Book Review | Jaishankar's 'Why Bharat Matters' unveils India's foreign policy renaissance

With the arrival of the NDA government in 2014 under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, began a series of transformational changes in Indian foreign policy and diplomacy which also emerged as conceptual challenges to the settled notions of foreign policy. Since 2014, each strategic move of the Indian state has been an attempt to ensure that India engages with the world on its terms and to lay down solid grounds for India’s position as Vishwaguru. At the forefront of this endeavour to shape India’s foreign policy has been External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. [caption id=“attachment_13691232” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Image courtesy Amazon.co.in[/caption] Beautifully titled, his latest book “Why Bharat Matters” is the story of India’s rise as an independent pole on the global stage, charting its course and manoeuvring its way through the global power equations. Engaging with various episodes from the Ramayana, the book is a unique quest to read and interpret the Ramayana from a foreign policy perspective. While the book emphasizes the ‘ethical dimensions of the Ramayana’ and their significance in shaping a positive international relations landscape, it surely comes out as an interesting take on crucial lessons that our revered itihas has to offer in the domain of realpolitik. Jaishankar’s book is as much a story of the unshackling of Indian foreign policy from hegemonic global trends, as it is a retelling of India’s growth story since 2014 which explains the external implications of Indian government policies. It makes one realise that many of our government policies ranging from the Make in India initiative to the Vibrant Villages Programme, address both internal growth and development while simultaneously contributing their bit to improving our external relations and national security apparatus. It offers a panoramic view of our government’s strides in the foreign policy arena and narrates how seamlessly the Indian state has been maintaining a confluence between the goals of Indian diplomacy and our national developmental agendas. Curating a diplomatic regime that is robust, nimble, deft, articulate and strategic at the same time is an art that India has been mastering recently. Given that it has been the target of extremism, fanatical terrorism and a fertile ground for roping weeds of separatism from overseas, the immediacy of the need for flexible diplomacy can’t be understated. As Jaishankar aptly puts it: “India has to patiently make the case that its pursuit of national interest is very much in tune with its advocacy of global good. A large part of the answers lies in the world of argumentation and in the effectiveness of communication. Diplomacy, thus, has a responsibility as both the shield and sword of a polity.” As we find ourselves in the midst of ‘techades’ dominated by globalizing trends, the pursuit of artful diplomacy assigns it the role of both exploring possibilities while also serving as the ‘voice of caution’. Since 2014, the Modi government has been relentlessly working towards attaining better socio-economic conditions of the society, with the vision of harnessing its powers and creating a smooth headway for India into the ‘global workplace’. As the book argues, emerging as an important global player in the backdrop of a framework of a global order skewed towards the West requires India to maintain a ‘strategic autonomy’, i.e., to ensure the development of “national capabilities in core and sensitive areas”. That’s the idea of pumping life into the concept of an Atmanirbhar Bharat. With the rise of China and a noticeable decline in the status of conventional powers such as the US, a shift towards a multipolar world is imminent. As multipolarity is being theorised as a fresh framework for the changing global order, ‘plurilateralism’ rises as a new reality with clusters of nations coming together on various forums with specific international agendas, without constraining themselves by the limits of regional geographies, ideological umbrellas, religious or normative commonalities, etc. As sharply observed in the book, such a dynamic global landscape is sustained by the ‘frugality’ of universalised normative agreements forming the basis of stable relationships, prominently displaying the possibility of doing diplomacy based on the art of identifying common grounds across individual national interests. While addressing the issue of China’s belligerence and its huge strides towards global hegemony, the book rightly proposes the urgent need for a multipolar Asia as an antidote, with India being one of its key poles, which can be the only assurance for a well-balanced multipolar world. The emergence of India as a pole, gravitating the Global South around it and serving as the latter’s voice, is possible through its resurrection as an assertive civilizational state elegantly flaunting its civilizational values and embracing them in its foreign policy. The book pertinently notes how the Modi government has been acing the powerplay of language and messaging, whether it be transforming the idea of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ into a global aspirational ideal, or presenting India as the ‘Mother of Democracy’. As perfectly summed up by Jaishankar, “Developing our own lexicon, concepts, mechanisms and ideas and socializing them in world politics is also a testimony to India’s continued rise. Their unfolding underlines the reality of India’s vigorous participation in global platforms.” India has been ensuring that the messaging is followed by actions which imprint the ideas as emerging realities into the psyche of other nations. A pointed example is the Vaccine Maitri programme which showcased India as a true ‘Vishwamitra’. Similarly, India’s extensive network of overlapping projects in infrastructure, health and education across Africa, and its paving the way for membership of the African Union at the G20 Summit, are a timely reminder of its responsibility as a ‘Vishwaguru’. The book makes a striking intervention on the need for re-imagining our security paradigm. In the age of cutting-edge digital technology and ‘borderless politics’, one often tends to either undermine or overplay the power of narratives, information dissemination and opinion manufacturing. A balanced assessment of the practical impact of the propagation of narratives via digital platforms complimented with a sound understanding of the limitations of mass influence through digital media, should serve as an optimum remedy for the troubles caused by the promotion of borderless politics (read, transnational separatism), online radicalisation, and the spread of extremism. Further, it also cautions against the space for fragility that our nation’s diversity provides to its detractors. It emphasizes the need for diving deeper into our civilizational anchors to fulfil the requirements of the nation-state with customized civilizational tools and policy-making processes. As for the continuous attempts abroad to exploit the sensitive fault lines of our society, Jaishankar chips in a cautionary note as follows: “Strengthening national sentiment, by itself, may not discourage such continuing endeavors. That we are an open society also means that there are more opportunities for mischief. Eternal vigilance, in our case, is not just the price of liberty but of national unity as well.” The book makes it clear that India is a unique civilizational model charting its course as a modern nation. The process of blending the compulsions of the modern state according to its civilizational understanding will require the generation of “its own personality”, such that the nation will “speak and think for itself, radiating how it is rooted in its own culture”. When our External Affairs Minister produces a remarkable work narrating India’s rise in the world order and explains Indian foreign policy based on the interpretations of Ramayana, one may rest assured that India is reclaiming its civilizational legacy and cementing its international position through the deployment of its civilizational lens, at the core of which lies the idea of Bharat. As Jaishankar gracefully concludes, “With each passing day, it is becoming clearer that India matters because it is Bharat.” The author is a Research Fellow at India Foundation. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views. Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.