FOREIGN POLICY FROM BELOW

When I was a university student, the prevailing thought of the time was that “public opinion” should not matter in the conduct of a country’s foreign policy. It was argued that the public was grossly unaware of the nuances of foreign policy decision-making, which was the domain of elite opinion leaders and diplomats. The public opinion-foreign policy linkage, particularly in India, was considered to be “indirect at best” because foreign policy was a low-salience issue for the Indian public.

- Prakash Nanda

However, the situation is different today. In this digital age, foreign policy has become an important agenda in electoral campaigns. Public opinion now matters very much in the foreign policy-making of the country. In fact, when the government finds it diplomatically correct or prudent to maintain silence on certain matters or policies regarding another country, it is the public that comes to the scene and sends a strong message to the adversary that the country is one and that unfriendly actions will not be tolerated.

This is precisely what the people of India have done to the Maldives, where a pro-China Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) won the elections last year by carrying out an “India Out” movement. Denigrating remarks in social media recently by three Maldives ministers on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Indians, in general, prompted many Indian citizens, including celebrities from the field of sports and cinema like Sachin Tendulkar, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar and John Abraham, to appeal for Indians “boycotting” travels to the Maldives as tourists and visiting, instead, to enchanting tourist places that India has in plenty.

This was a strong message to the Maldives, whose economy depends considerably on tourism and the Indian tourists. This popular angst among the Indians seems to have forced the new President Mohamed Muizzu to “suspend” the three ministers.