Blog

In a world buzzing with the relentless static of local news and the fervour of domestic debates, it’s all too easy for many Indians to perceive foreign policy as a distant, almost ethereal realm – a sophisticated parlour game played by seasoned diplomats in faraway, gilded capitals. This perception, however, is not merely an oversight; in our increasingly, almost irrevocably, interconnected global village, such a view is a luxury we can ill afford, a blind spot that carries tangible risks. The unvarnished truth is that foreign policy is far from an abstract intellectual exercise. It is, instead, a potent and pervasive force, one that directly and profoundly impacts our collective security, shapes our individual economic realities, and sculpts India’s very identity and influence on the world stage. To ignore its reach is to navigate the complexities of the 21st century with our eyes closed.

A diplomatic impasse leading to sanctions on a key trading partner, a conflict disrupting vital shipping lanes like the Suez Canal or the South China Sea, or even a poor harvest in a major agricultural exporting nation can send economic shockwaves across the globe. These don’t just make for dramatic news headlines; they translate directly into the price of daal on your plate, the affordability of petrol at the pump, and the cost of the components that make up your digital devices. Foreign policy, therefore, isn’t just about treaties and summits; it’s an invisible hand shaping your household budget and your purchasing power. It determines whether Indian farmers get fair prices for their exports, or whether Indian industries can source raw materials competitively.

Beyond these immediate kitchen-table economics, the security of our nation – that non-negotiable bedrock upon which all progress and prosperity are built – is profoundly and continuously shaped by the quality and foresight of our engagement with other countries. Living in a neighbourhood marked by a legacy of intricate historical disputes and an array of contemporary, often volatile, challenges – from unresolved territorial questions and simmering border tensions to the ever-present, shadowy menace of cross-border terrorism and state-sponsored subterfuge – a robust, agile, and astutely navigated foreign policy is not a discretionary option but a fundamental, existential necessity. 

Moreover, in the complex tapestry of the 21st-century global order, a nation’s influence and standing are no longer solely, or even primarily, measured by the traditional metrics of military might or gross domestic product. Increasingly, it is a nation’s “soft power” – the appeal of its culture, the resonance of its ideas and values, its contributions to global innovation, and its ability to contribute meaningfully to global public goods – that determines its true weight in international affairs. India, as a civilisation with an unparalleled ancient heritage, a vibrant and resilient democratic tradition (however boisterous and imperfect), a demographic dividend of youthful energy, and a rapidly expanding technological prowess, possesses an extraordinary reservoir of soft power. Our foreign policy is the principal conduit through which we project this influence and these values onto the world stage. 

This involves much more than just eloquent speeches; it means working strategically for an authoritative, or at least more representative, seat at the high tables of global governance, such as a permanent seat at the UN Security Council. It means consistently championing the legitimate interests and aspirations of the developing world, the Global South. It means being a first responder in times of international crisis, offering humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, as India has consistently done. It means actively promoting our rich cultural mosaic – our cinema, our music, our classical arts, the global phenomenon of yoga, our diverse cuisines – in a manner that fosters understanding and appreciation. 

If you read Bloomberg Businessweek’s deep dive into Apple’s blundering work with artificial intelligence, a consistent theme is the lack of any clear idea within the company as to what good AI on an Apple device should actually do. On Tuesday, with the company looking no closer to have come up with the answer internally, we learned it would soon open things up so others could have a go at figuring it out.

The iPhone maker is working on a software development kit and related frameworks that will let outsiders build AI features based on the large language models that the company uses for Apple Intelligence,” Bloomberg News’ Mark Gurman reported, citing people with knowledge of the company’s planned announcements at its coming and critically important Worldwide Developers Conference on June 9.

Then again, as I’ve said before, Apple has the luxury of time to get things right with AI. The iPhone is still the dominant smartphone, and its user lock-in has not yet shown any signs of being weakened by the appeal of AI features on competing devices.

But that time isn’t limitless, and opening up its foundational AI models for outsiders to build with is an indication of how desperately Apple wants to solve its problems sooner rather than later. Gurman writes:

The new approach would let developers integrate the underlying technology into specific features or across their full apps. To start, Apple will open up its smaller models that run on its devices, rather than the more powerful cloud-based AI models that require servers.

