Countries that have named Pakistan while condemning the Pahalgam terror attack despite India’s diplomatic overdrive: Nil
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s international awards: 25
No prizes for guessing which foreign “achievement” the Indian establishment has been gloating about. The Modi government last week let the world know that the Prime Minister had received his 25th global recognition with Trinidad & Tobago conferring on him the island nation’s highest civilian honour.
“Every award for PM Modi is a salute to Bharat’s rise,” the X handle of MyGovIndia, the citizen engagement platform of the government, posted on Friday.
The awards have all been picked up during Modi’s foreign trips over the past nine years — the latest coming amid his ongoing five-nation tour of Ghana, Trinidad & Tobago, Argentina, Brazil and Namibia.
The haul from Modi’s latest trip is two awards, taking this year’s tally to five.
For the Prime Minister, who picked up his first such award from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2016, this has become a trend of sorts in the past couple of years, particularly since he won his third consecutive term in 2024. As many as 12 of the 25 awards have come in the last year and a half.
The government has projected each of these awards as “honouring India’s global ascent”. In December 2023, replying to a question in the Rajya Sabha on the significance of the Prime Minister receiving a large number of international awards, then junior external affairs minister V. Muraleedharan in a written statement said it was a clear recognition of his statesmanship.
“Conferring the highest awards on the Prime Minister of India is a clear recognition of his statesmanship and leadership at bilateral, regional and global levels. It also reflects a recognition of India under the PM’s leadership, including giving voice to the Global South on the world stage and approaching issues confronted by humanity through dialogue and diplomacy,” Muraleedharan had said.
A sizable number of the awards have come from Muslim-majority countries, a fact the BJP’s ecosystem has held up to try and soften the perception of Modi as an anti-minority leader.
Writing about the diplomacy of awards after Modi was honoured by Palestine and Saudi Arabia in his very first term, Vivekanand International Foundation Distinguished Fellow Anil Trigunayat had said: “Since national interest is the underlying and indispensablefactor in the diplomatic outreach, the Awards and recognition of foreign leaders is an implicit aspect of India’ strategic matrix.”