Taking stock of a Hindutva foreign policy

Vivek Katju, senior in the diplomatic service to Foreign Minister Dr. S Jaishankar (Katju uses prefix Mr. not Dr.), upbraids Jaishankar on his ‘articulation of some areas of the Modi government’s domestic agenda’ in his address at the recently concluded United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session. To Katju, Jaishankar’s voicing of Hindutva’s domestic agenda in an international forum ‘raises several deeply troubling questions.’ Katju observes:

this is perhaps for the first time that the basic interpretation of Indian history of the current ruling dispensation has been projected in the UNGA, although in coded language. This is a dangerous path to undertake for domestic controversies are best avoided when national positions which have to be, necessarily rooted the Constitution, are authoritatively articulated abroad. As a former diplomat, Mr. Jaishankar would be well aware of the Indian diplomatic tradition which has always presented nationally unified positions abroad, particularly at the UN and in multilateral forums.

This amounts to a rocket. It shows dissonance in the foreign policy fraternity, if not the establishment itself, from Hindutva appropriation of India’s foreign policy to its purposes. It is of a piece with the polarization in the administrative service veterans, with a Concerned Citizens’ Group being shadowed by another – motley – group of civil servants a different persuasion. But then Vivek Katju is not without blame for the situation to have gotten to this pass.

Hindutva’s piggy back ride into strategic space

Katju is part of the conservative-realist cabal that dominated the strategic community over the past 20 years. They created conditions for the ushering in and triumph of Hindutva in national political culture. This they did, mostly unwarily, by outpointing the liberal-realists in the inevitable ideological competition between the two perspectives. In their internecine guerilla action against the liberal-realists, who peopled the national security establishment in the Manmohan Singh years, they claimed the government was soft on national security.  

They neglected to look over their shoulders and observe that cultural nationalists were waiting on the wings to outflank them. Thus, they paved the way for hardboiled cultural nationalists to capture the high-ground in strategic discourse. Taking advantage of the victory of conservative-realists in the ideational competition, cultural nationalists - politically better-equipped – wrested the strategic space.

They prepared the ground for the triumph of Hindutva at the political hustings. Their narrative was that Indian security stood compromised and a strong leader was called for. Alongside a strong leader was being manufactured by the Indian ‘deep state’ through a series of fake encounters, leading to elimination of Muslims depicted as terrorists, across Gujarat. A cover up of their tracks is evident from a senior police officer, who spilt the beans on this, now running from pillar to post to have his pension restored. The rest is history, political culture now Hindutva owned.

Hindutva’s pointsman

Dr. S. Jaishankar was along the way coopted by Hindutva. He was always a hardliner – a realist of the old school. This perhaps appealed to the champion of Hindutva, Narendra Modi, out to commandeer institutions. He needed a wrecking ball for the foreign office, seen as an elitist holdout, a Nehruvian product. Just as Bipin Rawat was alighted on for the purpose with the army, Modi set his eyes on Jaishankar.

The two got along as Jaishankar – when ambassador in Washington D.C. - midwifed Modi’s return to the diaspora stage right in the center of New York, the Madison Square Garden. There was no looking back thereafter. Jaishankar was elevated to foreign secretary post just two days prior to his retirement, displacing the incumbent – a woman officer - prematurely. The rules were tweaked for Jaishankar to hang on for another year, trampling the aspirations of diplomats from subsequent batches. The cooling off period after his retirement was waived so he could join the corporate sector – better than a sinecure.

After winning the 2019 elections, Modi anointed Jaishankar minister. Jaishankar took membership of the ruling party and was fielded for the upper house by Modi from his pocket borough, Gujarat. He won an election later challenged in the High Court. Ideally, representativeness within the cabinet requires ministers to have faced electorates directly. Political heft strengthens ministers to hold their own, rather than kowtow. In the regime’s case, such democratic niceties are easily dispensed with, many significant ministers being from the upper house. Subject to such largesse, it is no wonder Jaishankar – in a hagiographical book on Modi to which he contributed a chapter - admits to having ‘liked’ Modi prior to interacting with him as prime minister.

