The image Narendra Modi sought as a world leader who is principled and autonomous has been broken. Indian diplomats rely on lobbying firm not once, but routinely for access. Records show a pattern of dependency on the lobbying firm even for routine telephone calls and meetings — paying upfront for access — rather than through normal diplomatic channels. It appears that India lacks the diplomatic capital to have normal conversations with the State Department, the Pentagon, the US Trade Representative, or the White House.
Three episodes in the new year indicate a significant erosion in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s global image. They are: India’s inability to condemn the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Donald Trump’s claim that Modi reduced the import of Russian oil “to make me happy”, and India having to hire lobbying firms for diplomatic access in Washington DC.
India issued only a statement of “deep concern” on the forcible extraction of Maduro, claiming that it was monitoring the situation and urging peaceful dialogue. It refused to denounce the action by US forces as an illegal kidnapping.
In its hesitation on Venezuela, the Modi government was not any different from India’s fence-sitting on Soviet intervention in Hungary in 1956, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia (Prague Spring) in 1968, and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979. Even though India now would like to be closer to the US, it has not condemned the Soviet invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and consistently abstains from UN votes condemning Russia.
Modi, however, did exhibit some of his vaunted ‘strategic autonomy’ by publicly telling Vladimir Putin in Samarkand in September 2022, “This is not an era of war.” It is doubtful whether today he will be able to tell Trump, ‘This is not the era of kidnapping presidents of sovereign countries.’…
Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/modis-global-image-takes-a-hit-3856359
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After the truth-shower 