The exercise of soft power—a spread of influence only peripheral to military or economic might—that creates a strata of overwhelmingly positive perception of a country in foreign lands is a continuous process, often taking decades to yield results. Then there are global crises that offer influential countries an opportunity to seize the initiative and be seen as a saviour of near and faraway lands: a leap, as it were, in its matrix of soft power. Global efforts towards vaccination for COVID-19 gave India—the world’s largest producer of vaccines—just such a call for action.
Ever since coronavirus vaccines became available since January, India has striven, through its ‘vaccine diplomacy’, to boost its international image and goodwill. Indeed, every planeload of precious vaccines flying to foreign lands is seen as a step towards that end. China, too, is doing the same, but has the added burden of living down its image as the country where the COVID-19 originated, as well as fighting accusations of trying to hide the magnitude of the problem. The Asian rivals—both pharma superpowers— hope to make a good impression at a time when vaccine nationalism is in full play among Western nations, who are buying up and hoarding available vaccines and bickering among themselves about vaccine availability. In contrast, by sharing scarce doses, India—among the world’s worst-hit countries, with a billion-plus population at risk—is acting as a responsible world power. This is all very good, but will the total of India’s largesse add up to its expected results?
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India’s generosity could face a roadblock with a newly surging pandemic and fears of a second, or third, wave sweeping through some states. As doctors push the government to accelerate the vaccination programme to stymie the spread, India had reportedly put a temporary halt to its vaccine exports, spreading some concern about the distribution of vaccines to poorer countries in the global south. However, it’s now known that India is recalibrating exports and still sending out smaller amounts. During PM Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Bangladesh, he, too, took some with him. Nepal has also received a fresh consignment, as did two African countries.
Unlike the heroic acts of self-preservation exhibited by the rich countries, India and China’s action is noted with admiration. And for once, India is not constrained by China’s seamless cash flow that has in recent years wooed nations in Africa, Central Asia as well as in India’s South Asian neighbourhood. In vaccine delivery, New Delhi was way faster off the block in distributing doses to Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Maldives and Afghanistan. Moreover, most of the first batches were given free of charge. During his visit to New Delhi last week, Afghan foreign minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar said, “Afghanistan is grateful to India for sharing the COVID-19 vaccine with us, though India itself needs them.”
P.S. Raghavan, retired ambassador and chairman of the National Security Advisory Board, says ‘vaccine diplomacy’ is a wrong formulation. “We should see it as a part of India’s developmental assistance in areas of strategic interest to us.” Raghavan points out that India rolled out its vaccine outreach to nations falling within the ambit of its foreign policy priorities and areas of core interest—the ‘neighbourhood first’ policy, and then the SAGAR (Security and Growth for All) doctrine in the Indian Ocean region, which tallies with the broader Indo-Pacific island states. India has also continued its development outreach to friends in Africa. Inevitably, countries where India sees a possibility of growth are also taken into account while distributing vaccines. Thus, recipient countries like Seychelles, Mauritius, Sri Lanka and Maldives are nations with which India is hoping to shore up maritime security, while Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa, which hosts China’s first overseas military base, has also received the vaccine. “India is using its strength to promote its core interests, as every country does,” says Raghavan. Indeed, India sent out 50,000 doses of Covishield to Seychelles immediately after the Indian Ocean nation got an equal number of China’s Sinopharma shots.
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JNU’s Srikanth Kondapalli differs from the view that India and China are jostling for influence. “I don’t think there is a race. If it is there, it is good for the global community,” he says.
However, projection of soft power only goes so far in the long run. Without a thriving economy like China’s, India cannot hope to pull its weight on the international stage. “Vaccine Maitri will add to India’s soft power, but soft power is great when hard power is perceptible. It is of little use if hard power is seen to be declining in relative terms to adversaries. That is why the US is finding it difficult to deal with China despite being the largest economic and military power,” says Ambassador Rakesh Sood.
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So far, New Delhi has distributed nearly 60 million doses of vaccines to 78 countries. Most have been delivered through the World Health Orga-nization’s COVAX initiative—part of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) programme of the UN—which aims to make the vaccine available to poorer countries in Africa and Latin America. India has also shipped out 34 million doses as part of commercial deals stitched up by Pune’s Serum Institute of India (SII), which is producing the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. The country’s own Covaxin is manufactured by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech. With 10.2 million doses, Bangladesh has been the largest recipient of the Indian vaccines.
Delhi was committed to supplying 40 million doses in March and 50 million in April to GAVI, but that will be delayed as India struggles to vaccinate its own citizens. So far, India had kept 56 per cent of its vaccine production for domestic use, while exporting the remaining 44 per cent. The government has assured the country that it will not send out vaccines at the cost of domestic need.
There are glitches in India’s vaccine export too. According to a report in Foreign Affairs, Brazil, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia have anxiously written to SII, saying they were awaiting more supplies after receiving the first tranche a while back. Brazil said it had received just 4 million doses of the 20 million ordered, while Saudi Arabia received 3 million of its requested 20 million. Morocco received just 7 million of its 20 million shots.
A consignment of Indian Covid vaccines being loaded for a destination abroad.
Though such shortcomings are attributable to the unprecedented global crisis, India is well placed to serve the world, thanks to its pharmaceutical companies that supply 60 per cent of the world’s vaccines. In the past, Indian firms have played a key role in providing cheap drugs to fight AIDS at a time when it was spreading like an epidemic across Africa.
CIPLA’s Yusuf Hamied was in the forefront of that effort. In early 2000, he startled the European Commission when he claimed during a meeting in Brussels that his company could produce and sell the three-drug anti-retroviral combination at a mere $800 per patient a year. This, when Swiss and American MNCs were selling the AIDS drug at $12,000 per person. As the cheap combination drug was affordable for poor African countries, MNCs objected vehemently, saying that Indian firms had stolen the patent to produce a generic drug at half the price, while they had spent billions of dollars to find the cure for AIDS. Generic drugs produced not just by CIPLA but other Indian firms are major suppliers for poorer Asian and African countries.
India began its Covid outreach even before vaccines were in place. Prime Minister Narendra Modi called a meeting of SAARC leaders on March 15, 2020, to discuss how the region could cooperate in fighting the pandemic. When President Donald Trump, who was then promoting hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as protection against COVID-19, asked India for the drug, Modi lifted the ban on HCQ to accommodate the US. India sent out 446 million HQC tablets and 1.54 billion paracetamol tables to 133 countries according to a press release issued at that time. Besides HCQ and Remdesivir, the drug used for Covid treatment, diagnostic kits, ventilators, masks, gloves and other medical supplies were given out.
“At a time when altruism and solidarity are notable by their absence and most countries, India too in many respects, proudly proclaim and practise the Hobbesian principle of ‘My country first’, India’s vaccine diplomacy has shown large-heartedness and won it friends, even though some would view it cynically. As we move ahead, I hope we can extend this principle beyond the Covid vaccine,” says former ambassador Gautam Mukhopadhaya.
So long as India can keep the lid on its spiralling Covid infections at home and ensure that its citizens get vaccinated rapidly, helping the world with vaccines and promoting its strategic interest looks like sound policy. But earmarking a fair share of doses for foreigners could backfire if the government is seen to have failed to contain the virus at home.
