Diplomacy is obviously not a strong point with the Modi government. This was glaringly evident in the way the external affairs ministry summoned the Singapore high commissioner to register its protest over a statement made by the island nation’s prime minister Lee Hsien Loong. Significantly, former prime minister Manmohan Singh too, in a different context this past week, stated that the present government was squandering the goodwill that the UPA government had created with other nations. Singh noted, rightly, that Modi’s acts of ‘hugging’ on the world stage etc., by themselves help little.
In the case of the Singapore prime minister, what Lee had stated in his parliament speech did not breach diplomatic protocols. He cited some facts about India in the wider context of performance of democracy worldwide to stress on the emerging flaws in the system. There was nothing vituperative or baseless when he stated a large number of MPs in Indian parliament have faced criminal cases including murder. His reference to “Nehru’s India”, to which too the Modi government took exception, was by way of a reference to the good times of Indian democracy when the first prime minister led the nation. Facts speak for themselves. In a similar fashion, the West now describes India as Modi’s India. This is the way it’s spoken. By summoning Singapore’s envoy to register India’s protest, the Modi government has done a disservice to the cause of diplomacy. A small nation in the South Asian region, Singapore has over the past six decades built a great reputation for good governance. The island nation famously has a higher per capita income than even the nations in the West. Its governments worked wonders. By contrast, India is today an example of bad governance — including in the way permissiveness at political and bureaucratic levels are breaking the back of public sector banks with serious implications to the national economy, or in the freewheeling corruption in government. Both Modi and Singh worsened the scenario in several respects.
Erudition, restraint and strategy are integral to global diplomacy. Whimsical actions have no place there, as was also in the case now cited by Singh — of the abrupt Lahore visit by Prime Minister Modi, only to soon get a hit from Pakistan via a terrorist attack on the Pathankot air force base. Starkly, in the past seven years, India’s ties with most neighbours have worsened. Sustained efforts to build bridges with nations near and far are the way forward since co-operation and not confrontation brings more gains. India needs to learn from Singapore how to tackle corruption at all levels!