Not just smart diplomacy, HADR to Turkey & Syria reflects India’s inevitable rise as a great power with a difference

India’s contribution towards humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) for the series of devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria has attracted global attention. It isn’t just the gamut of India’s involvement, but also the speed with which New Delhi reacted that has taken many by surprise. Contrary to the perception that India’s HADR efforts are limited primarily to its neighbourhood, within 24 hours of one of the biggest-ever natural disasters that so far killed more than 47,000 people in West Asia, the first C17 Globemaster transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) touched down in Turkey with a specialized search and rescue (SAR) team carrying tonnes of relief materials. The team had flown out on 6 February within a few hours of Turkey’s request for assistance. Behind that promptness lay a series of urgent developments involving the Prime Minister’s Office, the external affairs and defence ministries, kicking off with foreign minister S Jaishankar’s meeting in South Block. As a News18 report points out, “at 3.30 pm, an operational meeting was being held between the defence ministry, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) in South Block to strategise and put together resources. Within 12 hours of that meeting, the first SAR flight left for Turkey.” By Saturday, India had sent seven heavy-lift Globemaster aircraft with hundreds of tonnes of relief material, ration, life-saving medicines, medical equipment, more specialized SAR and medical teams, rescue dogs and a 30-bed field hospital that was set up at Iskenderun in Turkey’s Hatay province. The field hospital was operated by a 99-member team that included critical care specialists and surgeons, and it was equipped with an operation theatre, X-ray machines and ventilators. The material and medicines alone were worth Rs 7 crore, according to Union health ministry data. India had also flown in 11 vehicles for the 152-strong NDRF squad to aid in search and rescue operations. The importance of this cannot be overstated. For instance, Pakistan, a key ally of Turkey, reportedly failed to deploy its disaster response force locally due to a paucity of vehicles. Indian rescuers were also self-sufficient when it came to food and other essentials, and the already overstretched local authorities were not burdened further. At the backend, nearly 150 passports were issued overnight by the external affairs ministry for the SAR personnel, most of whom had none. The scale of ‘Operation Dost’ called for a level of inter-ministerial cooperation, coordination, organisational and procedural readiness that shows India’s intent to be counted as a leading power that can act as a first responder and possesses the capacity to deliver HADR to distressed nations anywhere in the world, not just in the immediate or extended neighbourhood. It was evident that lessons have been learnt from some of the  mistakes that were committed during India’s humanitarian outreach to Nepal during the 2015 earthquake. India’s sincere efforts have caused Ankara to repeatedly express its gratitude, both officially and more importantly, through the love, warmth, affection, and thankfulness of its people. For many in the strategic community, however, India’s move to jump to Turkey’s aid is driven by realpolitik. It doesn’t harm to help a nation in distress, and when that nation is a key West Asian actor that has adopted an adversarial position against India in the past, the HADR efforts may help India earn goodwill and influence Turkey’s decisions in the future. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, seen as a close ally of Pakistan, has played the ‘Kashmir card’ several times in the past (see here, here and here to project himself as a leader of the Muslim world at the cost of a souring relationship with India. Whether or not Erdoğan’s Ottoman Caliphate dreams are realised — an already tough election looks much tougher for the Turkish president with his government facing public ire in the aftermath of the quakes over irregular construction in affected areas and slow response to the tragedy — the humanitarian disaster, therefore, presented New Delhi with an opportunity to reverse the grammar of bilateral ties. It may appear cynical, but ‘disaster diplomacy’ is a useful tool in achieving foreign policy objectives. When Nepal was hit by a 7.9-magnitude earthquake in April 2015 that left massive destruction in its trail, India was the first country to reach Kathmandu with relief materials — within six to seven hours of the quake — through ‘Operation Maitri’, a massive search and rescue mission. India’s efforts, however, were also framed as a geopolitical competition versus China with a struggling Nepal as the staging ground. The idea that HADR is a means for furthering geopolitical agenda and New Delhi has put it to good effect in Turkey, is being liberally thrown around. Husain Haqqani, former Pakistan ambassador to the US, and his Hudson Institute colleague Aparna Pande write in The Diplomat that India’s “latest emergency response… is strategic, not just humanitarian… India’s objective is to make sure that its interests are not left unguarded because of the vacuum created in the Middle East by Washington’s focus on peer competition with China and on Russia’s actions in Eurasia.” To interpret India’s HADR efforts in Turkey and Syria efforts solely through the prism of geopolitical gain and loss could be missing the woods for the trees. Diplomacy, even of the ‘disaster’ kind, is not a zero-sum game. It would be naïve to conclude that Erdoğan would stop raising Kashmir in international fora because India helped Turkey during its hour of need. Be it Operation Dost, Operation Ganga, Operation Devi Shakti, Vande Bharat Mission, Operation Maitri, Operation Sahayata in 2019 when India extended aid to cyclone-hit Mozambique, or Operation Raahat in 2015 