Jaishankar is thus hobbled. It is uncertain if he is driven by personal ambition or by a belief that the greater glory of India lies in adoption of Hindutva or by both. The first is unexceptionable in itself, though there is a line that should be drawn. In his case – as was the case with Generals Bipin Rawat and recently Anil Chauhan – they shouldn’t have so readily stepped over others’ shoulders. (Anil Chauhan as military adviser failed to advise against taking on a retired brass-hat as Chief of Defence Staff when there is no emergency.) Ambition that has personal interest supersede the institutional upsets cohesion and solidarity, creating instability and precedent. That Jaishankar’s predecessor as foreign secretary was not present for handing over speaks for itself. Starting off with a misstep, the regime is fully capable of manipulating the weakness. Yet, each knowingly lent his services to dismantling verities of respective institution. Perhaps, they genuinely believed that Hindutva ideals substituting the old as being better for the institution and the country. The belief fetched Rawat a Padma Vibhushan. From Jaishankar’s verbiage in defence of the Hindutva-inspired regime it is fair to infer that he is a bhakt, a mitigating factor.

Jaishankar with a trident

The ‘professionalism and precision’ - that Katju is appreciative of - has been placed service of a deeply held beliefs. Katju is wrong in berating Jaishankar for violating Indian diplomatic tradition in airing Hindutva abroad. Katju perhaps believes that there is no consensus on Hindutva yet and therefore the foreign office should wait for paradigm dominance. That is debatable.

Dominance of political culture does not happen of its own. It is a creation, a construction, a product of exertion by idea entrepreneurs and believers. Jaishankar’s pitching for Hindutva is both symbolic of Hindutva dominance as much as an effort to enable dominance. Jaishankar’s taking it international is not premature. Afterall, India has twice-over voted for Hindutva. Even if some Hindus continue to believe in the promise of development, they are not the ones that upped Hindutva voting numbers the second time round.

As foreign minister he has also to pitch for and explain Hindutva externally. It has received a bad press lately. India’s standing has fallen since its soft power has been undercut by Hindutva. Jaishankar has to roll back skepticism. He has to counter cynics, both home-based and in the diaspora, besides taking on some mastheads conniving against New India. The very thin talent pool commanded by Hindutva makes his articulate defence even more prominent than it might have been.

He has to hold his own in Delhi’s bureaucratic politics, which – if rumours are anything to go by – has him pitch against the redoubtable National Security Adviser Ajit Doval. Doval for his part has been restricted by the overweening heavyweight, Amit Shah, one part of the duo that rules New India. Jaishankar has had to keep him off foreign policy, since Doval in any case controls a fair bit, both the Pakistan policy, and, as Special Representative on talks with China, a critical portion of the China policy. (The blinders on Doval on internal and foreign policy explains his being overly intrusive into the military, in successively appointing ethnic kin to the post of Chief of Defence Staff.)

Not to forget the personal factor: as a political light weight, with no constituency other than the good will of Narendra Modi, Jaishankar has to go the full distance. This explains his highfaluting phrases as ‘correction of history’, ‘hesitations of history’, ‘restoration of identity’, ‘cultural trust’, ‘liberation from a colonial mindset’ and - the mother of all bombast - ‘obligation to right historical wrongs’. Jaishankar’s authoritative verbalizing lends Hindutva gravitas that helps paper over its cultural vandalism. It legitimizes the authoritarianism of his benefactor, Modi, who can be seen as a prophetic figure turning back the tides of history unfavourable to Hindus – as imagined by Modi the Narcissist of himself.

New India’s diplomacy

Academics have noted Jaishankar has been rather successful in facilitating Hindutva penetration of Indian diplomacy. Hindutva visibility is easy to see. Terrorism – though at an ebb both internationally and internally – continues to be Indian diplomacy’s favourite hobby horse. It is invariably trotted out in regard to Pakistan, not only because doing so helps keep Pakistan on the defensive in relation to the Financial Action Task Force, but more importantly the regime has not done with the Othering of the Indian Muslims within. Jaishankar’s persistence thus has more to it in terms of consequences than merely high politics. It keeps India hyphenated to Pakistan and holds up a resolution to Kashmir. Though keeping India vulnerable in relation to China – allowing China space to box India into a South Asian sand pit – it is a price worth paying to keep up polarization in domestic politics.

India’s religion-based domestic politics determines its regional policy, putting paid to the ‘neighbourhood first’ propaganda. The Citizenship Amendment Act, though seemingly a home ministry product, has foreign policy implications. It tacitly suggests India’s Muslim neighbours are communalized societies and polities. Nothing on record has Jaishankar’s ministry inputting this action negatively. That Jaishankar – a Tamil – did not bat for Sri Lankan Tamils, similarly beset, shows him up more as an alienated, displaced-to-New-Delhi TamBram - exposing his Achilles heel in being merely a technocrat.

