After a disastrous diplomatic year, New Delhi is mending fences with two high profile visits this week

With two back-to-back high-profile visits by Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani (September 14-15) and Nepal Prime Minister Prachanda (September 15-18) this week, the Modi government is hoping to send out a two-pronged message about its “neighbourhood first” policy.

On the one hand, the government is seeking to isolate its “bad ties” with Pakistan, comparing them with the “good ties” with the rest of the SAARC region, and on the other, showing a softer side that has allowed it to repair ties with neighbours that had been extremely strained before.

Stormy start

With both Afghanistan and Nepal, India’s ties suffered through much of 2015. When he took over as President in 2014, Mr. Ghani seemed to sideline India. Placing India in the “fourth” and not the ‘first’ circle of friendship, and focussing on engaging the Pakistani military first, Mr. Ghani broke with an unspoken neighbourhood precedent when he decided to visit China for his first official trip abroad, and then Pakistan and the U.S., rather than India.

India reciprocated the snub, and apart from a visit by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, there were no other high-profile visits to Kabul. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj ignored several requests for the Strategic Partnership Council meeting. President Ghani received a cold reception on his visit to Delhi in April 2015, when no agreements that had been worked on such as the Motor Vehicles transit, MLAT and extradition agreements were signed. To make matters worse, Mr. Ghani then announced an MoU for the Afghan and Pakistani intelligence agencies to work together, and quickly followed it with a process for talks with the Taliban held in Pakistan, which included China.

The contrast this year is stark: Mr. Ghani will arrive as a trusted partner and friend who regularly speaks to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the phone.

Stung by Pakistan’s continued support to Taliban groups that have pounded Afghanistan, Mr. Ghani is instead seeking closer military ties with New Delhi, which has promised a slew of transport and ancillary hardware, including more helicopters.

Mr. Modi has visited Afghanistan twice in this period, and the government has also revived the India-U.S.-Afghanistan trilateral meeting during U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit this month, which had been shelved since 2014. “The turnaround came because India showed patience, and both Pakistan, and to an extent, China let Mr. Ghani down,” is how an official describes the shift.

With Nepal, the turnaround in relations is even more dramatic. A year ago, Nepal-India ties had come, quite literally, to a standstill at the border, as India tried to pressure the Koirala government and then the Oli government to amend the Constitution to incorporate Madhesi concerns.

Matters came practically to a breaking point when Nepal signed a major infrastructure pact with China, seeking access to Chinese ports and help with road and rail construction.

No more distrust

Mr. Pushpa Kamal Dahal, or Prachanda, who leads the CPN (Maoist-Centre), formerly UCPN, who was always portrayed as pro-China, was viewed with distrust by New Delhi. In his first term as Prime Minister in 2008, like Mr. Ghani, Mr. Dahal visited Beijing before he visited New Delhi, which has always rankled South Block. The original strain between the Modi government and the Nepalese government in November 2014, came about when the UCPN led massive protests against a planned public rally by Mr. Modi in Janakpur, forcing its cancellation.

However, in recent months, Mr. Dahal has become New Delhi’s preferred choice for Premier and replaced Mr. Oli in August. “Prachanda made it clear he will lead a less hostile government for India, and for India, this is a much-needed positive step,” a senior official told The Hindu, adding “The question is whether he can beat the instability his predecessors faced, and whether he can show a greater commitment to the Madhesi concerns.”

Regardless of the outcome, it would seem that with both its SAARC neighbours, New Delhi is displaying a more flexible position, yielding more time to both administrations in Kabul and Kathmandu than it has in the past.

The visits will tie in with high-level visits from the Maldives in upcoming months, as well as the rest of the SAARC minus Pakistan, whose leaders will attend the BIMSTEC-BRICS summit in Goa in October.