Friday, May 23, 2014
It is a double coup that India is witnessing at the moment: A national election that churned out a single-party majority after three decades of coalition governments at the Centre; and the first ever formal invitation by a prime minister-elect to India’s neighbours to grace his investiture. In making this gesture, Narendra Modi, the man who outwitted all of India’s political punditry to emerge as the incontestable choice to occupy the prime minister’s chair, has revealed his first principle of governance: Execute a perfectly-timed volte face to disarm opponents.
Modi’s incessant tirades against Pakistan and more recently, on the unacceptable influx of Bangladeshi refugees into India that reached epochal heights in his election campaign, discouraged any hope of him possessing a productive foreign policy mindset. However, clearly, Modi knows better. By inviting leaders of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries — that include Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bhutan and Nepal, apart from India — to participate in the momentous hour of India’s tryst with a new destiny, Modi has spun India’s political compass like never before. In fact, he has also invited the premier of Mauritius. Modi’s overt tractability can well be the muscle power India needs to recompense for its flaccid stance over the last decade. And given the unfortunately commemorative standoff between India and Pakistan for decades, if Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s Prime Minister, does accept Modi’s invitation, it will be a first for Indo-Pak relationship. Most important of all, Modi’s reinvented political craft will take the credit for positing that tokenism can go beyond its wafer-thin credentials and indeed become the incubator for purposeful geopolitical advancement.
By Gulf News
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