The man is known for thinking out of the box and stunning his friends and rivals alike with his unconventional ideas and approach.
For somebody who has always been tied down to a state – Gujarat in this context – Modi has stunned the world once again with his unconventional diplomacy.
Modi has invited United States President Barack Obama to attend the Republic Day 2015 as the Chief Guest. And lo and behold! Obama has accepted Modi’s invite delivered to him personally when Modi met him in Washington in September.
Modi tweeted thus on Friday: “This Republic Day, we hope to have a friend over…invited President Obama to be the 1st US President to grace the occasion as Chief Guest.”
Obama’s acceptance was conveyed promptly by the White House Press Secretary as follows: “At the invitation of Prime Minister Modi, the President will travel to India in January 2015 to participate in the Indian Republic Day celebration in New Delhi as the Chief Guest. This visit will mark the first time a U.S. president will have the honor of attending Republic Day, which commemorates the adoption of India’s constitution. The President will meet with the Prime Minister and Indian officials to strengthen and expand the U.S.-India strategic partnership.”
Syed Akbaruddin, spokesman of the Ministry of External Affairs, made a terse statement in this context as follows: You are aware PM had very successful visit to US in September, following his return from there as a personal initiative in one of his conversations he did extend an invitation to President Obama to be chief guest at next republic day celebrations.
Following that diplomatic conversation that PM had with president Obama a letter was sent in writing formalizing that invitation. We have now received confirmation through diplomatic channels of President Obama agreeing to come to India as the first US president for a republic day as chief guest. This is also another first. President Obama will be the first US president to come to India second time in his term of office and we will now look forward to this development which stems from the initiative of our PM which followed there bilateral meeting in Washington.”
This is indeed unprecedented. No US President has been the chief guest of Indian Republic Day celebrations ever before. It also shows PM Modi’s uncanny abilities of thinking the unthinkable and doing what has never been done before.
President Obama had visited India earlier in November 2010. A little after four years he will be visiting India again. It would be a record as no US President has ever visited India twice during his tenure.
This will inevitably have repercussions and an enormous diplomatic symbolism. The biggest message will go out to China and Russia – for different reasons.
China is already apprehensive of Modi and is keeping a close watch on not just Modinomics but also Modi’s very own version of the ‘Art of War’ – a 2500 year-old classic penned by Chinese philosopher and military strategist Sun Tzu.
Top Chinese leaders have repeatedly cautioned India not to woo friends who are continents away but focus on the next door neighbour like China.
Obama as chief guest at the Indian Republic Day on 26 January will inevitably give a resounding answer to the Chinese diplomatic cautions.On the flip side, it may also trigger a hard Chinese reaction in the coming months.
For Russia, India’s age-old strategic partner, it would imply that Moscow will no longer be able to deal with India from a position of strength – a situation it has been used to and has enjoyed for decades. In a way, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s upcoming visit to India next month would be threatened to be dwarfed by Obama’s visit to India in January 2015.
For Japan too, the development would constrict its bargaining chips. While Japan is happy to see a constant degradation of the Chinese clout in the Indian strategic calculus, it would have to put India on a higher pedestal than ever before and will force Tokyo to accord a much higher leverage than it has been giving thus far.
The development will have a similar cascading diplomatic effect on their India diplomacy by important regions like the Arab world, Europe and Australia.
India’s immediate South Asian neighbours, particularly Pakistan, would be squirming with unease. Of course, the Pakistani diplomatic corps would be pro-actively reaching out to the United States with a ‘me-too’ shopping list.
The biggest concrete deliverable from Obama’s India visit in January 2015, of course, would be that the Indo-US bilateral ties would be rebooted and put on far more loftier scale than ever before.
Last, but not the least, Obama coming to India as chief guest at the Republic Day parade would hugely bolster PM Modi’s international image. It would be a considerable achievement for the Modi-led India considering that not too long ago Washington had blocked US visa for Modi.
No comments:
Post a Comment