M. K. Bhadrakumar
Make no mistake, Modi Government is squarely blaming the US for the attack on ships in the Strait of Hormuz killing seven Indian sailors. Protests have been lodged with the US charge d’affaires twice in 3 days, the second demarche being in notably harsher tone despite the news trickling from the Persian Gulf region, Pakistan and US that an MOU has been all but negotiated for signature lifting the American naval blockade of Iranian ports.
The salience of the Indian demarche lies in the following directions:
1. The US was provoking Delhi, which has resolutely pushed back — Washington’s silence in rebutting the Indian accusation is deafening.
2. There is no interest whatsoever in Delhi to adopt a median line apportioning blame between DC and Tehran (contrary to what some Indian newspapers have prioritised).
3. Stemming from the above, it stands to reason that Delhi has begun a comprehensive review of its tilt toward the US-Israeli axis and the earlier short-sighted delusional thinking that Abraham Accords would be the gateway to peace in West Asia.
4. Conceivably, the door opens — now that it is a matter of time before sanctions against Iran are lifted — for a full-throttle engagement of Iran which is going to be a towering presence in the geopolitics of our region, that would, hopefully, correct the distortions that crept into India’s foreign policy strategies in West Asia during the past decade.
5. No doubt, this is a major diplomatic shift on India’s part. World media has taken note. The foreign policy establishment is adjusting with alacrity in real time — an extraordinary spectacle in itself, to put it mildly, considering the manifest reluctance to indulge in public diplomacy critical of American moves — to the new imperatives of conducting a ‘transactional relationship’ with the US that take into account not only the domestic sentiments but also the global situation as well as the humiliating defeat — arguably, the most far-reaching defeat in the modern history— of the Americans in West Asia.
6. Finally, most important, Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi’s stance on West Asian developments seeking a course correction to the illogical pro-US tilt in India’s foreign policies stands vindicated, which in turn would necessitate a jettisoning of unilateralism in foreign policy moves and a return to the process of consensus-making, which had served India’s interests historically and used to be integral to the country’s political culture and civilisational traits.
C. Indian Punchline
