Narendra Modi, India's diplomatic ambitions, and the US Congress speech

India has traditionally been a non-aligned nation. It has neither been a very close friend of any major power, nor has antagonised anyone unnecessarily. However, developments over the past two decades in global politics, especially the Sino-Pakistan all-weather friendship in India's backyard, created serious threats for Indian interests not just in the sub-continent but globally. Hence, the Indian establishment has taken up a proactive global diplomatic relationship-building on multiple fronts. This picked up pace post the inauguration of the Modi government in 2014. 

Namaste, from the emerging superpower

Multiple energetic initiatives followed, not the least of them being Prime Minister Modi leading the global charge personally. Despite constant ridicule he faced at home from a shrill media, and multiple WhatsApp memes, labelling him 'a visiting PM India has', he has continued undaunted. For all that, the results are beginning to show in a big way now, beginning with India gaining a positive edge for MTCR membership, further strengthening its case for a berth in the NSG, vital to our long-term Uranium needs.

In this background, PM Modi delivered a speech to the joint session of the US Congress on 08-June 2016, which summed up his multi-directional efforts. Undoubtedly, to my mind at least, it was one of his best speeches. I share a few pointers as to why it is so -

Fiction : The day Ajinkya thought of it all

This blogpost is a work of fiction. It's an excerpt from a book I am writing on this theme. 
If you are a reputed book-publisher, contact me at sm@ptuniverse.com


The day Ajinkya thought of it all

Ajinkya Joshi looked outside the PMO's window pensively. He was overwhelmed by emotions, as memories of the past decade and a half flooded his mind, rushing like a series of powerful gusts of storm winds, ready to uproot everything he held dear all his life. It was the 28th of April 2023, when Ajinkya, as the Prime Minister of the broader state of Indian subcontinent, was presiding over a nation that was rooted in a new geo-political reality. The 'broader state of Indian subcontinent', as it was now called, included chunks of other neighbouring nations, some governable, others chaotic. It was the only democratic nation left in Asia.

Ajinkya was barely 45 years old when, four years ago, he was urgently summoned by the National Council of Patriotic Indians (NCPI), from his Finnish hometown. As a brilliant IIT graduate who earned his PhD in Nuclear Physics, he shone in the world of global security establishment. He had not understood fully the reason for the immediate call, but the broader picture was clear to him. Ever since he left the American Nuclear Command Services based at Washington DC in 2016, he had decided never to dwell back into that kind of work ever again. Though India always held a dear place in his heart, he really did not think his family would be able to adjust to the grim socio-political realities of the subcontinent now. But nonetheless, he had returned, much to the cheer of everyone in the NCPI. Much against his wife's and daughter's protests, he had left the secluded underground town of Kristiinankaupunki in Finland. Kristiinankaupunki was one of the few destinations in the world that boasted of completely nuclear-radiation-free lifestyles, still (most others had resigned to the fact that residual radiation was a part of life, and one had to move on nonetheless). Immigration was strictly controlled, and robotic processes ensured only those still un-inflicted could get in. Scandinavia had 21 such locations, interconnected through underground tunnels. There were open areas and cities, of course, but the risk of getting irradiated was entirely the residents'.