The Vishwaguru Who Forgot His Homework: Modi in Global History

The job of a Prime Minister is never an easy one. Some inherit a storm; others inherit calm seas with a steady wind. Jawaharlal Nehru got the raw end of the deal: a traumatised, partitioned land, millions uprooted, and the Cold War beginning to freeze the world in two hostile blocs. Lal Bahadur Shastri died a war time Prime Minister, and Indira Gandhi presided over a war-ravaged economy, staring across hostile borders at Pakistan and China while the superpowers treated India as a pawn. Morarji Desai stumbled into South Block after the Emergency, the West reeling from stagflation and his own coalition too weak to command authority. Rajiv Gandhi, with a brute majority in Parliament, was besieged by multiple insurgencies at home and a belligerent Zia-ul-Haq across the border. P.V. Narasimha Rao had to deal with the mother of all crises—the 1991 balance of payments collapse—just as the Soviet Union, India’s security blanket, disintegrated into history.

Even Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who looked the happiest inheritor, was nursing wounds from the Babri Masjid demolition engineered by his own ideological cousins. The Kargil betrayal by Pakistan came as a stab in the back. Manmohan Singh the reluctant Prime Minister, cerebral but politically weak, found himself juggling a minority government in an age when American bombs were falling on Baghdad and Kabul or “War on Terror.”

By contrast, Narendra Modi had the best hand any Indian Prime Minister had been dealt since Independence. The domestic economy was growing and global economic environment steadily recovering. Pakistan, post- 26/11, was cut down to size by the Americans and forced to act against the very terrorists it once nurtured. Washington was wooing India as a bulwark against China. The worst of the global financial crisis of 2008 had passed. Time magazine even carried a cover comparing the Chinese Dragon with the Indian Elephant. To any seasoned eye, the moment was ripe for India to rise.

But Modi mistook luck for destiny. His admirers still claim that his greatest trial was the coronavirus pandemic. They are wrong. The real challenge was the invisible tectonic shift in the global order: the unipolar moment after the Cold War was ending, and a bipolar contest was re-emerging between America and China. As John Mearsheimer has argued, 2017 marked the beginning of this new age. Modi, instead of steering India between these great powers with the subtlety of a Rao or the poise of a Vajpayee, tied himself too tightly to Washington’s apron strings.

History shows that Indian leaders once made hard choices with surprising maturity. During World War II, even as India seethed against British rule, Indian troops fought in far-off Mesopotamia, France, and Burma. It was a cynical calculation—the enemy of my enemy is my friend—but on the moral scale, it was the better choice. Nazi death camps and Japanese barbarism in China put the British Raj’s cruelty in a different, if not gentler, light. After Independence, when most post-colonial nations were compelled to choose between the American camp and the Soviet bloc, Nehru declined both. His was the doctrine of non-alignment, dismissed as utopian but in truth a masterstroke. Alongside self-reliance, these two Nehruvian pillars gave India a moral standing in the world—supporting Palestine, opposing apartheid, and refusing to bend before either bloc. Yes, there were follies—“Hindi-Chini bhai bhai” and silence over Soviet tanks in Prague—but the broad sweep of Nehru’s foreign policy gave India dignity.

Rao, the sly fox, adjusted to the unipolar world with craft. He devalued the rupee, opened markets, kissed the IMF ring, when necessary, restored ties with Israel without losing Arab goodwill, and defended Indian position on Kashmir in UN, while Pakistan was still in America’s pocket. Vajpayee followed with Pokhran-II and a bus ride to Lahore. Manmohan Singh gave India the civil nuclear deal, with George W. Bush calling it historic. Obama came to India twice—an honour no other U.S. President has shown.

And then came Modi. Instead of playing his enviable hand, he overplayed it. He embraced America so tightly that India lost the balancing act that once defined its autonomy. Howdy Modi, Namaste Trump—these weren’t foreign policy; they were Bollywood stage shows, complete with lights, chants, and zero strategic substance.  He fell back on bluster at home, Hindutva slogans and a politics of grievance, even as foreign policy grew timid and unimaginative.

At home, his colleagues did their worst to undo decades of patient diplomacy. Amit Shah thundered that Bangladeshis were “termites,” forgetting that millions of Indian workers live in the Gulf and remittances oils our economy. Nupur Sharma, in a moment of television arrogance, insulted Prophet Muhammad on air. The Arab world did not forget. Gulf capitals that once feted Modi went cold. Photo-ops with sheikhs could not erase the insult.

On Gaza, Modi’s policy has been spineless: too afraid to anger Israel, too afraid to anger Arab capitals. On Ukraine, he milked the war for electoral advantage, boasting about rescuing students but refusing to take a principled stand. This is not statesmanship. It is shopkeeper diplomacy: counting pennies, forever worried about losing customers, never brave enough to risk a position.

The truth is, Modi 2.0 has been an apology tour—lurching from one crisis to the next, almost always of his own making. The Foreign Minister was busy on an apology tour, explaining Indian stand on Bangladeshi termites in Dhaka, apologising for brashness on TV in Doha, and explaining “War Rukwa dee Paw Paw” in Moscow. Modi 2.0’s foreign policy was reactive, not visionary. His domestic politics has been divisive, not unifying.

Despite borrowing Nehru’s playbook—non-alignment rebranded as “strategic autonomy,” self-reliance repackaged as “Make in India”—Modi has failed. He had the best cards, and he squandered them. Instead of emerging as a statesman, he has become a provincial strongman on the global stage. Amit Shah calling Bangladeshis termites and Nupur Sharma insulting the Prophet damaged our standing with the Islamic world. His spineless dithering on Gaza, and his attempt to use the Russia-Ukraine war for electoral gains, were historic blunders.

History had opened a door. Modi installed a mirror.

And through that mirror, he kept admiring himself—while the world changed, opportunities passed, and India lost the balance it once held with pride.

India deserved a Prime Minister who could rise to history. Instead, it got a politician who fought one fire after another, never mastering the art of statecraft. Modi promised to make India a vishwaguru. He leaves, instead, as a pupil who never learned his lesson.

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