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How S. Jaishankar became the chief executor of India’s assertive foreign policy. [VIEW IN BROWSER]( [PROFILE]( [Modi’s Messenger to the World]( By Rishi Iyengar, a reporter at Foreign Policy. Reshidev RK illustration for Foreign Policy This article is an exclusive pre-release from FP's new Spring 2024 Magazine, "The India Issue," available on Monday. To access every article and unique insights from the magazine, join our community of global readers and scholars today (and [save up to 50%]( on Annual plans).   It all began in Beijing. Narendra Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat when he [visited]( in 2011 to pitch his state as a destination for Chinese investment. As India’s ambassador to China at the time, S. Jaishankar was tasked with helping to facilitate meetings with Chinese Communist Party leaders and officials, companies, and even Indian students there. The Beijing meeting was the starting point of a close and mutually respectful partnership between Modi and Jaishankar—one that is reshaping not only India’s geopolitics but increasingly the world’s. Jaishankar himself has recounted that first meeting on multiple occasions, including in the preface of his new book, Why Bharat Matters. Of that defining moment with Modi in the Chinese capital, Jaishankar writes, “My cumulative impression was one of strong nationalism, great purposefulness and deep attention to detail.” The two men’s stars would rise in tandem. Jaishankar’s Beijing tenure was followed by a move to Washington in late 2013 as India’s ambassador to the United States. Modi was still persona non grata there; his visa had been revoked in 2005 for his perceived role in enabling communal riots in Gujarat three years earlier. (The U.S. State Department [termed]( Modi’s failure to curb the riots as bearing responsibility for “particularly severe violations of religious freedom.”) An investigative team appointed by India’s Supreme Court subsequently [cleared]( Modi of any culpability in 2012, and soon after becoming prime minister in 2014, he was welcomed back to the United States. During his visit that September, he even [addressed]( a packed house of Indian diaspora attendees at New York’s Madison Square Garden, an appearance Jaishankar helped facilitate that has since been replicated in arenas around the world and has become a hallmark of Modi’s foreign policy. Four months later, days before he was [due to retire]( from the foreign service, Jaishankar was elevated by Modi to foreign secretary—India’s top diplomat, who reports to the external affairs minister—somewhat [abruptly]( and [controversially](, replacing Sujatha Singh several months before her tenure officially ended. It was only the second time a foreign secretary had been removed from the post... [CONTINUE READING](   The world, at your fingertips. [Save up to 50% on annual plans.](   [More From FP]( [Security officials walk with dogs in Tiananmen Square during the opening ceremony of the third Belt and Road Forum in Beijing on Oct. 18, 2023. ]( [China Is Gaslighting the Developing World]( Beijing’s promises of equality are a guise for hegemony. By Robert A. Manning [Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen attends the inauguration ceremony for Taiwan-made warships in Yilan on March 26.]( [It’s Debatable’s Greatest Hits]( In their 100th column, Matt and Emma revisit clashes over Taiwan, Ukraine, Iran—and how to deter an alien invasion. By Emma Ashford, Matthew Kroenig [The cargo ship Dali sits in the water after running into and collapsing the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, on March 26.]( [Who’s on the Hook for the U.S. Bridge Collapse?]( Rebuilding could cost billions. 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