Daily Times

Vladimir Putin received Narendra Modi’s return to mother Russia with a beaming and boastful smile on his face. Veiled behind Putin’s customary greetings and smiles, one could notice a glimpse of smirk on his face, which in itself conveyed heaps of understanding about Modi’s obvious attempts to feign fidelity with the old friend, Russian. Standing next to Modi, Putin often grinned from ear to ear as if telling former ‘not your fault Mr Prime Minister, for you Indian were just charmed by Michelle and Obama dance in India and deluded yourself into believing that the American would place your country at the centre of so-called ‘Pivot to Asian policy’. Modi’s rather strained smile was visibly belying his face, typical of a runaway juvenile who decides to return home after knowing that his parents are ready to forsake him and adopt another child for the sake of parenting.

To assuage his guilt of infidelity, an ill-advised Modi, through an Indian journalist, tried to put Putin on the spot by asking why Russia was making such good friends with Pakistan. Unaware that such questions hardly catch a shrewd and sharp Putin off guard, Modi and the Indian journalists landed themselves into an awkward situation and appeared dumfounded when Putin hit his response home: “We do not have any tight (military) relations with Pakistan. The US, do you have (close relations)? “Mostly unforgiving, Putin, however decided to spare Indian delegation from further embarrassment when he chose not to probe Modi about India’s stance over US-Saudi led anti Iranian campaign. Had Putin asked Modi’s views on US policy towards Middle East and East Europe, the later would have fallen from the fence, facedown.

Modi’s return-to-Mother-Russia-policy took place in the aftermath of Trump’s decision to withdraw from Trans Pacific Partnership (TTP) which scuttled the much acclaimed Obama’s Pivot-to-Asia policy, leaving its designated partners feeling deflated and in disarray as to what to do with China’s economic and military rise in the Asian Pacific and beyond. Obama’s Pivot-to-Asia policy was premised on the strategic calculation that China would translate its economic prowess into geopolitical and geostrategic hegemony in the Asian Pacific. Since, the lion’s share of the geopolitical and economic history of the 21st Century, according to a growing number of economists and strategists, would be written in East Asia, therefore China’s21 pre-eminence in the Pacific would ultimately enable Beijing to dominate the geo-economic and geopolitical landscape of entire Asia. This then would not only undermine but also threaten the economic and strategic interests of the US in Asia and world, at large.

The way forward for India should be to drop the terrorism mantra and to invite Russia, China and Pakistan to sit on one table and discuss the geo-economic and geo-political future of Asia

To prevent such an eventuality, Obama’s administration decided to embark on a strategic re-balancing of US interests from Europe and Middle East to Asia Pacific region. In this respect, Obama’s administration undertook to lead the efforts to contain China’s rise by building a series of encircling regional alliances including Japan, Australia, Indonesia and India. In particular, India was described and designated as ‘lynchpin’ for Pivot to Asian policy.

Learning about India’s newly designated role, an overexcited Lalit Mansingh (a former Indian Ambassador to the US, 2001-2004) wasted no time in claiming that the geopolitical designation of India as a lynchpin or pivot “is hardly new”. Jawaharlal Nehru, Mansingh asserted, had used this term to characterise India’s geopolitical and geostrategic centrality in the Western, Southern and Southeast Asian regions when he (Nehru) stressed “India is the pivot of Western, Southern and Southeast Asia.” This cherry-picking of Nehru’s statement and quoting it out of context was tantamount to disowning his political legacy and making mockery of his rather censorious attitude towards colonial and imperial geopolitics. Even the most cursory look at Nehru’s writings shows how he loathed the Halford Mackinder and Walter Lippmann’s grand-ideas such as Great-Game and Geopolitical-Pivot. Mansingh and later Modi perhaps missed the fact that it was Nehru who — two decades prior to India’s independence — had led the Indian leaders in criticising the US foreign policy towards Latin America at the Brussels International Congress against ‘Colonial Oppression and Imperialism’. Nehru had jibed at the US capitalism when he said, “it is the United States which offers us the best field for the study of economic imperialism.”

Nonetheless, Modi’s return to Russia suggest that Indians have finally awaken from their American dream. They however should also wake up to the fact that Americans would never make let alone allow India to emerge as a great Asian power. India can only carve and claim a pivotal-role for itself only if it joins Russian-Chinese endeavours to create Greater Eurasia. The way forward for India would be to drop the terrorism mantra and invite Russia, China and Pakistan to sit on one table and discuss the geo-economic and geo-political future of Asia. After all, it was Indian leaders led by Chittaranjan Das, Srinivasa Iyengar and Mukhtar Ansari who — during the height of Colonial oppression — championed the cause of Asia and promoted the idea of an Asian union or a Federation of Asiatic peoples for their common welfare.

The writer is research fellow at CSSPR, University of Lahore, He can be reached at ii_2001@hotmail.com