- Saturday, May 04, 2024
The Indian PM was touring foreign countries both at the time of the launch and landing of Chandrayaan-3, India’s historic lunar mission.
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIAN prime minister Narendra Modi has a brilliant knack of connecting nationalistic fervours with his government’s foreign policy. The leader makes sure during each of his foreign tours that the interests and aspirations of India are duly served, through promotion of government policies and national accomplishments, and his latest trip abroad has been no exception.
Modi was in South Africa when India’s lunar mission achieved a historic success. Chandrayaan-3 made a soft landing on the moon’s South Pole, making India the fourth country overall to reach the natural satellite and the first to touch down on the unexplored South Pole. It was not just a technological feat but also a significant leap forward for many futuristic projects such as those looking for more water resources and fighting climate change.
While these are for the expert industry leaders to study and explain to policy-makers, Modi did the all-important job to bring them to the domain of the common man, at home and abroad. It not only catapulted his own leadership in public eyes but also announced India’s arrival on the world stage with a thunder. And Modi did it sitting on a global platform in another country which also saw the presence of two nations that have already achieved lunar success — China and Russia.
It can be mentioned here that Modi was also touring abroad when Chandrayaan-3 was launched on July 14. He was in France at that time and wished his country good luck from there. From South Africa, he virtually praised the architects of Chandrayaan-3 and announced that it was a big moment for India. A number of world leaders who were present at the BRICS congratulated Modi and India over the lunar mission and the prime minister also spoke about it with pride in Greece, the country he visited next.
The success and the promotion after it also speak highly about the potential of India’s space industry and if it succeeds in transforming the success into investments, the Modi government’s goal of pushing the country’s economy towards the top three in the world will also get a mammoth push.
Under Modi, India’s foreign policy has seen a mobility as the former ensures that the country’s success, in whatever field it comes, is taken out to the rest of the world so that nobody can choose to ignore it. From a sportsperson winning an individual medal at an event to the team success achieved through the landing of Chandrayaan-3, Modi never lets them go unaddressed as they add to India’s global stature and an incremental rise eventually heightens the image significantly.
The prime minister’s critics often taunt him saying he has a ‘baniya’ sentiment or that of a merchant who knows how to sell things. But for a leader who believes in a nationalistic push forward, it is perhaps not a bad thing to do.