It gives developers the chance to come up with better applications for Apple’s AI than the company has been able to manage itself. Using Apple’s on-device AI models gives developers a chance to layer AI into their apps without needing to send information to the cloud or expect users to put up with lag times as the AI “thinks.”

In many ways, it is a repeat of the strategy that made the iPhone a breakthrough device in the first place. Apple introduced a software developers kit in time for the device’s second generation despite Steve Jobs not initially being sold on the idea. The iPhone’s place in history would have surely been vastly different had he not been brought around. According to Businessweek, there had been a similar reluctance to mount a full-throated effort to build AI, with senior Apple figures unconvinced as to its true utility – which, in fairness to them, is still an open question. Regardless, opening up the challenge to third-party developers increases the likelihood that the iPhone will get a killer AI application before its competitors.Now the question is how close Apple will let developers get to the real nuts and bolts of its AI and the user data that it harnesses. Historically, the company has been notoriously protective – some argue anticompetitive – around how much access to give third parties to its core functionality, preferring to keep some exclusively for its own products and services. It’s why Apple has allowed only tap-to-pay cards in a user’s Apple Wallet rather than a third-party bank app. It’s also why the Apple Watch works better with iPhone than smartwatches from other brands. Apple says this is all in the name of privacy and a superior user experience. 

The Taliban-led Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) is now edging towards completing its fourth year in power. In the past four years, India’s outreach to the regime has progressed incrementally, transitioning to a more overt but cautiously pragmatic engagement. The latest phone call between India’s External Affairs Minister, Dr S. Jaishankar, and the interim Foreign Minister of the IEA, Amir Khan Muttaqi, marked an important milestone in this engagement. 

The External Affairs Minister (EAM) expressed gratitude towards Muttaqi for condemning the terror attack in Pahalgam and appreciated that they did not buy into attempts to sow distrust between the two countries, an indirect reference to misleading claims made by Pakistan. Over the years, New Delhi’s strategy has evolved, making sure that the Taliban are cognisant of their security considerations while slowly committing to increasing its humanitarian and development cooperation with the country.

In January this year, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri had met Muttaqi in Dubai, the most high-level engagement between the two sides. This also came in the aftermath of the deterioration of ties between Pakistan and Afghanistan as the two engaged in strikes and counter-strikes in December 2024. For India, a reduction in Pakistan’s influence in Kabul gives it more space to increase its engagement and better secure its strategic and security interests in the region. The importance of Chabahar port for trade, delivery of humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan and distancing Kabul from its over-dependence on Islamabad is also seen as an avenue for cooperation. 

However, while New Delhi has increased the tempo of its outreach, other countries in the region have been more forthcoming in their engagement. Russia recently removed the Taliban from its list of terror organisations, albeit temporarily. Iran and Central Asian Republics, such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and even Tajikistan, have also increased their engagement with the group. The Taliban also leverages these developments, reiterating their neutral foreign policy based on mutual interests and a quid pro quo approach.

When the latest conflict between India and Pakistan was still going on, the Taliban highlighted their relationship with both countries and urged them to show restraint and resolve the issues through dialogue. While India has increased its outreach to the group in the last few weeks, with the call and the April 27 meeting with an Indian delegation led by the Joint Secretary from the MEA, Muttaqi has also been engaging with his counterparts from Pakistan and China.

The economic commitments made in the statements still have a long way to go, and no progress has been made on the CPEC, with none expected in the near future. But in the aftermath of the conflict between India and Pakistan, China’s bid to realign Pakistan and Afghanistan under its sphere can be problematic for New Delhi. For the Taliban, while a good relationship with India allows it to assert its independence from Islamabad, it is for New Delhi to see if its ties with the Taliban can reap the benefits it wishes to get. Even as the relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan has deteriorated significantly in the past three-and-a-half years, the two sides have been trying to address their issues and re-engage. 

