Losing the Dragon — India-Bhutan relations

By choosing to make Bhutan the first foreign country to visit, a month after assuming the office of Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi sent a very strong message. The significance of the visit lay not in what Mr Modi said, but the symbolism of him making a visit to our smallest neighbour, which, not coincidentally, also sits in the middle of our 4,200 kms long border dispute with China. It is also the only country whose security infrastructure is most integrated with ours. During his visit, Mr Modi laid the foundation stone for the 600MW Kholongchu Hydro-electric project. Hydro-electric power generated by Bhutan’s run-of-the river dams is the economic bedrock of the India-Bhutan relationship. India has helped finance the dams through a combination of aid and loans and buys the excess electricity at very low prices. It is the best example of a win-win in economic diplomacy that India has. Mr Modi also stressed how tourism made for good neighbours while – gesturing at other countries – terrorism made bad ones.

All of this was new to Mr Modi who was, until this visit, a stranger to Bhutan. If anything it is the Nehru-Gandhi family that has nurtured the relationship, with Nehru and Indira making an epic trek by horse, yak and foot to Bhutan in 1958. It was Indira Gandhi who supported Bhutan’s admission in the United Nations, and during the coronation of the Fifth King of Bhutan, Jigme Khesar Wangchuck, Sonia Gandhi’s whole family were among the select guests. The fact that Mr Modi chose to build on this relationship rather than shy away from the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty’s work was statesman-like. The fact that he made it his first country to visit gave an additional boost, making comparisons with Nehru’s 1958 visit inevitable. Here was an Indian Prime Minister giving pride of place to Bhutan, and signalling a personal commitment to the ties that bind India and Bhutan together.

In the year since his visit, each one of the major aspects that tie India and Bhutan together – strategic, financial and cultural – has suffered a serious blow, one by this government, one as an outcome of previous governments, and one by chance. In all of this the personal commitment signalled by Mr Modi during his first visit has been missing, casting doubts on whether the visit by him had any meaning beyond a beautiful set of photo opportunities.