India's strategic implications, challenges, opportunities and quest for great power status

[Indx TechStyle]

India’s Aspirations
Reshaping the World's Biggest Democracy
By
Daniel Ten Kate | Updated June 7, 2016 4:44 AM UTC

India’s democracy, the world’s most populous, is a marvel of the modern age: 1.3 billion people who speak more than 700 languages uniting under one roof. Its immensity also slows the decision-making needed to keep up with its people’s aspirations. Feeble public services, high inflation, crippling corruption and crumbling infrastructure are ever-present grievances of an increasingly fed-up population, most of whom live on about $3 per day. Indians yearn for better education, more jobs and faster development as a path to prosperity. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was swept to power in 2014 offering a change of course. His plan to reinvigorate the economy offers a test of India’s maturing democracy, one that may alter its strong secular and socialist traditions.

The Situation

Modi has gotten mixed reviews since his party won the first majority in the lower house of parliament in 30 years. On the plus side, he’s opened millions of bank accounts for the poor, implemented market-based energy pricing, brought electricity to villages and started a manufacturing push with the slogan “Make in India” that has attracted more than $400 billion of investment pledges. India has also eclipsed China as the world’s fastest-growing economy. He’s also seen a number of setbacks, however. Opponents who control India’s upper house of parliament have blocked a goods-and-services tax that would make the nation a single market for the first time. Proposals to ease land and labor rules have gone nowhere. His Bharatiya Janata Party has struggled in state elections, in part because opponents highlighted its pro-Hindu agenda. Modi last year faced criticism for failing to quickly condemn the public lynching of a man accused of eating beef, which his adversaries say is emblematic of a renewed threat to India’s traditions of tolerance and public debate.

SOURCE: DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL POLICY AND PROMOTION
The Background

Jolted by a balance-of-payments crisis caused by four decades of Soviet-style economic planning, India changed course in 1991 to embrace foreign investment and set the stage for an economic boom. The Congress-led government and its Nehru-Gandhi dynasty redistributed the wealth, expanding subsidies for the poorfivefold over the last decade. The spending provided subsidized food, free education and even guaranteed work in rural areas, where about 70 percent of the population lives. The share of people living below India’s official poverty line was cut by more than half to 22 percent. Per-capita income rose to $1,240 in 2013 from about $250 in 1992, though that success still pales in comparison to China’s. Modi’s BJP consolidated the Hindu vote in the 1990s and led the government from 1998 to 2004, when it pursued a partial privatization of state companies. After more than a decade in office, the rival Congress Party suffered its worst-ever performance in the 2014 election amid allegations of graft and economic mismanagement. Still, the vote was divisive: Parts of the population will never forgive Modi for his handling of riots in 2002 that killed 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, in the western state of Gujarat, where the 65-year-old ruled as chief minister for 13 years. Tensions between Hindus and Muslims have played a defining role in politics since Britain divided the subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947. Hindus make up about 80 percent of the population, while 13 percent are Muslim.

SOURCE: GOVERNMENT OF INDIA PLANNING COMMISSION
The Argument

India’s democracy has traditionally divided spoils along the lines of religion and caste. As aspirations of an expanding urban population rise, the divisions are now more about ideas: how to power faster development, the appropriate role and size of the state, how to weed out corruption and new ways to deliver public services. Modi’s supporters see him as a leader who can transform India by shifting toward a more market-based economy and empowering those at the bottom of the country’s ancient caste system. His critics doubt that he’ll take measures that increase competition for India’s tycoons or move against religious factions of his party, which oppose opening the economy to foreign companies and want to erode the country’s secular foundations.

The Reference Shelf

• “Why Growth Matters: How Economic Growth in India Reduced Poverty and the Lessons for Other Developing Countries,” a book by Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagriya.

• “An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions,” a book by Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen.

• Charlie Rose roundtable on India’s May 2014 election, broadcast on the U.S. television network PBS.

• Website of the Election Commission of India and map showing voting for the May 2014 election.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

‎US pivot to Asia uncertain, India may have to reassess its Act East policy

NEW DELHI: As the world gropes in the dark to discern likely changes in the US foreign policy under Donald Trump, ‎many in Asia are worried that Trump's isolationist disposition could see him dropping Barack Obama's baton on the US Rebalance or Pivot to Asia.

‎How this will impact India's own Act East Policy, which has converged sharply with the Pivot under Obama and PM Narendra Modi, is already evoking intense speculation in the country.

While it marked a strategic shift in India's world view, India's Look East Policy was conceived primarily as an economic‎ engagement with Asean nations. After renaming it Act East in 2014, Modi has sought to impart a more potent strategic content to it by focusing on deepening security and defence ties with countries like Japan and Vietnam which are at the receiving end of China's territorial aggression.

Under Modi in 2014, India sought to internationalise the South China Sea disputes like never before through a specific mention of the Sea in a joint statement with the US, after his first summit meeting with Obama, in September 2014. They followed it up next year with a US-India Joint Strategic Vision ‎for the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean Region which sought to encapsulate the convergence between the Pivot and Act East.

The partnership with the US helped India maintain a strategic ambiguity and exercise leverage over China. The concern now though is that while Trump will mount pressure on China economically, he might end up reducing geopolitical pressure on Beijing.

Such a move, said former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal, would be self-contradictory. "Any weakening of the US position in the region would help China expand. To my mind,‎ US withdrawal from the region would mark the beginning of the end of US as world's pre-eminent power," said Sibal.

According to Sibal, India needs to hedge against any medium to long-term fallout of US dilution of its Pivot under Trump by further deepening ties with Japan.

