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Modi's world
Narendra Modi surprised India and the world with his enthusiasm for diplomacy and the capacity to reinvigorate India's foreign policy after he took over as the prime minister in May 2014. Despite his lack of political experience in Delhi and taking full advantage of his extraordinary mandate, he overcame the negative dynamic with America, recast the approach to China and Pakistan, deepened the strategic partnership with Japan and Australia, rejuvenated India's neighbourhood policy, wooed international business leaders and reconnected with the Indian diaspora. Modi's World tells the story of Modi's unexpected success on the foreign policy front and its potential consequences for India's place in the world. It offers insights into his inheritance from the UPA government, his own foreign policy conception and diplomatic execution.
232 pages, Hardcover
First published June 9, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 21, 2015
C.Rajamohan is always a reliable guide on the contours of our foreign policy and this collection of his recent columns is testament to his lucidity and vision. Yet,one does feel that the book is rather too premature because any government will show positive intent in words and we ought to wait for at least two more years to evaluate Modi's foreign policy. Thus,this book seems like an attempt to cash in on the author's byline and Modi's one year anniversary reviews in the mass media.
April 24, 2019
Its a good book as far as representation of the latest scenario is concerned like where India stood in the international stage in the past and the path trodden by it from there, what changes has our current prime minister brought into the foreign policy and, foreign office especially in Delhi. Loosely, it can be said that if Indian foreign policy has been a ship, there have only been few instance when that ship really had a captain. Otherwise, it has always stayed on auto-pilot (here it means in the hands of bureaucrats of foreign office). I guess the question that must be bothering you is- how?
Allow me to use India-China comparison here to explain what is the cornerstone of the idea of India as a nation. India has never been a nation. It has always been a motely collection of communities who happened to be around each other tolerantly living out their lives. India has always been a society because there has been many a times when it has been ruled by so many different rulers but there has been many a times that it hasn't been ruled by any ruler but still the social fabric, despite of its diversity, has always sustained. China on the other hand has always been a nation or let us rather say that from the start itself, it was poised to be a successful nation. Why? because people are homogeneous, government is of central and unitary nature while in India, the only reason that the our federal polity has been given precedence over the states is to protect the national integrity
Revolt of 1857 can be said that it was the first time that such a diverse population agreed upon something and that was eviction of Britishers as our rulers. From here to 1947, people of our nation developed a memory of what the witnessed in these 90 years and of-course our leadership also came from among-st the people so they shared those ideas as well. India and China are both commonwealth countries. They had the same misgivings about attracting foreign capital and encouraging private initiative as they have always associated with colonialism (British East India company was a private organization only)
In such an era, NAM(Non-aligned movement) and strategic autonomy was necessary, inevitable and understandable. But after Nehru, foreign policy of his era was just kept alive because of two primary reasons, one was that nobody wanted to be seen as questioning Mr Nehru's legacy, second was the natural reluctance towards something radical and maintaining the status quo. This policy went on till Mr Vajpayee came in 1998. Until then, India was anti-American (even though we were totally dependent on the ships filled with food coming from America) and overtly anti-Russian (but covertly we were closer to Russia as America had chosen Pakistan to be its representative of the subcontinent). Mr Vajpayee changed a lot of this. he was the first one who had the audacity to say this that India and America are natural allies because of shared history of colonialism and being the oldest and largest democracies of the world. He also approached the neighborhood problem completely differently and his policy was of resolution of contentious issues through dialogue no matter what the populism might be suggesting. (in his time, Kargil war happened in 1999 and terrorist attack was conducted in 2001. Still he never wavered from his approach even after being the leader of a coalition government)
Is this book all about Vajpayee and India-China? Nope, its much more than that. Actually after Nehru and Vajpayee, Modi can be considered as the 3rd captain of the foreign policy ship of India. Then what has he done? Well for that i would suggest that you pick it up and discuss it with me...
" If someone were to hunt out for Indians, he or she would be sure to encounter fervid Hindus, Muslim bigots and fanatical souls deeply engrossed with the problem of tirelessly finding out how unjustly their own particular community has been treated while the hunter would have to ask in sorrow- "Where are the Indians?""
