IS India a weak link that worries the architects of the Shanghai club and the BRICS group? The question is as urgent today as it ever was, its importance underscored further by a potentially crucial BRICS summit that Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosts later this month. Several factors may be at play to determine if India is indeed a weak link for BRICS. Every country has its core interests and India’s foreign policy today seems to be based on two key factors, one being the calculation as to who or what can best help deliver the core interest of the ruling elite, namely the consolidation of a majoritarian state, the Hindu rashtra.
It’s all too well known that the financial foundations of Hindutva lie in the West, a fact that became even more obvious with the recent visit by the head of the RSS to the US and Canada. Russia and China have scant interest in the ruling party’s ideology as long as it does not disturb the political furniture the two groups have worked hard to set up. The West, too, couldn’t care less about the dominant worldview of a country as long as it is a trusted ally. A classic indication here is the silent acceptance of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.
When Western human rights groups mount pressure on India over its treatment of religious and ethnic minorities, it’s more of a leverage to extract political outcomes than a pursuit of moral tenets. A second factor in framing foreign policy is the interest of major business houses aligned with the Modi government. A typical episode showed India’s vulnerability in the Adani affair in the US. The political quid pro quo to get relief in the corruption case would be hard to assess, but it would be equally hard to ignore.
