India's Muscular Diplomacy

HE SPEAKS FLUENT Mandarin, Russian, Hungarian, Japanese, Tamil, Hindi, and English has a Japanese wife and a legendary father, K. Subrahmanyam, who formulated India’s nuclear doctrine.

- Minhaz Merchant

It’s no surprise that since his induction as External Affairs Minister in May 2019, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has given India’s foreign policy new vigor. As a foreign secretary earlier, he had Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ear. A former ambassador to both the United States and China, Jaishankar has played a key role in announcing India’s strategic relationship with, respectively, the country’s key geopolitical partner and putative rival.

The contours of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s foreign policy are now clear. His visit to Saudi Arabia last month had three key objectives. First, to tie the Sunni kingdom into an ever-tighter commercial and security embrace. Two, to ensure that the reaction of the larger Muslim world that often takes its cue from Riyadh remains muted on the revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status following the state’s reorganization on October 31 into two federally administered Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. Third, to ensure that Saudi Arabia maintains its neutral stance in the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

The next FATF meeting is due in February 2020. Pakistan escaped blacklisting at the FATF’s October 2019 plenary in Paris because of the support of China, Malaysia, and Turkey. A minimum of three votes blocking Pakistan’s blacklisting by the 39-member body was needed to save it in Paris. Islamabad got them from Beijing, Kuala Lampur and Ankara.