Since the deadly Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 and the brutal Israeli military response in Gaza, we have been inundated with images of war: cities reduced to rubble, children pulled from debris, hospitals overwhelmed, and families shattered. These aren’t just numbers or headlines – they are cries from the heart of a region in endless turmoil.

Millions of videos and photos continue to circulate, each more devastating than the last. As Israeli forces re-enter Gaza with all guns blazing, the cycle continues, deepening our collective fatigue. For some, the images have become numbing; for others, unbearably painful. I confess, I am among those who can no longer watch. After more than three decades of reporting from conflict zones – covering terror attacks, suicide bombings and communal violence – I know the stench of war, the smell of blood in the air, the sight of limbs that no longer resemble the humans they once belonged to. Those memories never truly leave you.

And now, watching the relentless coverage of Gaza, I feel a new weight. I start reading a story about a child in a hospital, or a mother searching through rubble, and I stop. I try to watch a video,  just seconds in, and I shut it down. It’s not indifference. It’s a kind of war-weariness that burrows into your soul. Even journalists on the front lines are testifying to this emotional exhaustion. It’s what many now call ‘war fatigue’.

This is not to look away from suffering. On the contrary, I believe deeply in bearing witness. But increasingly, I find myself drawn to another kind of story – one rooted in resilience, in coexistence and, yes, in hope. Much of the world’s media attention (and rightly so) is focused on the devastation in Gaza and the aggressive expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The headlines are filled with war, extremism and dispossession. But amid this fire and fury, a quieter story is also unfolding, bit by bit, however invisible it may be: Israelis and Palestinians, Jewish and Arab citizens within Israel, and a few cases spilling over to the occupied West Bank, working to build a shared and peaceful society.

Six years ago, I visited Israel on a reporting assignment. Outside of my assigned work, I was seeking signs of peaceful coexistence, however faint. And I found one – on a hillock between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, in a village called Wahat al-Salam-Neve Shalom, literally meaning “Oasis of Peace.” The name is hyphenated, intentionally, in both Arabic and Hebrew. Here, families from both Muslim Arab and Jewish communities live side by side, not by accident, but by design.Elsewhere, grassroots initiatives – from Arab-Jewish cultural centres in Haifa to shared civic organisations in Jaffa and Lod – are trying to hold on to the fragile threads of coexistence. These aren’t big, headline-grabbing movements. But they are real.

Take Hand in Hand, a network of integrated bilingual schools across Israel. Their motto is simple: “In Israel, Jews and Arabs live in separation, fear and violence. We’re on a mission to change that.” They bring children and families together to learn, communicate and understand. In today’s climate, it’s not just revolutionary, it’s radical.

Or consider Givat Haviva, a civil society organisation dedicated to building a shared society through education, dialogue and community initiatives. Their vision is anchored in mutual respect, pluralism and intrinsic equality between citizens. They work in towns where mistrust runs deep, yet still believe in the power of daily human interaction to change hearts.

These efforts face daunting odds. These organisations complain that the political winds in Israel are increasingly becoming hostile to the idea of coexistence. Segregationist policies, nationalist rhetoric and alleged discriminatory laws have widened the gaps. For many Arab citizens of Israel, full equality remains somewhat elusive. And for many Jewish citizens, fear – exacerbated by attacks like that of October 7 – breeds insecurity and suspicion.

That the Turkey-Pakistan brotherhood runs deep is a fact amply underlined by the Turkish response to the recent military tensions between India and Pakistan. But what makes this alliance so strong is not just diplomacy, but history and tradition. Not only had the waning Ottoman Khilafat (or Caliphate) movement influenced the formation of Pakistan, but the shared tradition of the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam, culturalist, and moderate Sufism is such that the two countries often fondly call each other ‘Kardeslers’, meaning “brothers” in Turkish.

The fact that both Turkey and Pakistan were also in the same ‘blocs’ during the Cold War era – the Baghdad Pact (later Regional Cooperation for Development, and then Economic Cooperation Organization), the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), or even Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) and D-8 being examples – helped them geopolitically cement their underlying religion-cultural-historical connection. 

