The current season of jibes by India’s opposition parties regarding Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s enviable frequent flyer miles — nine foreign trips in six months — could well become a long one going by Modi’s 2015 schedule that so far promises to have him visit five countries. However, the question his detractors should be asking is not why he is undertaking so many foreign trips — as prime minister, he has the right to do so — but what has been achieved by them. The cavil on the number of trips apart, Modi has invested his foreign policy with a robustness that was missing in action for a long time. India needed this shot in the arm given his predecessor Manmohan Singh’s performance.
Many of the trips Modi undertook as prime minister were international summits with India’s presence being mandatory — Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), UN General Assembly and South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc). The others, debatably, were relationship binders with Bhutan and Nepal, for example. The net worth of all these visits, however, added to India’s heft as a regional powerhouse as important national interests — trade, foreign investment, technological know-how, cyber and maritime security, border issues and strategic relations — were addressed by Modi. With Obama agreeing to grace India’s Republic Day ceremonies on January 26 next year — seen as a significant outcome of Modi’s trip to the US in September this year — one of the fruits of his trips has already ripened. It remains to be seen how the rest fare.
