Hyderabad, March 13 -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi started on a note of gung-ho on his foreign policy. With no major issue needing to be addressed, he had a free run for far too long. The first major challenge to the Indian foreign policy establishment is the crisis in Iran. Leadership is tested during a crisis, but the Modi government tripped, unable to grapple with the war. With India reduced to irrelevance in the West Asian crisis, the foreign policy failures are coming to haunt him.

The right-wing think-tanks running the foreign policy establishment are hardly equipped to rise to the occasion to deal with a situation of such magnitude. The result is confusion worse confounded.

Consensus that broke down

There was a national consens...