when hundreds of Indians and foreign nationals from 32 countries — including Americans — were evacuated from a war-hit Yemen, India’s relief measures across the world hasn’t always been driven by geopolitical agenda. Since the Nepal earthquake in 2015, there has been a visible shift in India’s HADR capabilities and intent, traceable no doubt to the fact that India’s economy has progressively grown to become the world’s fifth largest. That has given India the chance to augment its capabilities. As former Indian ambassador Gurjit Singh points out in The Tribune, “Given India’s rising capabilities, it has gone beyond simple HADR to more complex issues such as dealing with the pandemic, chemical accidents and industrial matters. Thus, India’s outreach for HADR has grown both in terms of geographical space and the depth of its technical competence. This has enhanced India’s image as an effective responder to deal with non-traditional crises.” There are, however, other factors at work. Worth noting that India’s HADR capabilities have increased in scope, scale, and outreach roughly with the advent of the Narendra Modi government. This is not a coincidence. Speaking on Vaccine Maitri initiative, under which New Delhi supplied made-in-India Covid-19 vaccines to over 100 countries, EAM Jaishankar said in Parliament in May 2021 that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “vision provided a framework for practical initiatives and activities such as humanitarian assistance and disaster responses over the past few years, and India developed a reputation as the first and reliable responder in the region.” During an interaction with members of the rescue squad who had just returned from ‘Operation Dost’ mission in Turkey, the prime minister on Monday said, “Whether there is a cyclone or any disaster in any part of the world, when people see you, see NDRF personnel, their uniform even from afar, their faith is restored. They feel a sense of safety and naturally begin to trust you guys. This multiplies your credibility manifold. But we cannot stop here. We have to increase our measures. We need to be perceived as the world’s best rescue teams.” The impetus for amplifying India’s HADR capacities, and doing so with a passion and fervour, has grown under a leader who has his roots in the ‘sewa bhav’ culture of the RSS. ‘Sewa bhav’, or the passion for selfless caregiving, defines the RSS. The Sangh has a long history of rendering selfless service to the society and nation during times of national calamity or distress. Rajiv Tuli, an RSS executive member, writes in Indian Express: “service of the wider community to the fore” is an “overarching principle of the Sangh.” This finds reflection in Modi’s frequent reference to ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’, or the ‘world is one family’. When the world was grappling with the pandemic and richer nations were in fierce competition to corner the global supply leaving the Global South in the lurch, India stepped up. It rolled out billions of doses for its citizens but also made available millions of doses for over 100 nations, including the poorest victims of vaccine apartheid. India also supplied medicines and diagnostic kits to over 150 countries, 82 of them as grants. At the Global South Summit hosted this year by India — where more than 120 developing nations took part — the prime minister announced the ‘Aarogya Maitri’ project under which New Delhi will “provide essential medical supplies to any developing country affected by natural disasters or humanitarian crises.” This brings us to the other aspect that drives India’s HADR efforts — moral leadership. “If you ask me a single thing that we have done in the last ten years which has shaped global views about India, it is ‘Vaccine Maitri’, said foreign minister Jaishankar in a recent interview with ANI. He had told the Parliament on an earlier occasion that “the House should recognise the enormous feeling for India that our initiative has generated… the Prime Minister’s initiative of such deep friendship has raised India’s standing and generated great international goodwill for us.” In India’s self-image as a leading power that great power aspirations, the adoption of moral leadership is the core — it is a strain that runs through India’s strategic culture. It is worth noting that an increasingly powerful and capable India is still choosing that route to also augment its geopolitical standing. Jaishankar says “India’s quest to be a leading power is built on investing in relationships of substance” and had told ANI in the interview that “we have been able to very clearly demonstrate to the world that we are exceptional international power, meaning we are willing to do things for others, perhaps more than most of the countries at this point of time.” In their article for the Times of India, Constantino Xavier and Riya Sinha of Centre for Social and Economic Progress, a New Delhi-based think tank, write that if India wants to become a more “front-footed leading power”, it must “endow its diplomacy with adequate resources” because “no great power has risen without investing in hard capabilities.” The authors have a point, and India’s recent budgetary allocation towards the external affairs ministry saw only a very marginal increase. Yet, what India lacks in capabilities at this stage it seeks to make up for through HADR altruism and a quest for moral leadership. New Delhi is aware that many in the immediate neighbourhood and in the larger Global South look up to India in times of crisis, and it wants to be perceived as a dependable, reliable force for global good. India’s eventual but inevitable rise will break many moulds and create new ones. To quote Jaishankar again, “as a prominent nation in an increasingly multi-polar world, the international community has greater expectations of us, and we, in turn, are prepared to demonstrate our willingness to shoulder greater responsibilities.” Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.