Time to reshape our ‘trumped’ foreign policy

Have our foreign policy makers missed the cardinal point of ensuring equi-distance from the power blocs in the world, so that we offend no one nor go out of the way to please anyone? This is the nagging worry which arises in most policy watchers’ minds as India grapples with a staggering 50 per cent tariff imposed by the United States, which tends to sink the fortunes of our exporters in many sectors.

Right from the days of Independence, leaders like Pandit Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri had taken pains not to get caught in the raging Cold War between the US and the erstwhile Soviet Union. The Non-Aligned Movement was the brainchild of brilliant leaders like Nehru, Sukarno of Indonesia and Tito of Yugoslavia to maintain a distance from the super powers and ensure mutually beneficial ties.

But then, as the pressures of geopolitics made taking sides inevitable, India got closer to the Soviets, which supplies a major proportion of our arms and equipment and oil. The choice was more forced on us and this became evident during the 1971 war with Pakistan when the US sent its fleet into the Indian Ocean to try and rattle our leadership.

Then PM Indira Gandhi would have none of it and a clear message was sent by the Soviets to the US to back off. The rest is history with Paki stan breaking into two with the formation of Bangladesh and the Pakistan Army surrendering in the former East Pakistan.

Despite these hiccups, India had done its best before the current dispensation came to power, to maintain cordial ties with the US without making too many com promises. After all, the two greatest democracies of the world had a lot to share despite the acrimony of the past and the fact that ‘capitalist America did not hold out much appeal to many leaders in the ruling Congress then, who had always been ‘inclined’ to the Left.

All that changed with saffron rule a decade ago when unabashed attempts were made to court the US with PM Modi’s Madison Square event and the ‘Howdy Modi’ push striking examples of the direction in which the ruling BJP was pushing foreign policy.

Even Israel, the all-weather ally of the US, and its genocidal acts in Gaza were not harshly condemned as India’s foreign policy veered to the right while other powers like Russia and China looked on, maybe amused.

Then came the big tariff blow. Trump made it more than evident that what mattered most to him was not ‘dosti’ with India or Modi, as was being projected but MAGA (Make America Great Again). And so, after mak ing boisterous claims about ending the Indo-Pak conf lict over Pahalgam and cosying up to Pakistan and its oil, Trump has dealt the tariff blow, leaving our leader with little option but to rush and reboot our bonds with Russia and China.

With even trade talks with the US off, it is obvious that our leadership will now have to embrace in toto, the sagely advice of a great US president of the past on foreign policy, who remarked: ‘Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.’’

There could be no better guiding rule for a nation, which has been caught on the wrong foot too often on the foreign policy front.