By Anubhav Roy E-International Relations The convergence between Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, and Margaret Thatcher – tested fema...
By Anubhav Roy
E-International Relations
The convergence
between Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, and Margaret Thatcher – tested female
leaders who turned into national heroes with exemplary war victories – remains
a muse for tea-table wonderers. The sheer boldness in their respective foreign
policies arguably brings them closest. Albeit comparative politics faces its
challenges today, juxtaposing the external conducts of leaders – or states –
still reveals their policy priorities efficiently. The usual contrasting of
China against Wilhelmine Germany, for instance, stems from the weighing up of
international trends (Taylor, 2012). The similarity between Britain’s first
female Prime Minister and India’s first Prime Minister born post-independence
is as fascinating. Unsurprisingly, the BBC adjudged Narendra Modi as ‘India’s
answer to Margaret Thatcher’ (Rowlatt, 2015).
Drawing the
domestic parallel between Thatcher and Modi is undemanding. After polishing and
propaganda, both thwarted all underestimation to spearhead conservative fronts,
ending up as unchallenged alternatives for masses tired of politico-economic
indecisiveness. The engines of their pre-poll campaigns were the vilification
of rivals, the assurance to act, and the humming of liberal-developmental
overtures, which combined to fetch them patronage and a lion’s share of the
votes. Both commenced their office-work by upholding harmony and launching bold
free-market and fiscal revamps. Yet, their decisional audacities,
cosmopolitanism, and monetarism soon proved distasteful for their ideologically
firmer colleagues. Meanwhile, socialist detractors slammed them as capitalist
cronies wielding anti-proletarian diktats. The policy baskets of both Thatcher
and Modi – foreign affairs included – indeed seem in the same hands.
India’s
obsession with Modi has had prominent foundations: conservative speech acts,
laissez faire liberal-economic promises, and hawkish nationalism. Precedents to
all three can be traced to Thatcher’s Britain. To be expressed as ideology,
‘Thatcherism’ may hardly find authoritative definitions to draw from. Also,
Thatcherism is more than the crude sum of Thatcher’s policies during her
eleven-year rule. In his book, Thatcher and Thatcherism, Eric J. Evans bravely
boils down Thatcherite thought to a confluence of Smith’s free-trade,
Gladstone’s liberalism, and Disraeli’s nationalism (Evans, 2004, pp. 3-4).
Quite like ‘the Lady’ – as Thatcher’s admirers called her – Modi, too, has been
the capitalist’s choice through his career, with his pronounced knack for
liberal-economic assertiveness preceding his politics. His histrionic orations
and much thumped loyalism have also made him the fervent patriot’s poster-boy.
The Three
Pillars
Thatcher
proposed three ‘things [that she] want[ed] for Britain’ globally: ‘increased
respect […] as a leading power; a close alliance with the United States; and
pretentions to closer European unity’ (Evans, 2004, p. 81). That she coveted
autonomy in her management of Britain’s external affairs was evident in her
prompt sidelining of the Foreign Office and domineering of diplomacy. In fact,
her obduracy was hinted at by her early overseas visits as leader of
opposition, when she straightforwardly ‘broke […] convention [to] criticize the
government […] on foreign soil’ (Evans, 2004, pp. 81-82). Markedly, in spite of
outshining all rivals for his mandate, Modi, too, has ‘repeatedly brought in
domestic politics on foreign soil […] to score brownie points over the
opposition during his foreign trips’ (Sharma, 2015). Thatcher’s march towards
her foreign policy ambitions was expectedly stiff.
The Cold War’s
last decade encapsulated watershed moments of history, which Thatcher tackled
perspicuously. Her links with Apartheid South Africa and Khmer Cambodia were as
impenitent as her will to lead the West’s intervention in the Gulf War, an
episode she dubbed as ‘no time to go wobbly’ (Thatcher, 1990). Her vital bond
with Ronald Reagan allowed not just the cementing of Anglo-US ties, but also
the injection of Gorbachev’s reform into the Soviet sphere as the Cold War’s
antidote (AP, 1988). Likewise, as the Iron Curtain enmity renewed post-Détente
with the Soviet takeover of Afghanistan in 1979-80, Thatcher scored a swift
victory at the Falklands War of 1982, restoring wide respect for Britain’s
military merit.
