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Modi's World: Expanding India's Sphere of Influence
Modi's World tells the story of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vigorous diplomacy and his aspiration to elevate India's place in the world. It offers insights into Modi's foreign policy inheritance, his efforts to build on the foundations laid by his recent predecessors, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh, and set more ambitious international goals of his own for India. The book, based on Raja Mohan's columns for the Express, examines the new opportunities that Modi's energy and intensity have generated for India's relations with the major powers and its neighbours in the subcontinent, Asia and the Indian Ocean.Raja Mohan reviews India's new initiatives under Modi to put diplomacy at the service of economic development, deepen the ties with the diaspora, and develop a new vocabulary for Indian foreign policy. He takes a close look at Modi's attempts to end Delhi's defensiveness on the world stage, inject greater flexibility into India's positions on trade and climate change, discard past slogans like non-alignment, and construct a new framework of pragmatic internationalism. At the same time, Raja Mohan takes a critical look at some of the domestic constraints that could limit Modi's ambition to make India a 'leading power' in the world.Crisply argued and written, Modi's World provides the reader a sharp focus on an area of intense activity.
- GenresIndia
227 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 19, 2015
(Views expressed are purely personal)
(Views are expressed ABOUT THE BOOK; not about the government's policy)
Collection of essays and columns written by the eminent C. Raja Mohan over the past year. Not for the regular run-of-the-mill prime time television debate watching audience. A much more nuanced and detailed study of the government's foreign policy initiatives. At the same time, not a technical read. Personally, found "Samudramanthan" much more detailed and insightful. In terms of perspectives, this book is lacking here.
Presents a convincing argument that the government's foreign policy initiatives are creating a significant paradigm shift; particularly since New Delhi is looking away from rhetoric and ideology towards real steps. Whether or not these steps will endure is something only time will tell.
Overall, decent read. Good summary of the past year in f.p.
(Views are expressed ABOUT THE BOOK; not about the government's policy)
Collection of essays and columns written by the eminent C. Raja Mohan over the past year. Not for the regular run-of-the-mill prime time television debate watching audience. A much more nuanced and detailed study of the government's foreign policy initiatives. At the same time, not a technical read. Personally, found "Samudramanthan" much more detailed and insightful. In terms of perspectives, this book is lacking here.
Presents a convincing argument that the government's foreign policy initiatives are creating a significant paradigm shift; particularly since New Delhi is looking away from rhetoric and ideology towards real steps. Whether or not these steps will endure is something only time will tell.
Overall, decent read. Good summary of the past year in f.p.
July 21, 2023
Narendra Modi is a force of nature. There is immeasurable liveliness and limitless gusto in India’s fourteenth prime minister who struggles unremittingly for taking India forward in economic development and modernisation. To realise what he calls an ‘Indian century’, he has pledged, ‘every moment of my life and every particle in my body’ to be devoted ‘to the work of my country.’
No sphere of policymaking has remained unscathed by his alert mind and hands-on style of active leadership, since he assumed India’s highest political office in May 2014.
Standing tall amidst the diverse realms of policies which have undergone a distinct ‘Modi-fication’ is foreign affairs. Matters relating to foreign relations have conventionally been viewed in India as an esoteric field that takes a backseat in discourse when compared to pressing domestic issues which have greater political resonance.
Into the following ten chapters this book has been divided:
1. Introduction
2. An Ambivalent Legacy
3. Neighbours First
4. The Pakistan Problem
5. Rethinking China
6. Embracing America
7. Asia Beckons
8. Looking South
9. Cultural Diplomacy
10. India as a Leading Power
The chapters scrutinize the foreign policy of Modi as it extended in 2014 and early 2015.
Chapter Two ‘An Ambivalent Legacy’, looks at the nature of Modi’s diplomatic bequest from the UPA government that set the stage for the new prime minister.
Chapter Three, ‘Neighbours First’ provides intuitions into Modi’s effort to reinforce relations with India’s smaller neighbours and the new emphasis on promoting South Asian regionalism.
