Views | The Opposition’s Election Manifestos Trapped in a Time Warp

The 2024 Lok Sabha elections are now in their initial phase, and all of the main political parties have released their manifestos. Naturally, as an expert in international relations, my initial inclination was to turn to the part where each of them described how they saw India’s foreign policy. Regretfully, the opposition has done everything in its power to create immense disappointment with their lack of strategic vision and inventiveness in presenting a positive picture for the nation, while the ruling BJP has been able to outline how it intends to advance India’s interests if elected again.

In summary, they are just not prepared to accept India’s ascent in the twenty-first century and are still stuck in a time warp.

First and foremost, the desire for a return to the Nehruvian vision (in the case of Congress) or what they refer to as “non-alignment,” is what unifies the opposition parties in their stance on foreign policy. This is particularly significant to the Congress because of the Nehruvian tradition, which the BJP has sharply broken through with its multi-alignment foreign policy. However, the Left views India’s lack of engagement with the West, the birthplace of capitalism, as nothing more than an ideological holdover from the old communist days. They are both out of date and naïve in their combined call.

Even the loudest proponents of “non-alignment” would concede that it dates back to a time when India was a young nation-state just emerging from empire and the globe was split into two ideological camps. During that period, “non-alignment” was the de facto option due to Nehruvian supremacy in foreign policy. However, India’s efforts proved futile as China pursued a reconciliation with the West, leaving India to submit to the communist Soviet Union, the losing side in the Cold War.

The circumstances are different now. China has become the economic and technical powerhouse it is today thanks to the West. These days, the same China is undermining the Americans in almost every theater on the planet. China has fooled us into believing that there has been relative border calm for thirty years, allowing them to create a significant power imbalance with India. Nobody could have predicted that the 1993 peace agreement signed by Prime Minister Narasimha Rao would let China grow to be a $17 trillion economy while still allowing India to maintain a $100 billion trade imbalance. The same China has grown to the point that its wolf warrior tactics are a danger to India today.

At a time when geopolitical common sense demands that we work with the West to counterbalance China externally via an Indo-Pacific regional security architecture, the Congress is urging India to revert to the Nehruvian worldview, while the CPI (M) is flatly advising the country to leave the Quad.

Regarding India’s ties with China, the Congress and the Left share some unsurprising opinions. The Left expressly refers to this as the “promotion of all-round relations with China,” although both seek to resolve the border problem and make adjustments with China. It is anyone’s guess as to which side, China rather than India, is opposed to the resolution of the border issue in the India-China relationship.

China’s malign intentions have, to put it mildly, been severely exposed as India, under Modi, has tried to connect the border problem with its broader relationship with that nation. China views an unresolved border conflict as a means of preventing India from becoming stronger and more independent in Asia by keeping it weak and confused. It is unmistakably a plan to confine India by ensuring that vital energy and resources are redirected toward border defense. China is now using a different tactic to prevent India from becoming a great power, when before it was using the stable situation at the border to its advantage to speed ahead of India.

The UPA government’s policy of placating China has already cost the nation ten years, from 2004 to 2014. In the modern world, China or the West are the ones with superior technologies. India’s greatest chance of closing the $17 trillion GDP gap between China and India and bridging the $3.7 trillion gap is to take advantage of its market access and get help from other countries. Naturally, opposition parties find this too difficult to comprehend tactically.

The opposition parties want India to make a mistake on its neighbourhood policy as its next strategic miscalculation. Even after the fatal 26/11 strikes, the Congress, which exchanged enough dossiers during the UPA government in the guise of “tough action,” still wishes to interact with Pakistan. Naturally, there is a minor catch: as if they are paying attention, they have to stop the proxy terrorism against India. The Left is not lessened by the CPI(M) agenda, which calls for the development of inter-personal relationships as well as sports and cultural ties with Pakistan.

To be honest, it bothers me when India’s future vision includes any reference to Pakistan right now. There are just too many other areas and neighbors for us to interact with. Since we are not to fault for the initial lack of interaction, why would we even contemplate dealing with Pakistan? Remember that Pakistan’s leaders were willing to starve themselves in order to develop a nuclear weapon that would threaten India, not India. If the unwarranted allusion to Pakistan wasn’t enough, the stated promise in the Congress platform to assist Tamils in Sri Lanka brings back a lot of memories from the long-gone 1980s.

Why return to the big brother or big bully mentality that was typified by meddling in their domestic affairs when India’s interactions with its neighbors are now characterized by development partnerships?

The opposition parties’ desire to cede India’s sovereignty and material might to outside forces is the worst of all. The Congress platform promises to repair the damage done to India’s reputation by the present government’s repression of human rights and opposition. It is anyone’s estimate as to how hard a worldwide lobby works to use the human rights cause to meddle in other nations’ domestic affairs. Furthermore, the anti-India narrative that purports to stifle dissent is nothing more than an effort to weaken the Indian government. When they are not in power, Congress officials have aggressively mingled with these groups, but it would be disastrous if they take office and let outside forces to obstruct India’s development and advancement in the name of human rights.

Furthermore, the CPI(M) is openly advocating for the total abolition of nuclear weapons, while the Congress continues to conceal similar goals under the pretext of human rights. Do the ideological Chinese communists want India to jeopardize its national security at a time when they are producing an increasing number of nuclear warheads? Why is that?

India ought to thank its stars that the Congress and CPI(M) have both lost ground in elections these days. With your own opposition parties crafting such divisive manifestos, why needs foreign critics?