India Rolls Out the Red Carpet for Macron

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: India prepares to host French President Emmanuel Macron as its honored chief guest on Republic Day, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates a controversial Hindu temple in Ayodhya, and Pakistan and Iran deescalate after trading cross-border strikes.

Macron Heads to New Delhi as Honored Guest

French President Emmanuel Macron will be the chief guest at India’s Republic Day festivities this week. Macron wasn’t Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first choice; he planned to host U.S. President Joe Biden and other leaders from the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or the Quad. Biden declined the invitation last month. There is something fitting about Macron being this year’s chief guest. Last July, Modi attended France’s Bastille Day celebrations, 25 years after then-French President Jacques Chirac visited New Delhi as the Republic Day chief guest to launch a new strategic partnership with India.

Macron will be the sixth French leader accorded the honor of India’s chief guest on Republic Day and the fourth since 1998. His trip to New Delhi is an opportunity to showcase the relationship between the two countries, which shares similarities with some of India’s deep partnerships—while remaining quite distinct from India’s partnerships with other Western powers.

For nearly three decades, the India-France relationship has been largely free of tension, bringing to mind how Indian officials characterize India’s ties with Russia: as a “time-tested” partnership that has rarely if ever experienced a crisis. The arms trade between New Delhi and Paris is also strong, reminiscent of India’s partnerships with the United States and Israel. The three countries are India’s top arms suppliers after Russia—and France exported the most weapons to India between 2017 and 2021.

Much like India’s relations with the other members of the Quad (Australia, Japan, and the United States), its ties with France are strengthened by strategic convergences around geopolitics in Asia. India and France both view China’s growing regional influence with concern, and they each have island territories in the heart of the Indo-Pacific. Unsurprisingly, their strategic interests are now coalescing around the need for deeper engagement with the Pacific islands to balance China.

Finally, India-France relations have become increasingly multifaceted in recent years, with expanding cooperation in defense, renewable energy, science, and technology. This reflects a trend among India’s relations with the United States, the European Union, and Japan, among others. All these relationships can be classified as strategic partnerships—but they attained that status after Chirac’s visit to New Delhi in 1998.

There is much that sets the India-France relationship apart from New Delhi’s ties with other close Western partners. Both advocate for strategic autonomy, even if they each take different approaches. India’s strategic autonomy revolves around eschewing alliances, while France embraces alliances but still defies them when doing so serves its own interests. Their insistence on foreign-policy independence furthers common strategic goals. France, for example, aims to balance both U.S. and Chinese power in the Indo-Pacific, which India supports.

India has also achieved success with France on nuclear power cooperation, contrasting with New Delhi’s struggles to capitalize on a civil nuclear deal with Washington. Finally, France doesn’t typically criticize India about values-based issues such as human rights and democracy—unlike the United States or Canada. That allows France to avoid a prime trigger for tensions in the partnership.

Modi’s plan to bring the Quad leaders to India for Republic Day may have fallen through, but the consolation prize was another key partner with prime Pacific power—a testament to New Delhi’s convening clout, and to its status as a major global player with plenty of friends to choose from.

What We’re Following

Modi inaugurates Ram Mandir. On Monday, Modi consecrated a new Hindu temple to the god Rama in the city of Ayodhya to much fanfare. The Ram Mandir, which is intended to commemorate Rama’s birthplace, has become one of India’s biggest religious flash points. In 1992, Hindu extremists destroyed a mosque that stood on the ground for centuries, ultimately paving the way for the Ram Mandir. During the ceremony this week, Modi proclaimed that “our Ram has arrived.”

The atmosphere on Monday was often festival-like, with politicians and celebrities joining religious devotees in a day of celebrations across India. The inauguration will likely sharpen tensions between Hindus and Muslims in India, but it will strengthen Modi’s already-formidable prospects for reelection this spring by galvanizing his Hindu nationalist base. The prime minister can now claim that he has fulfilled a long-standing promise.

Quick resolution to Iran-Pakistan crisis. Last week, Pakistan’s relations with Iran suddenly plunged into deep crisis after Iranian forces launched a cross-border strike against a separatist group that targets Iran from bases in Pakistan. Pakistan quickly retaliated with a strike of its own against separatist militants based in Iran. Tehran and Islamabad both said their respective strikes eliminated terrorists, but they each blamed the other for killing civilians, including children.

However, the crisis ended as quickly as it started, with the two sides pledging to deescalate and resume diplomatic ties. This rapid resolution can partly be attributed to the dynamics of Pakistan-Iran ties: The bilateral relationship is relatively friendly, and dialogue mechanisms are in place to defuse tensions. Just as important, neither Islamabad nor Tehran can afford further escalations: Both are experiencing serious economic stress, political turmoil, and internal security threats including terrorism.

Sri Lanka’s controversial internet law. Sri Lanka is the latest country in South Asia to roll out an online safety law that critics fear will be used as a pretext to crack down on dissent, following similar laws in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. On Wednesday, Sri Lanka’s Parliament approved the measure a day after it was introduced by the public security minister.

Colombo has pitched the law as a plan to curb online fraud, abuse, data theft, and disinformation. But an open letter signed by civil society groups on Jan. 19 warns that provisions in the bill compel online users and providers to remove content or limit access on “vague, ambiguous, and overbroad” grounds, suggesting the government could target content it doesn’t like.

FP’s Most Read This Week

• The Red Sea Crisis Proves China Was Ahead of the Curve by Parag Khanna
• Another Trump Presidency Won’t Much Change U.S. Foreign Policy by Stephen M. Walt
• America’s Strategy of Ambiguity Is Ending Now by James Crabtree

Under the Radar

Last week, a teenage boy in the Maldives suffered a stroke and died after a long delay getting him airlifted from his home on an isolated island to a hospital in the capital of Malé. While the full story remains unclear, local media in the Maldives reported that President Mohamed Muizzu’s refusal to allow Indian military aircraft to operate in the country—part of a campaign promise—may have contributed to the delay. Indian helicopters are often used for medical airlifts in the Maldives.

The political opposition has slammed Muizzu for the tragedy, with one lawmaker tweeting, “People shouldn’t have to pay with their lives to satisfy the President’s animosity towards India.” The incident underscores the domestic political risks for Muizzu of pushing his “India Out” policy. He has asked for all Indian military personnel to leave the Maldives by March 15, and parliamentary elections take place two days later.