PM Modi Crosses a Geopolitical Minefield

From the time he was sworn in as Prime Minister of India in 2014, PM Narendra Modi has had to navigate geopolitical crosscurrents with dexterity, in the way he had safely navigated political crosscurrents when he was Chief Minister, Gujarat.

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He needs all that skill now, for the world is witnessing a period of geopolitical war.

This is a phrase that has yet to come into common usage, even though geopolitics itself has escaped its earlier obscurity. When the present writer was invited by Dr M.S. Valiathan, the first Vice-Chancellor of the newly deemed Manipal University, to be the first Professor of Geopolitics in Asia towards the close of 1998, he was initially taken aback. After all, he was not in academics at all but in journalism, in one of the most widely circulated and prestigious publications in the world, the Times of India. After meeting Chancellor Pai and being delighted that he had the same nationalist determination as Dr Valiathan, he accepted and joined in 1999. What we have been witnessing during the present decade is a competition so intense amongst countries as to fit the term.