THE post-Cold War world - no more divided in rival camps created by two competing superpowers confronting each other for military and ideological reasons - ironically witnessed the rise of a new global terror primarily targeting the US, from the same ‘geographical pivot of history’ called Afghanistan that had earlier caused the demise of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the other superpower.

Success of the anti-Soviet armed campaign in Afghanistan that was conducted on the slogan of Jehad, resulted in the establishment of the first Emirate of Taliban in Kabul in 1996. The latter carrying the historical legacy of the anti-West ‘Wahhabi revolt’, soon bared its fangs against the US, compelling the latter to work for its ouster.

This in turn laid the turf for 9/11 - the trans-Atlantic attack on the Twin Towers carried out by Al-Qaeda that had worked in close collaboration with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The ‘war on terror’ that followed first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq, saw India firmly coming on board with the US in its offensive against the Islamic radicals and consistently supporting the US at all fora in the call for global action against Islamic extremists and radicals.

Pakistan was a reluctant partner of US in the ‘war on terror’ playing a duplicitous role there and it later pretended to use its outreach to Taliban for mediating for peace at Doha talks to facilitate withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan.

The US put up with the reinstallation of Taliban Emirate in Kabul in August 2021 on a flimsy assurance from Taliban that it will not permit Afghan territory to be used for another 9/11 type of terror act.

India was left to deal largely on its own with the increased danger of cross-border terror from the Pak-Afghan belt in Kashmir and elsewhere and the added threat to national security arising from the Sino-Pak axis that entailed military liaison between the two hostile neighbours of India.

The geopolitical scenario was also soon affected by a contentious relationship between the US and Russia that cropped up on the advent of Joe Biden Presidency putting India’s foreign policy on test.

Russia’s military operation against Ukraine added to the challenge for India, of steering its national strategy. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, however, this nation has successfully tackled the new demands on security and economic fronts facing the country - with consistency, clarity and a new-found political will - and enabled India to steadily emerge as a global power.

The strategy that Prime Minister Modi formulated, with the able assistance of his NSA, revolved around a firm declaration that there will be no talks with Pakistan until the latter renounces use of terror as an instrument of state policy in respect of India, bilateral relations with all based on mutuality of security and economic interests and special emphasis on India-US friendship as an expression of natural bonding between the two largest democracies of the world without prejudice to the valuable India-Russia relationship that has been built over years to serve, among other things, the need for India to have a dependable source of modern military equipment- Russia, in fact, has been the biggest supplier of arms to India in recent years. Besides, India has proved its total commitment to economic development of all in the interest of world peace. What is remarkable about this national strategy is that it rests on Prime Minister Modi’s personal equation with both US President Biden as well as Russian President Vladimir Putin.

This has enabled India to play the role of a global counsel in the sensitive geopolitical situation created by the prolonged Ukraine-Russia conflict, in which the US and Europe have both got deeply involved in support of Ukraine. It is in this context, Prime Minister Modi’s participation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit at Samarkand in Uzbekistan - where Iran joined in the group of Russia, China, India, Pakistan and the four CARs - established the stature of India as a world power and as a major influence on global geopolitics.

This happened since India kept Pakistan and China in their place, used the bilateral meeting between Putin and Modi to further strengthen their mutual ties while maintaining the stand that the Ukraine-Russia military conflict should end and peace negotiations should resume, pushing economic cooperation in the region on top of the agenda.

The Samarkand summit has enhanced the international standing of India and added to the stature of Prime Minister Modi as a world leader. At the summit, Modi projected India as a great supporter of SCO, reminding the participants that the group accounted for 40 per cent of the world population and 30 per cent of the global GDP, and focused primarily on India’s potential as a resurgent economy for contributing to the economic cooperation among the member countries.

He informed the summit that India has established more than 70,000 startups, including over a hundred unicorns, and announced the formation of a special working group on startups and innovation to share India’s experience with others. The Prime Minister talked of India being on the way to becoming the manufacturing hub of the world with a strong and young workforce that made India competitive and disclosed that India has already become the most appealing destination for medical and health tourism and a globally acknowledged centre for traditional medicine.

In short, India came off as a lead player in SCO for boosting all-round economic development - this goes squarely to the credit of Prime Minister Modi.

A great outcome of the SCO summit was the in-person bilateral meeting between Putin and Modi that further cemented Indo-Russian bonds. This happened even as Modi maintained that ‘this is not an era of war’ and repeated his call for peace negotiations between Ukraine and Moscow to end the conflict since, according to him, the world favoured ‘democracy, diplomacy and dialogue’.

(IANS)

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(The writer is a former Director of Intelligence Bureau. The views expressed are personal)