Allow me to use India-China comparison here to explain what is the cornerstone of the idea of India as a nation. India has never been a nation. It has always been a motely collection of communities who happened to be around each other tolerantly living out their lives. India has always been a society because there has been many a times when it has been ruled by so many different rulers but there has been many a times that it hasn't been ruled by any ruler but still the social fabric, despite of its diversity, has always sustained. China on the other hand has always been a nation or let us rather say that from the start itself, it was poised to be a successful nation. Why? because people are homogeneous, government is of central and unitary nature while in India, the only reason that the our federal polity has been given precedence over the states is to protect the national integrity
Revolt of 1857 can be said that it was the first time that such a diverse population agreed upon something and that was eviction of Britishers as our rulers. From here to 1947, people of our nation developed a memory of what the witnessed in these 90 years and of-course our leadership also came from among-st the people so they shared those ideas as well. India and China are both commonwealth countries. They had the same misgivings about attracting foreign capital and encouraging private initiative as they have always associated with colonialism (British East India company was a private organization only)
In such an era, NAM(Non-aligned movement) and strategic autonomy was necessary, inevitable and understandable. But after Nehru, foreign policy of his era was just kept alive because of two primary reasons, one was that nobody wanted to be seen as questioning Mr Nehru's legacy, second was the natural reluctance towards something radical and maintaining the status quo. This policy went on till Mr Vajpayee came in 1998. Until then, India was anti-American (even though we were totally dependent on the ships filled with food coming from America) and overtly anti-Russian (but covertly we were closer to Russia as America had chosen Pakistan to be its representative of the subcontinent). Mr Vajpayee changed a lot of this. he was the first one who had the audacity to say this that India and America are natural allies because of shared history of colonialism and being the oldest and largest democracies of the world. He also approached the neighborhood problem completely differently and his policy was of resolution of contentious issues through dialogue no matter what the populism might be suggesting. (in his time, Kargil war happened in 1999 and terrorist attack was conducted in 2001. Still he never wavered from his approach even after being the leader of a coalition government)
Is this book all about Vajpayee and India-China? Nope, its much more than that. Actually after Nehru and Vajpayee, Modi can be considered as the 3rd captain of the foreign policy ship of India. Then what has he done? Well for that i would suggest that you pick it up and discuss it with me...
" If someone were to hunt out for Indians, he or she would be sure to encounter fervid Hindus, Muslim bigots and fanatical souls deeply engrossed with the problem of tirelessly finding out how unjustly their own particular community has been treated while the hunter would have to ask in sorrow- "Where are the Indians?""
June 24, 2018
Modi's World is a collection of original essays by C. Raja Mohan as well as his articles for the Indian Express newspaper from 2014-15. The coverage is wide ranging and, as always, thoughtful and incisive. They capture a particular moment in time as Modi launched a series of foreign policy initiatives that were attempts to break the mold and project India as a leading power. Inevitably, predictions in these articles may look dated after 2-3 years, but the book is an excellent snapshot.
April 17, 2016
3 and a half stars. It is essentially a compilation of articles that C Rajamohan has written about foreign policy under the Modi government, but the sequence and flow of the various articles and supplementary introductions do read like a book. While he may be a little too pro-Modi (in my opinion) there is no denying the fact that this book is a pretty decent summation of the tenure of the Modi government that it covers. It helped me quite a bit with my dissertation, so I had to review this one!
October 21, 2016
The book is a good read. It captures the change in foreign policy of India in recent times. It also shows various facets of India's truly modern and pragmatic foreign policy, using events and examples.
There is no comparable work in the market. In India, it is very difficult to find good writers who are not extremely obsessed with leftist ideology. And reading the same thing that how Hinduism (and not capitalism, surprisingly!) is the root cause for all evil in India, gets boring after a few books by thapar, roy, sen, dey, etc.
There is no comparable work in the market. In India, it is very difficult to find good writers who are not extremely obsessed with leftist ideology. And reading the same thing that how Hinduism (and not capitalism, surprisingly!) is the root cause for all evil in India, gets boring after a few books by thapar, roy, sen, dey, etc.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews