Age of autocracy A year of setbacks for India

Despite efforts after the Taliban takeover to align positions on security issues with Russia and the ‘stans of Central Asia, it will take India very long to overcome the debacle of losing an ally in Afghanistan and ceding control to Pakistan and China.

Nilova Roy Chaudhury

The end of a rather bleak year, which has been as close as possible to an annus horribilis for India’s foreign policy and global image, gives little rise for hope this year unless serious internal issues are resolved.

While some blame for an awful 2021 would surely accrue to the Covid-19 pandemic that continues even today, India has only itself to blame for being caught so flatfooted in handling it and in Afghanistan, possibly its biggest foreign policy debacle in recent years. India’s image problems, Janus-faced, are also primarily of its own making.

The year 2021 began in hope, with vaccines emerging to take us out of the throes of the pandemic. India, with two of its own vaccines, decided to play Good Samaritan and launched a ‘Vaccine Maitri’ (Vaccine Friendship) initiative, to provide COVID-19 vaccines around the world.

After initially encouraging Indians to drown out the virus through decibel power, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tried to revive the moribund SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) forum to exchange best practices to combat the disease and invited investments at the World Economic Forum at Davos stating that India was on the road to economic revival, having overcome the disease.

However, the Corona virus returned with a vengeance and the Indian government found itself seriously under-prepared and totally unable to cope for several months, leaving its SAARC neighbours unimpressed and looking elsewhere. Also, having ordered inadequate quantities of vaccines for the domestic population and faced with alarming casualty levels at home, the government called off vaccine exports from May, leading to considerable loss of face (and income from vaccine sales). After delivering around 66.3 million doses of vaccines to 95 countries by May, including 10.7 million doses gifted to 47 countries, India stopped all exports as it struggled to cope and vaccinate its own people. Vaccine exports have recently resumed, but a fresh onslaught of a Covid-19 variant again threatens any return to normality, with flights and vaccine delivery schedules going awry.

The suspension of vaccines led to embarrassment and even lawsuits being threatened by disillusioned neighbours, including Bangladesh, with which India shared some important anniversaries in 2021, thereby seriously causing setbacks to the Neighbourhood First policy. Ties with neighbouring countries, including China, which is gradually encroaching on territory along the LAC, are at a new low and will take a huge effort to fix in 2022.

Even the Quad (quadrilateral of four democracies, Australia, India, Japan and the USA) initiative, for India to manufacture vaccines primarily for South East Asian countries, failed to take off, leaving the ASEAN nations miffed. As ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) is at the core of India’s ‘Act East’ policy and the pivot of the Quad Indo-Pacific policy, the security paradigm and relations didn’t exactly look up. But all that paled in comparison with what happened in Afghanistan and the absence of any plan to deal with the rampaging Taliban takeover of that warravaged country. India was the first country with which Afghanistan signed a formal Strategic Partnership Agreement, in October 2011, well before the United States and Afghanistan signed one. Yet, declining to establish contact with the Taliban until too late, India was guided only by Washington’s assessment of events in Afghanistan.

When August 15 came around, New Delhi was completely wrong-footed and had to evacuate all its citizens and abandon its diplomatic missions. Even worse, it has fallen in the estimation of the average Afghan, for whom India was once the most popular country. Since the Citizenship Amendment Act was passed, India is no longer a destination of choice for Afghan citizens, despite thousands being desperate to leave that ravaged country.

Despite efforts after the Taliban takeover to align positions on security issues with Russia and the ‘stans of Central Asia, it will take India very long to overcome the debacle of losing an ally in Afghanistan and ceding control to Pakistan and China.

CAA-like legislation and such acts of omission, combined with violence against institutions and Indians belonging to minority communities, along with a harsh crackdown on critics of the government have robbed the sheen off the Indian government’s democratic credentials. Modi proudly proclaims India’s history and status as the world’s largest democracy, at forums like th