PM Modi’s deft engagement with West Asia exposes elitist, prejudiced mindset of Left-'liberals’

In the last one week, India has received multiple good news from West Asia. The biggest one is Indian Navy veterans getting released and safely returning to their homes after they were put on death sentence in Qatar last year with the espionage charges against them being dropped. As the images of their happy faces after landing in New Delhi circulate all over the media, one can only thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his personal investment in securing their release. After all, it was a powerful meeting between him and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani on the sidelines of the COP28 Summit in Dubai that set the ball rolling towards their release in December 2023. According to foreign secretary Vinay Kwatra, the prime minister not only “personally supervised” their case but he also never “shied away” from any initiative that would ensure their safe release and return to India. In a reciprocal gesture of goodwill, Prime Minister Modi will also pay a short visit to Qatar this week after completing his scheduled visit to the UAE. What’s interesting is that this news comes on the heels of another welcome development in India-Qatar ties. In early February, India and Qatar had also agreed to renew a $78 billion deal as a part of which India will receive Liquified Natural Gas from this West Asian nation till 2048. India will save around $6 billion over the next 20 years due to this deal because it has been negotiated at a price lower than the current prevailing market rates of LNG. Qatar is vying to become one of the largest LNG producers in the world and a customer like India would definitely give its ambitions new wings. Besides growing energy cooperation with Qatar, there is another reason to cheer for India as the Arab Emirate of Abu Dhabi has just witnessed the inauguration of a Hindu temple on Wednesday. In 2015, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan had generously donated a 13.5 acre of land for construction of a Hindu temple during PM Modi’s visit to UAE. This donation was topped up with another 13.5 acres of land later on. A Swaminarayan temple built on this total 27 acres of land will be opened to people on 14 February after its inauguration by Modi during his two-day visit. Interestingly in a span of just eight months, this will be Prime Minister Modi’s third visit to UAE. In fact, not just the United Arab Emirates but the entire region of West Asia has witnessed closer cooperation with India in the last 10 years. In 2014 during the run up to the Lok Sabha elections, there was a wide section of the Lutyens that was questioning Prime Minister Modi’s credentials to govern India specifically in the domain of foreign policy. Their leading charge was that Modi had so far only served as the Chief Minister of a provincial government and had very little exposure to foreign policy. This was not only a very elitist argument but it also reflected how Lutyens considers foreign policy and international affairs as solely its fiefdom. I had personally faced a similar situation in a national newsroom while working as a journalist in my early years when I was told by a naive editor that in India, only children of the Lutyens elite get a break to work as reporters on the foreign policy beat. This outsider-insider boundary was always kept as a well-guarded one and to the left liberals, Modi was a clear outsider. For instance, at that time in an interview to a foreign publication, a professor of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University even remarked that “Modi lacks sophistication to understand nuances of foreign policy” and he won’t be able to function without “some proper advice”. Not just this, his political identity as a BJP leader was also used to create many prejudices in the minds of people. Those who followed the debate on foreign policy outlook of the “right wing” in India would remember how BJP was seen as a ‘Hindutva party’ that would eulogise ‘Zionist’ Israel at the cost of hampering India’s relations with the Islamic countries in West Asia. This image of a Hindu nationalist India under BJP was projected as a bad omen for India’s strategic interest in the Arab world. This was a lie that was often repeated through scathing opinion pieces and biased coverage against Prime Minister Modi by even the western media. However, the last ten years have panned out in the exact opposite way. Today, Modi’s India is not only welcomed, embraced and accepted as a formidable emerging power by West Asia but its culture and its very ethos of tolerance as enshrined in the Sanatana Dharma, one of the oldest in the world is also celebrated by leaders in West Asia. In an interview to a national daily, Abdulnasser Alshaali, UAE’s ambassador to India noted that the inauguration of Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi is a tribute to the spirit of tolerance and acceptance in India-UAE ties. Looking at the way relations are blooming between India and its counterparts in West Asia under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, one can safely conclude that not only the Lutyens’ elite but also foreign policy commentators across the world had failed to judge Modi’s capability as a national leader and his potential as a foreign policy visionary correctly. Not just this, they also clearly failed at judging his intentions in how he wanted to steer India. Modi’s foreign policy is based on the principle of ‘India First’ that upholds the country’s national interest supreme to any other determinant of policy. As a part of this, his vision of a developed and prosperous India is aligning very well with countries in West Asia who are attempting to diversify their economies beyond oil. These countries have understood that one day when oil will eventually run out, they will have to create an economic base in line with the requirements of the 21st century. It is for this reason they are looking to court India whose emerging economy will prove to be a great partner in the future. PM Modi has excellently tapped into this sentiment and his far-sightedness is paying India rich dividends as well. Today, whether it is trade or connectivity, numerous initiatives are being launched by India along with its partners in West Asia. Once again Modi is having the last laugh by proving his credentials in the so-called elitist domain of foreign policy, while those who criticised or doubted his potential are whining away. Nothing speaks of this more than the reaction of Left-‘liberal’ coterie to the release of Navy veterans by Qatar. They were the loudest to shout that India’s interests were being hurt in West Asia when a Qatari court had charged those eight Indians with espionage. But after their safe return and release, today they are busy crediting anonymous “silent forces who worked behind the scenes”. It must be Modi’s fate that all his achievements are attributed to ‘silent forces’ only by the Lutyens but the fact that he doesn’t care for any validation by them shows a quality that all leaders must imbibe. The author is a PhD from the Department of International Relations, South Asian University. She writes on India’s foreign policy. 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. 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