Modi’s intent to
leave his imprints on India’s largely Nehruvian foreign policy is evident in
his intense personalization of overseas visits and summit attendance. Observers
like Harsh V. Pant already envision the replacement of Nehru’s Non-Alignment
with a certain ‘Modi Doctrine’ that seeks to align ‘with anyone and everyone to
secure [India’s] rapid economic growth’, turning foreign policy into just
‘another instrument to serve domestic priorities’ (Pant, 2014). For others, the
‘doctrine’ – like Thatcherism – is yet to attain a formal definition and
‘pursue coherent goals’ (Jaffrelot, 2014). Nonetheless, even under Modi, the
Indian PM’s office parentally towers over the External Affairs’ Ministry. The
brow-raising shunting of former Indian Foreign Secretary, Sujatha Singh,
mirrored the unceremonious sacking of Reginald Maudling – Thatcher’s Shadow
Foreign Secretary during her days as the opposition’s lead – over policy
disagreements.
Subrahmanyam
Jaishankar was, discernably, handpicked as Modi’s new Foreign Secretary for his
laudable diplomatic resume vis-à-vis the US. The entrustment quickly paid
dividends, too, as Jaishankar secured Barack Obama’s nod on becoming the first
US President to grace India’s Republic Day parade, months after Modi’s
trumpeted US visit in 2014 (Staff, 2015). Shades of the Reagan-Thatcher bond
were visible in the Obama-Modi rapport, which Obama affirmed by eulogizing Modi
for Time as ‘India’s reformer-in-chief’ (Obama, 2015). Echoing Thatcher’s
military bullishness, Modi is seen drawing ‘red lines [against] India’s
adversaries’ (Pant, 2014), with escalatory retaliation against border
ceasefires by Pakistan in the northwest and a trans-border surgical strike
against Naga insurgents in the northeast. In fact, should Modi uphold such
sternness for internal security, he might manage to touch the Lady’s
disciplinarian benchmark against the Irish Republican militants.
Two of the three
pivots of Thatcher’s foreign policy conform to Modi’s doctrinal preferences:
military-diplomatic muscle-flexing to assert power and overt Americophilia.
Moreover, for both leaders, the former aspect balanced the latter. Just as
Thatcher openly opposed Jimmy Carter’s embargoes against the Soviet Union in
1979-80 (Lahey, 2013, p. 21), Modi managed to repel US pressure on India’s food
stockpiling policy. However, the third pillar of the Lady’s foreign policy
vision – regional cohesiveness – proved unsteady. For Thatcher, continental
fraternity was meant to be a pretense, given her conformist suspicion of fellow
Europeans as ‘foreigners’ (Evans, 2004, p. 81).
Though she
helped pave Europe’s maturity into a full-fledged Union (EU) by signing the
Single European Act, Thatcher infamously loathed European integration. She
disapproved the premise of ‘a European super-State exercising a new dominance
from Brussels’ (Kirkup, 2013), and, moreover, suspected the reunion of Germany
– Britain’s hereditary rival – as a hazard to NATO, despite being
pro-Perestroika (Görtemaker, 2006, p. 198). In South Asia, Modi revived India’s
old emphasis on regional amity by swearing in affront the political heads of
all nations belonging to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation
(SAARC). Since, he has already pocketed notable gains within the subcontinent,
such as a Land Boundary Agreement with Bangladesh and a Civil Nuclear Agreement
with Sri Lanka. Yet, for Pakistan, Modi’s top brass reserves clenched fists,
clamorous rhetoric, and the effeminizing of dialogues. With Nepal, the Modi
machinery’s poorly publicized relief campaign during the 2015 quakes, coupled
with its meddling in the Nepalese constitution, has not gone down well.
Consequently, South Asian regionalization remains a pipedream.
Money Talks
In Evans’
understanding, the backbone of Thatcherite foreign policy was economic gains.
The monetary stimuli behind Thatcher’s decisions were so glaring, that she was
jibed as ‘the grocer’s daughter’ (Evans, 2004, p. 82). Her evasion of Carter’s
call for sanctions on the Soviet Union after its invasion of Afghanistan was
motivated by the adversity such an action posed to the then reeling global
economy (Lahey, 2013, pp. 21-42). In 1986, Thatcher became the first British PM
to visit Israel, repairing a bilateral equation dislodged since 1982 over
clashing national interests amidst the Lebanon War. However, bearing in mind
her country’s economic stakes in the Arab world, she not just shied away from
selling heavy weaponry and North Sea oil to the Israelis, but also appeared a
cautious ‘supporter of Palestinian self-determination’ (Pfeffer, 2013).
