Humanity has a right to know the truth which does not require endorsements. 

India: Modi's Foreign Policy Orientation

-DR. ABDUL RUFF COLACHAL 

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The top most foreign policy goal of India has been to be seen as an equal partner of USA, the only super power of universe that effectively controls the world, its politics, economics, foreign policies. In order possibly to achieve this objective, New Delhi has made strenuous efforts  by all possible means  to be a veto member of the discredited UNSC, at any cost.

When Narandra Modi assumed power in New Delhi, he invited all SAARC  members to attend his swearing in ceremony, thereby sending a signal to big powers that all south Asian nations are behind Indian India in  pursuing its veto ambition. 

Now New Delhi strategists are working hard to  arrange a meeting  between Modi and Obama in Washington on the sidelines of the UN meeting in New York in September. 

Of course, USA knows and sees though all such  efforts by many other nations as well. Washington is not at all interested in any change in veto structure of UNSC,

World perhaps is keenly watching the performance of the Hindutva  based BJP party which cam e to power for the first time with a credible majority in parliament. In fact,  the  BJP can decide  the  issues  even without going to parliament because in parliament the opposition cannot stop the BJP from passing any new laws, implementing  its program. . .

On the eve of assuming power in India, the newly and duly elected BJP claimed India will be an "assertive power.. with dignity, with responsibility and constitutional integrity".

The new premier, Narandra Modi is a shrewd politician and  Modi's proclaimed commitment to economic development could see him push hard to broaden his commercial links – or even attempt a more radical gesture.

Whether or not  Modi would  promote ideology or prefer economic and  diplomatic  gains to ideological  overdoing remains to be seen. 

Views are being circulated in media that like Vajpayee before him did, Modi would also put development before Hindutva ideology after all that ideology is meant for snatching power form Congress party and dynastic misrule. Modi's landslide win will give him both a "long honeymoon" with voters and the legitimacy to hold the hardline nationalists at bay. So long as it is Modi's ambition to rise – not only on an Indian stage, but on a world stage – that drives him, he will discipline and restrain the extreme wing of the party. And as long as his driving force is the desire to reshape India and be remembered as the greatest prime minister since independence and above Jawaharlal Nehru, there could be a more pragmatic Modi.

Modi is a polarising figure. He has emerged from, and is supported by, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the hardline Hindu nationalist organisation. The BJP is intimately linked to the RSS, which has been banned three times by Indian authorities. The RSS is deeply distrusting (and worse) of other religious minorities in India, suspicious of former colonial powers and the US, and committed to economic self-sufficiency for India. 

Modi cannot be expected to change the India foreign policy's parameters  in a big way because  it is essentially a BJP-Congress made foreign policy now.

India under Modi cannot afford to spoil the age old economic  and diplomatic ties with Russia and would continue to be the top buyer of Russian military goods, among other economic stuff. With Europe, India would continue the  trade links as usual. 

The US wants bilateral trade of $500bn a year, up from about $100bn currently. But, after an improvement a decade ago, and a controversial nuclear deal, relations between Delhi and Washington hit a new low five months ago when Devyani Khobragade, the Indian deputy consul general was arrested for visa fraud in New York, strip-searched and held in police custody. She was eventually released and flew back to India but the affair prompted a vitriolic reaction to what Indians saw as disrespectful bullying by the "Ugly American". This in turn prompted US commentators to accuse India of oversensitivity and behaviour unbecoming of an aspirant future power.

The only US government agency to be critical of Modi for some time is the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, which warned of the impact a Modi-led government might have on minorities in India

There are a lot of tensions in the relationship with the US, but they tend to revolve around economics.

Indo-USA relations got strategic content in the early 1960s. The rise of the People's Republic of China worried the policymakers in Washington. Chinese assertion in Tibet, its role in the Korean War and other such acts concerned Washington. As the relations between India and China were heated during the late fifties, the Americans found a golden opportunity to take advantage of this situation to promote India as a counterweight to China. And the trend continues till day with Obama's Asian Pivot policy.

India has developed love-hate relationship with China, though  much worse than  with Pakistan. The two countries frequently dispute their Himalayan border..the sovereignty dispute will really test Indo-Chinese relations.

China has already proclaimed its ownership of the 21st century and Modi's victory speech pronouncement that the coming decades would constitute "India's century" is unlikely to have been well received in Beijing. Nor his attack, while on the campaign trail, on the Chinese "expansionist mindset"

Indeed, for Modi, China may appear to be less a rival than an opportunity. He has been there four times on official visits – more than any other country – and, aides say, admires what has been achieved in the country. On his last five-day tour, Modi carried red business cards printed in Chinese..Modi is also said to feel more at home among the technocrats of Beijing than in the west.

The history of the Gujarat riots and the RSS connection is not going to simplify diplomacy anywhere in the Islamic world. The relationship with Europeans is underperforming, with negotiations on a trade agreement taking so long they have become a stock joke of ambassador's receptions in Delhi. British ministers keep turning up, keen to stress how much they admire all things Indian, especially large contracts.

The whole aftermath of the Arab Spring presents huge difficulties. India needs lots of fossil fuels, and huge quantities of imported oil. Iran is a long-term ally but demanding.

The other sticking point for Modi as well as Pakistan is the disputed territory of Kashmir, where now only a low-level separatist insurgency continues as India military has done away with most of Kashmiri freedom movement leaders following the Spet-11 hoax.  In fact, it is becoming clear that  Kashmiri  leaders want only a change in the ownership of Jammu Kashmir from India to Pakistan.

The BJP is committed to withdrawing the special constitutional provisions that guarantee Kashmir a degree of autonomy within India. Concessions on this would be tough for Modi to envisage, but removal can cause more problems for India. On top of that, the region is evolving rapidly as the US and other remaining international combat troops are withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of this year.

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Modi's victory could be a sign of greater changes to come. With the world's eighth largest military expenditure, third largest armed force, tenth largest economy by nominal rates and third largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity India is also a major corruption ridden regional power. 

While his supporters see a man with an established record of honest, efficient and effective government, critics accuse Modi of harbouring deep sectarian prejudices and of allowing, or even encouraging, violence in which 1,000 people, largely Muslims, died while he was in power in Gujarat state in 2002. Though a supreme court investigation has found insufficient evidence to support the charges – which Modi has always denied – concerns remain.

Indian corporate lords exploit India's resources  for their onward march and also force the regime to  stop all subsidies and freebies to poor and common people and would spend huge resources to get the veto to only to promote further their business interests. 

These big business guys have bought all  parties and  leaders to support their causes in Parliament. 

Modi needs to be extra intelligent to realize that he must work for Indian masses that voted him and his party to power and not the corporates  that financed and advertised  him for pro-BJP poll outcomes. 

Neither ideology nor corporatism can sustain Modi in the absence of popular support. .