In 1951, Turkey and Pakistan signed the Treaty of Eternal Friendship. That led to Ankara progressively upping its support to Pakistan in all its wars with India. If the 1965 war saw Turkey supporting Pakistan diplomatically, by 1971, that had turned into material support as well in the form of aircraft assistance. Now, in the latest four-day conflict between the two countries, Turkey is believed to have supplied over 350 drones to Pakistan, along with military advisors and operatives to use the same. The mysterious landing of a Turkish C-130, followed by a visit by Lt Gen Yasar Kadioglu (Chief of Turkish Intelligence) in Pakistan days before Operation Sindoor, also raised suspicions. All this is in addition to the already signed deal to allow for upgrading of Pakistani F-16s at Turkish facilities and supply four stealth corvettes, 30 T129 ATAK helicopters, Kemankes cruise missiles, etc. The Pakistani Prime Minister, Shahbaz Sharif, has personally thanked the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for his “strong support and unwavering solidarity” during the Indo-Pak conflict.

It was Turkey’s oscillating and contradictory relationship of the ‘state’ with Islam that had inspired Muhammad Ali Jinnah  –  and Pervez Musharaff, decades later  –  to view the country as a model nation that Pakistan must emulate. However, both countries’ regressive slide towards puritanism has occurred almost in tandem  –  in Turkey with the rise of Recep Erdogan, and in Pakistan with the tightening of the vice-like grip of religious narratives. If a more secularist and progressive Kemal Mustapha Atatürk had inspired Pakistani leaders like Jinnah, Ayub, Yahya or even Musharaff, religious hardliners like Erdogan, who rail brazenly at the “West”, are the latest poster boys in Pakistan today.

Surely, the bitterly contested domestic politics of Turkey, with the Progressives in the opposition and the religious conservatives under Erdogan, has a role to play too. Both benefit much more from batting on behalf of a “brother muslim nation” like Pakistan. The sheer distance and relatively lower commercial angularities with India are not enough for it to prefer Delhi over Islamabad.Bonhomie with Pakistan is also rooted in Turkey’s own ambition to emerge as a leader within the Ummah, or the Islamic World, which is hitherto dominated by Saudi-led Sheikhdoms. Given how India has built stable relations with such Sheikhdoms, the non-Arab majors like Turkey and Pakistan, which were historically treated as “lessers” within the Ummah, are now seeking to stitch a rival “bloc” involving other non-Arab nations, such as Malaysia, Iran and the perennially contrarian but Arab, Qatar. The deliberate exposé of the Khashoggi murder by the Turkish authorities was designed to embarrass the Saudis, underlining the internal rift within the Ummah. 

Also, with the US, India and Sheikdoms working conjointly on many fronts, Pakistan is left with only Turkey, along with China, to afford it some bragging rights. By standing up for Pakistan, Erdogan wants to project the imperialist grandeur of “Pasha”  –  the highest ranking official harking back to the Ottoman era  –  something the Turkish President desperately seeks to revive.

However, for India, Turkey’s indulgence of Pakistan has resulted in Delhi asserting its own anti-Turkey view on Northern Cyprus, conducting naval exercises with Turkey’s rival, Greece, and even becoming Armenia’s largest arms supplier. The Indian reaction is a more recent phenomenon and a fallout of the Erdogan era. The Turkey-less India-Middle East-Europe-Economic Corridor, aimed at countering Ankara’s rival geostrategic initiative of ‘Iraq Development Road’, which shortchanges India, is part of New Delhi’s approach.In a way, Erdogan’s own electoral considerations, the solidification of India’s relations with Arab Sheikdoms, Afghanistan (increasingly a pain point with Pakistan now), the US and the forever sectarian Iran, will ensure that Turkey and Pakistan continue to deepen their jointmanship, something that is bound to irk Delhi. 

As of now, the overwhelming nationalistic fervour in India has resulted in calls to de-prioritise Turkey as a destination for tourism and other exchanges. But that’s barely enough to push Turkey to revisit its stance. Supporting Pakistan makes more sense to the calculative and ambitious Erdogan. The dearth of ‘Turkish Delight’ for India ought not to surprise anyone.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!