A technocrat in charge, Hindutva is now being exported through official conduits, no longer needing a cultural cover - such as yoga - or using the Gujarati-heavy diaspora auspices. A recent case to point is the Indian high commission in London batting only for Leicester Hindus, though most Muslims with whom extremist Hindus brawled, are of Indian origin. At the UNGA, Jaishankar’s glib convergence of the colonial and precolonial periods into one contiguous period in which Hindu India lost its sovereignty to outsiders discloses a pronounced bias.

Jaishankar has been most useful for the regime in shaping its China policy, understandable in light of his having been India’s longest serving ambassador in China.  Earlier he had been instrumental in fashioning India’s proximity to the United States (US) during the previous government, having steered the nuclear deal through labyrinthine processes both in Delhi and in the US. As to who - between Modi himself, Doval and Jaishankar - plugged for personal diplomacy - based on informal summits between Modi and Xi - is not known. Jaishankar cannot be let off the hook in terms of accountability till more is known.

Important for the regime has been his assertive public posturing on China, even as the facts on ground have been elided. It is difficult to square Rajnath Singh’s claims that the situation on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) is under control, with, on the one hand, the army conceding buffer zones on the Indian side of the LAC, and, on the other, Jaishankar positing that normalization needs Chinese to retract further. Even as Jaishankar pretends that all is not normal, Indian trade with China climbs, with an adverse trade balance continuing.

Jaishankar has been careful in keeping off the military parlays at corps commander level (though a joint secretary level diplomat is present). Jaishankar has the excuse of Doval as Special Representative to keep off holistic repair of the relationship too. What foreign office inaction - at both the tactical and strategic levels - does is to place a premium on the military, necessitating it sit up in high altitude. The military tied up, the upshot is Jaishankar is prima donna, pulling Modi’s chestnuts out of the fire. 

Whither Hindutvised foreign policy

Given how lean the Hindutva ecosystem is on intellect in its ranks, Jaishankar is its saving grace – contributing the sound bites necessary to keep Hindutva credible. His speaking marathons in the US help keep Americans perplexed as to what to make of Indian foreign policy comprising ‘pirouettes’ – in the words of late veteran diplomat, Satyabrata Pal. They have ceased posting an ambassador in New Delhi to help interpret New India. India bats for a permanent seat on the Security Council, even as it does nothing to bolster the Charter at a time when sorely challenged. It goes to town over Modi’s meaningless homilies on peace in Ukraine are taken up by the West for Russia-bashing, even as it buys up Russian oil. It plays mum on human rights matters in Geneva, hoping that doing so will elicit reciprocation from others when at some time it is instead on the mat.

A Hindutvised foreign policy will be judged not so much by India’s multilateral balancing act but how the balancing act plays out in the region. Currently, India has stowed its deterrent against Pakistan, compensating with Doval-overseen secret talks. This has allayed its two-front concerns as it gets into gear on the China front, where it has restored immediate deterrence. However, general deterrence is unlikely to be restored since China has spotted India’s weakness: its skittishness about exposing facts internally. As an analyst has pointed out, in return for India’s concessions in Ladakh, China has spared Modi a domestic political debacle. Jaishankar, who knows most as to how this has come about, owes India an explanation. The hitch is that the explanation can potentially end Hindutva’s reign, which means it will remain an enigma.

Finally, that Muslims united the country into a proto Akhand Bharat is missed by Hindutva. What Hindutva fails to perceive is that creating a discontinuity dating to 2014 in India’s existence as a State over the past millennium can rebound. Modi’s thesis on decolonization of the mind is basically short hand for resumption of ruling privileges by advantaged castes, perceived by them as dissipated by Muslim conquest. Therefore, the animus against Muslims.

Given that Muslims constitute one third of South Asia, Hindutva’s fond beliefs sets India off against its neighbours. It’s a truism that unless neighbours endorse India’s rise, it is not going anyplace. An ugly India is unlikely to receive this. India believes its economic magnetism will see them fall in line. This is a high hope in light of economic realities, created by the regime itself and the social turbulence that awaits Hindutva’s follow through with Amit Shah’s ‘chronology’.

India’s soft power - traditionally conceived - can see it transcend the subcontinent. That Hindutva is out to dismantle such soft power and install in its place majoritarian notions will hold India back. Jaishankar is not about to let his patron know this. Not doing so will be his enduring legacy.