New Delhi (Agency): Prime Minister Narendra Modi has claimed credit on the eve of G20 summit for converting a heads of government meeting into “a people’s festival”. The government did well to popularize the Indian G20 agenda among people across the country and the world, even if this was something done a la Bollywood style. It is, therefore, striking that in the run—up to summit there has been considerable criticism of the Prime Minister’s leadership style in international media.
The world is taking an increasingly critical view of India. The Pew Research institute recently reported that while 68 per cent of Indians polled felt that India is “getting stronger”, in most other G20 countries, including the United States, no more than a third felt this way and close to half in fact felt nothing much had changed as far as India’s “influence in the world” is concerned.
Part of the reason for this global “influence”, is not shaped by governments alone but by people and civil society institutions and the interaction between them. Official propaganda only feeds one’s own ego and usually waste of time. Consider the fact that government to government (G20) level, China has become very “unpopular” in the West and yet, even today, China attracts more western tourists and business than India. Public perceptions about nations are as important as G2G relations. In fact, when diplomatic relations worsen, people-to-people (P2P) contacts can help maintain a balance in the relationships between nations, especially neighbours.
This, however, has not been the Modi government’s approach to Pakistan and China. A deterioration in diplomatic relations has been accentuated by reduced P2P contact. Apart from an occasional cricket match, which is played as if sportsmen are soldiers, there is actually no social contact between the civil societies of India and Pakistan. It was certainly heartening to see athlete Neeraj Chopra’s mother gently rebuke an Indian journalist for suggesting that her son’s victory was sweeter since a Pakistani had been worsted.
Social contact among people through tourism, culture festivities, academic programmes is generally very low between India and her neighbours but minimal with important ones, China and Pakistan. All three governments are to blame for this situation and so there is no point in indulging in a blame-game. The low civil society traffic between China and India stands in contrast to the continuing P2P contact between China and United States despite worsening G2G relations.
By Harihar Swarup