India's Perception Battle in South Asia

Abstract

India, in 2019, since the formation of the new government in May, has pitched in for numerous changes from government formation to laws of the land. Though there were certain bold decisions taken in the 2014-19 tenure, the 2019 mandate has given the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led government a renewed confidence to go for taking greater risks. The first of such intrepid decision on the foreign policy front was to bring S. Jaishankar, a veteran in foreign policy with an excellent track record as the Minister for External Affairs (MEA). Though people in India were aware of the rapport Jaishankar shares with Modi, none anticipated it to be this out of the box thinking. Jaishankar's tryst with the foreign policy front has been recognized and been awarded to a person well deserved. He seems to have taken up the challenge and has been the face of India's foreign policy, unlike his predecessor Sushma Swaraj. In the previous regime, it was Modi who stole the show and almost appeared as if he was the MEA. Jaishankar has a clear mandate to put the foreign policy of India in the track and take the lead from the front. On the domestic front, the Modi government has gone for quite a few bold decisions including that of banning the triple talaq, abrogation of article 370 pertaining to the former state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), amendment of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act to have wider scope and now the latest being The National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). To an extent, these domestic decisions which have nothing to do with other nations directly have been factors that have reemerged in India's perception battle in South Asia. This has direct ramifications on India's foreign policy in South Asia and its ambitions to grow beyond the region.