporter to India now lags behind Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Venezuela. China on the other hand, despite the western sanctions, is doing great business with Iran, not too mindful about the reaction from Washington.