India has a really smart and erudite foreign minister in S. Jaishankar whose books make interesting reading and takes on the high and mighty on the world stage with subtle aggression anchored in national pride. But his Achilles Heel is India’s immediate neighborhood where he has hardly served during his long diplomatic career.

Hence, much as his responses to China and US are spot on and his courting of Russia reflective of Indian priorities, the External Affairs ministry is wading from one crisis to another in the country’s immediate neighborhood that is now “Near Abroad” in Delhi’s official parlance.

Nepal and Maldives has gone the China way with Indian favourites falling by the wayside in free and fair elections. New Maldivian president Mohammed Muizzu has signaled his dislike for Indian military presence on the island nation by becoming the first president to visit China (and Turkey) before visiting India. The MEA response that “India is in no hurry to host Muizzu,” seems like the classic grapes-are-sour reaction. Nepal’s PM Prachanda may respond warmly to Modi’s physical embrace, but his trade and infrastructure agenda clearly prioritises China.

The survival of Myanmar’s ruling military junta SAC depends on Chinese financial, military and diplomatic support – hence no surprise over its lukewarm response to India’s embarrassing courtship reflected in ensuring the safe return of Tatmadaw stragglers fleeing into Mizoram and Manipur and even the supply of military hardware that upsets the country’s pro-democracy movement and ethnic rebel armies who not long ago trusted........

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