Chapters Four and Five deal with Modi’s approach to India’s two most perplexing neighbours, Pakistan and China correspondingly.
Chapter Six inspects Modi’s astonishing embrace of the United States.
Chapters Seven and Eight look at the new government’s policy towards two important regions of India’s extended neighbourhood—Asia and the Indian Ocean.
Chapter Nine surveys Modi’s efforts to endorse India’s soft power. Each of these chapters begins with an ephemeral review of the context and concludes with a valuation of the progress made.
Finally, Chapter Ten offers some closing reflections on the nature and significance of Modi’s foreign policy, particularly his effort to make India a leading power on the regional and global stage.
From the word go, when Modi was sworn into power with the heads of governments of the South Asian countries in attendance, the degree of prime ministerial attention and importance given to international relations has been extraordinary by Indian standards.
As one commentator had put it a few months after he overmastered into global consciousness, ‘Modi has surprised many by investing considerable political capital in high-powered diplomacy so early in his term, even though he came to office with little foreign-policy experience.’
Another argued that regardless of being a tenderfoot to international politics, Modi proved to be ‘a revelation on the world stage, a complete natural.’
To claim that Modi has taken India to the world and brought the world to India is no underestimation.
No sphere of policymaking has remained unscathed by his alert mind and hands-on style of active leadership, since he assumed India’s highest political office in May 2014.
Standing tall amidst the diverse realms of policies which have undergone a distinct ‘Modi-fication’ is foreign affairs. Matters relating to foreign relations have conventionally been viewed in India as an esoteric field that takes a backseat in discourse when compared to pressing domestic issues which have greater political resonance.
Into the following ten chapters this book has been divided:
1. Introduction
2. An Ambivalent Legacy
3. Neighbours First
4. The Pakistan Problem
5. Rethinking China
6. Embracing America
7. Asia Beckons
8. Looking South
9. Cultural Diplomacy
10. India as a Leading Power
The chapters scrutinize the foreign policy of Modi as it extended in 2014 and early 2015.
Chapter Two ‘An Ambivalent Legacy’, looks at the nature of Modi’s diplomatic bequest from the UPA government that set the stage for the new prime minister.
Chapter Three, ‘Neighbours First’ provides intuitions into Modi’s effort to reinforce relations with India’s smaller neighbours and the new emphasis on promoting South Asian regionalism.
Chapters Four and Five deal with Modi’s approach to India’s two most perplexing neighbours, Pakistan and China correspondingly.
Chapter Six inspects Modi’s astonishing embrace of the United States.
Chapters Seven and Eight look at the new government’s policy towards two important regions of India’s extended neighbourhood—Asia and the Indian Ocean.
Chapter Nine surveys Modi’s efforts to endorse India’s soft power. Each of these chapters begins with an ephemeral review of the context and concludes with a valuation of the progress made.
Finally, Chapter Ten offers some closing reflections on the nature and significance of Modi’s foreign policy, particularly his effort to make India a leading power on the regional and global stage.
From the word go, when Modi was sworn into power with the heads of governments of the South Asian countries in attendance, the degree of prime ministerial attention and importance given to international relations has been extraordinary by Indian standards.
As one commentator had put it a few months after he overmastered into global consciousness, ‘Modi has surprised many by investing considerable political capital in high-powered diplomacy so early in his term, even though he came to office with little foreign-policy experience.’
Another argued that regardless of being a tenderfoot to international politics, Modi proved to be ‘a revelation on the world stage, a complete natural.’
To claim that Modi has taken India to the world and brought the world to India is no underestimation.
May 10, 2020
It's a great book about how Indian foreign policy has suffered at the hands of bureaucracy and the Nehru-Gandhi family. However, it remains a journalistic account and lacks academic depth.
April 27, 2016
a lucid analysis of the first one year of the Modi government and it's foreign policy. Though mainly a collection of already published columns, it's organised well and a definite read for anyone interested in whether this government's foreign policy is more about continuity or change.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews