A comment on a social networking site summed it up neatly: ‘Twenty years ago India was in economic doldrums, and the country’s finance minister made a beeline to Western capitals for prescriptions of recovery. Today, the same man, as prime minister is visiting Western capitals to prescribe measures for them to come out of their economic crisis.’

 

Even making allowances for hyperbole, the grain of truth in that statement cannot be denied even by India’s obdurate critics. Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s visits to Bali – to attend the 9^th India-Asean summit and the 6^th East Asia Summit – and Singapore last week were not mere extensions of India’s Look East policy, but a sign, seen often, of India’s assertiveness on the global stage.

 

It was a lack of this trait, combined with its innate lack of self-belief, that led to India’s consignment to the sidelines in the present world order. Today, when the signs are all clear that the world order has worked to the benefit of a few nations and denied the emerging powerhouses their due, and its jettisoning a question of ‘when’ and not ‘if’, India clearly doesn’t want to be left behind in the history books yet again.

 

Even if it means standing up to the dragon on our east – as was evident during Dr Singh’s recent foray into its backyard – never mind that China gave us a bloody nose in 1962 and still sits on thousands of square kilometres of our territory and continues to make minatory noises over Arunachal Pradesh which it claims is disputed.

 

The standing up was evident not merely from an attendance at the Asean and EAS summits, but that these engagements served to bring to the discussion table a topic that China would rather engage bilaterally with the Asean nations – maritime security. Aka, right of navigation in the South China Sea, which China virtually claims is its private lake.

 

With a bulk of the trade from the region using this route to reach the western shores of America and beyond, the issue is a livewire one. Especially for India, whose growing economic ties in the region mean accessing the sea route and whose ship, INS Airavat, was subject to a barrage of questions a few months while on the sea.

 

“China never took us seriously,” says an Indian official who was part of the prime minister’s delegation to Bali and Singapore. “We were boxed in in South Asia, and never considered fit enough to break out of that mold.”

 

First with the AB Vajpayee government – which initially invited global opprobrium by going nuclear and soon engaged with the world thanks to its growing economic clout – and the succeeding Manmohan Singh one which forged ahead with India’s newfound confidence, the official says there was little China could, and can, do.

 

So was it mere economics at play here? “Of what use is your economic strength if you are unable to defend it?” counters the official. “China cannot walk in like they did in 1962 because of our (nuclear) capability. We are not a pushover anymore.”

 

But with the Indian economy grinding to a slow halt, in reflection of global cues, was India better off in its splendid isolation – like Myanmar? Is the economic clout about to disappear like a mirage?

 

“Yes, our economy is in slowdown mode,” says another official. “But let’s not forget, we will still grow at 7 percent – which, if you look around us, is not bad at all. And isolation is no more an option, it is an increasingly dependent world, as even Myanmar has realised.”

 

Which, if you look at the country with which India shares its longest border and which is our first touchpoint with Asean, is true. Scheduled as the next chair of Asean – its first international outing under the military junta – Myanmar has also begun its slow march to popular rule, which has left the Indian foreign office in a ‘We said so’ mode.

 

So despite his advancing age, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh keeps a punishing schedule, clocking admirable airmiles in the process, and engaging with the world as never before, even inviting the criticism ‘prime minister for foreign affairs’.

 

And despite perceptions to the contrary, the Indian foreign office is at pains to explain that what is at the core of Indian policy is to do what is best for India.

 

“If we are targetting China why would it be our single largest trading partner in goods (with services included, it is America)?” asks an official who has engaged with China in the past.

 

What has changed, he says, is that India-China relations, which were uni-dimensional once upon a time, today cover a gamut of issues. “Previously our only engagement with China was over the border,” the official says. “Today, border is just one issue between us.”

 

Perhaps reflective of the many dimensions of the bilateral relationship, at their bilateral in Bali “which lasted longer than the scheduled 40 minutes,” Dr Singh and his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao – the two have met at least four times in the last one year – spoke of there being room for both the Asian giants and the importance of working together.

 

And, while Asean discussed maritime security much to China’s chagrin, the critical statements coming out of Beijing subsequently warning against ‘outside interference in the region’ were symptomatic of rocky nature of the relationship between India and China.

 

“We are not a threat to China. Yet,” says an official on the condition of anonymity. “What China is trying to do is to see that we never emerge as one.”

 

So is India being deliberately provocative by engaging with nations in its sphere of influence? “No, we are not,” says the official. “But then we too don’t like them being in Pakistan, etc, will they because of that?”

 

In a region where the Indian – Indic, if you will – historic influence is all too clear in the customs and languages, perhaps it is only right that Indian re-establish its presence, a desire that is in sync with the sole superpower America’s unstated aim of containing the Chinese dragon.

 

As India played out its role in Bali, a role that had been pre-scripted, the concatenation of events hold a portent. President Barack Obama, who has spoken of his warm ties with Dr Singh and who nevertheless did not find the time to meet with the latter – their last engagement was in India a year ago – was the first bilateral meeting that the Indian prime minister held in Bali.

 

In his opening remarks Dr Singh ‘reported’ to the US president that ‘all the irritants in their ties have been removed’. Just a couple of days before, India had amended its nuclear liability laws to be more in tune with the American nuclear industry’s demands. India’s domestic nuclear liability laws which placed unlimited liability on the suppliers was the single issue that held up not only the operationalisation of the India-US nuclear deal but also had a cascading effect on the entire gamut of ties.

 

‘We have tabled the new guidelines, it is for the American industry to let us know they meet their expectations,” said sources in the government.

 

In another sign, Australia – whose Prime Minister Julian Gillard held a pull-aside meeting Dr Singh in Bali – relented from its earlier refusal to supply uranium to India, a move that will still have to be approved by the ruling Conservative Party caucus in December.

 

And Japan, which had always remained sceptical of a nuclear India and which put its strategic dialog with India on the backburner after the Fukushima disaster in March, agreed to resume the civil nuclear agreement talks with India.

 

All of which, when read together rather than as isolated developments, would indicate an American nod behind it all.

 

“We are not in any camp, the days of the world being divided into camps are over,” says an Indian official. “For those with the outdated cold war outlook on the world all this would seem strange, but it is not ‘if you are not with us, you are against us’ anymore.”

 

Thus it is, that India seems comfortable supping with China even while disagreeing on the menu, and picking and choosing the ingredients from the American kitchen, in its effort to host a grand banquet. In an emerging world that has trade as the fulcrum and not ideological shibboleths, India, with an economist prime minister, seems a cinch for the long haul.