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Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel on the eve of strikes by a combined US-Israel (USIS) force on Iran and India’s silence on the blatantly illegal assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is not the foreign policy volte-face that it seems to be at first sight. It is the natural and predictable outcome of the path that Indian foreign policy has been on for the last decade. India has, by discarding moral legitimacy and conflating pragmatism with short-term transactional relationships, ended up in a position that is neither morally nor pragmatically sound.  

A feature of Indian foreign policy in the last decade has been a refusal to be tied down to either tradition or abstract principle. The argument offered in support of this is that a multipolar world requires flexibility and that such flexibility can only be maintained by side-stepping the “big” questions of principle and dealing with the principal actors one on one. While this argument might, on the face of it, seem appealing, it comes with two important caveats that are not frequently discussed. 

First, the benefits India gains from such naked pragmatism often come bundled with losses in influence. Second, these benefits are often contingent on the rest of the world still upholding some minimum level of principle and predictability in international relations. 

Moral legitimacy as a source of influence

A significant portion of post-colonial India’s influence in geopolitics came from striving to take the morally correct position in geopolitical situations in which it did not have a direct stake. While this might not have always led to morally correct outcomes – India’s role in Congo, where it got bogged down leading a hugely unpopular UN effort comes to mind – India’s positions were generally seen to be a reliable indicator of the right thing to do. This meant that within the Global South, India’s voice wielded a strong guiding influence, not because of its size or military strength, but because of the moral legitimacy its voice conveyed. 

Interestingly, India’s relationship with Israel offers an insight into the diplomatic currency this moral legitimacy once provided. The public conversation in India usually focuses on what India can get from its relationship with Israel, but rarely asks why Israel courts India. India might be valuable as a purchaser for Israel’s defense industry, or a trading partner, but these are replaceable benefits for Israel. What Israel seeks, and has always sought,........

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