India’s growing
strategic reliance on Israel was given a fillip – at the cost of breaking
convention – in July 2015 by the former’s abstention on a United Nations Human
Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution to condemn the latter’s alleged war crimes in
Gaza. The relationship stands inextricable, as Israel is India’s second-biggest
arms supplier, just as India is Israel’s largest arms buyer. By 2016, Modi is,
thus, slated to become the first Indian PM to set foot on Israeli soil.
Notably, as a clever counterbalance, he shall also visit Palestine and Jordan
(Haidar, 2015). Well aware of the Gulf’s vitality for the Indian economy, he
has toured the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to obtain partnerships for
infrastructure and defence equipment. Also, prior to landing in Israel, he
shall stop over at Saudi Arabia: India’s biggest crude oil supplier (Jacob,
2015). While in Japan, Modi indeed meant business when he asserted, ‘money is
in my blood’ (Jaffrelot, 2014).
That the foreign
affairs vehicles of Thatcher and Modi have economic drivers surfaces clearer
when their China policies are paralleled. Despite the West’s ‘ping-pong’
rapprochement with the Chinese in 1972, the Sino-British relationship remained
fraught with discord over Hong Kong. A thaw only came in 1984, after Thatcher
conceded the former British colony to Communist China in arguably the ‘most
controversial chapter of Britain’s postwar colonial history’ (Goslett, 2007).
However, it was not to be a zero-sum loss. Thatcher’s rise to Downing Street
corresponded to Deng Xiaoping’s liberalizing of China, a stake in which was
worth a bargain. As documents declassified by London’s National Archives
reveal, Thatcher eyed ‘greater export and investment opportunities for British
industry’ with her policy shift towards China. To mask the impression of
‘having sold out Hong Kong to the Chinese’, a business contingent was
deliberately barred from accompanying her during her rendezvous with Deng
(Haddon, 2014).
When Modi hosted
Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2014, the brimming warmth did not go down well
with India’s hardliners, who contrasted their tranquil riverside chats with the
PLA’s military incursions into Kashmir (Correspondent, 2014). Thus, before
Modi’s hyped 2015 trip to China, there came strong prescriptions for ‘focus […]
on the strategic aspects of the [Sino-Indian] relationship, and less on trade
and economic ties’ (Narayanan, 2015). In his pre-poll rallies, after all, Modi
had maintained a tough stance on China. Notwithstanding, the ’24 agreements
worth over $10 billion [reached bilaterally] in Beijing’ included trade,
infrastructure, mining, space, education, railways, broadcast, tourism,
geo-science, and even yoga, while leaving no room for any deliberations on the
disputed border between the two countries along the McMahon Line (Sheet, 2015).
Conclusion
The leadership
likeness between Britain’s ‘Iron Lady’ and India’s modern-day ‘Loh Purush (Iron
Man)’ is well exhibited by the congruence in their foreign policy pursuits
(Kalbag, 2014). With a monetarist heart and a realist mind, both Thatcher and
Modi value global power projections, a West-wards tilt and regional prominence, while balancing
free-market fruits with nationalist roots. Although their doctrines lack
formality, they have visible capitalist cores, which allow political
volte-faces to seem as passable as trade bargains. From the Middle East to the
Far East, their decisional blueprints are shrewdly tied to domestic agendas –
at the cost of diplomatic traditions, if need be – warranted by their personal
foreign policy grip and wide legitimacy.
With that said,
however, if internal dynamics are any indication, then a Thatcherite climax is
not quite romantic. As D. L. Holm observes, Thatcher’s governance had its share
of consequences: capped inflation caused burning unemployment; arrested public
expenditure led to malnourished social aid; wealth creation came with wealth
concentration; and entrepreneurship bred cronyism (Holm, 1989, p. 370). Her
downfall in 1990 was instigated by her own partymen due to growing internal
discontent over her unheeding ways. Most distinctly, the pricey Falklands War
of 1982 – surely one of postwar Britain’s shakiest foreign policy moments – was
an ironic by-product of Thatcher’s venturous spending cuts. The Argentine junta
could never have invaded the British islands in the South Atlantic had she not
relaxed the region’s naval rings for defence parsimony. Modi, like Thatcher, is
an advocate of ‘bitter medicine’ for the ailing (TNN, 2014). Modi, unlike
Thatcher, has Thatcherism’s history to warn him of its side-effects.
About The Author:
About The Author:
Anubhav Roy is a Research Associate under
Ambassador Hardeep S. Puri, India’s former Permanent Representative to the
United Nations. He was previously attached to the United Service Institution of
India, the country’s oldest military think-tank.
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This article was originally published at E-International Relations on October 26, 2015 under Creative Commons 3.0
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