Exactly the point I raised when Trump won US Elections.

The opinion in India though on the impact of Trump's perceived indifference to the Pivot‎ remains divided. According to strategic affairs expert Brahma Chellaney, India can hope to gain more from Trump presidency's geopolitical calculations in Asia as Obama's pivot was more rhetorical than real and because Trump is unlikely to give China a "free pass" on either Beijing's manipulation of trade‎ or its incremental alterations of territorial status quo in South China Sea.

``In fact, Obama increasingly ceded ground to China in Asia, refusing to speak up even when Beijing occupied the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea in 2012 and condoning China's establishment of an air defence identification zone in the East China Sea,'' said Chellaney.

After having described the July international tribunal ruling on China's claims in South China Sea as final and legally binding, US under Obama has done little to check Beijing's activities in the region apart from sailing its warships near some of the disputed islands.

China described the ruling as naturally null and void in July. Four months later, Beijing feels confident enough to believe, as its foreign ministry spokesperson said Monday in the context of the India-Japan summit last week, that the South China Sea situation is developing ``in a positive direction''.

According to Chellaney,‎ the Obama administration has charted a course of neutrality on the recrudescence of Sino-Indian and Sino-Japanese territorial disputes.

Against this background, he said, a Trump presidency will mean little for a Pivot that remained "unhin‎ged".

 

[Indx TechStyle]

India, Japan and a new regional architecture
India’s World War II conception of Asia has finally turned on its head.
Livemint

Illustration: Jayachandran/Mint

Japan was the first country outside India’s immediate neighbourhood that Narendra Modi visited after taking over as prime minister. The personal bonhomie between Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzō Abe dovetailed with their overlapping strategic world view. But there was also the big geopolitical factor: the rise of China and its hegemonic designs.

As Modi returned from his second visit to Japan on Saturday, the China factor had become yet more overbearing. Sino-Indian relations have slumped precipitously—and this simply cannot be stated differently. China has refused to cooperate with India on terrorism emanating from Pakistan and India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group. On the other hand, Chinese coast guard vessels were spotted near the disputed islands in the East China Sea while Modi was still in Japan.

But China is not the only reason India and Japan are considering closer cooperation. The other major reason is the US. The Japanese administration, especially Abe, has had a lingering scepticism of US commitments in East Asia for some time now. The election of Donald Trump as the next US president magnifies Tokyo’s concerns. During his entire campaign, Trump maintained that allies like Japan were free-riding on American resources. In an argument to withdraw from the American role of providing security, Trump had even hinted that Japan acquiring nuclear weapons was acceptable to him. Trump’s election has also increased the uncertainties for India, as was pointed out in this newspaper.

While some expect Trump to assuage Tokyo’s fears in a forthcoming meeting with Abe this week, the latter realizes that it is high time Japan made significant strides in becoming a “normal” military power. Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party have long felt suffocated by the restrictions placed on the Japanese military by the 1947 Constitution that was imposed by the US as a military occupier in the aftermath of World War II. Defence cooperation with India, comprising sales, co-production and co-development of military hardware and joint military exercises, can help Japan outgrow some of its constitutional restrictions while Abe builds domestic opinion favouring a greater role for the Japanese military.

Modi’s visit, however, did not see the finalization of the sale of US-2 amphibious rescue aircraft but the joint statement notes India’s “appreciation for Japan’s readiness to provide its state of the art defence platforms such as US-2 amphibian aircraft”. As far as defence exercises are concerned, Japan has now become a permanent third participant in the annual Indo-US Malabar exercise. But when it comes to the security of the Indo-Pacific region, Japan is not seen as an independent entity. Both India and Japan would like to continue the Malabar exercise with the US and engage in other forums such as the India-US-Japan trilateral dialogue, but they would also be looking to build greater bilateral cooperation in securing the global commons in the Indo-Pacific region. This is not to suggest America’s disintermediation but to prepare for the contingencies were Trump-led Washington to grow disinterested in the region.

The reverse of security cooperation is true for nuclear energy. The Indo-US civil nuclear deal could not have been operationalized unless India had a civil nuclear agreement with Japan—Westinghouse, which has agreed, in principle, to supply reactors to India is owned by Japanese firm Toshiba. Modi’s visit finally saw the nuclear deal between India and Japan inked. Both sides have made some compromises: Japan has signed such a deal for the first time with a country which is not a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and India has signed an additional note which states Japan’s right to terminate the deal if India were to backtrack from its unilateral, voluntary moratorium on nuclear testing (whether this is legally binding is unclear). The nuclear deal will help India build up its clean energy reservoir and is expected to provide some relief to Japanese firms reeling under financial distress in a post-Fukushima world.

Besides, the joint statement notes progress in other areas of cooperation, including the high-speed rail project, the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor and skill development. It is not yet clear if New Delhi is willing to supplement Japanese resources in Tokyo’s “Expanded Partnership for Quality Infrastructure” to counter Beijing’s “One Belt One Road” initiative. Unless New Delhi takes this decision, its transition from a balancing power to a leading power will not begin.

In his address to business leaders, Modi pitched India as the most attractive investment destination in the world—Japan is among the top five sources of foreign direct investment in India. A significant part of Japanese capital invested in India is state-backed, providing patient capital on easy terms for long-term infrastructure projects. Private capital from Japan complements it by generating jobs in sectors like automobiles. The numbers on trade ($14.5 billion in 2015-16), however, do not do justice to economic relations between the third and fourth largest economies (in terms of purchasing power parity) of the world.

Abe always had an ambitious vision for India-Japan relations. In his 2006 book Towards A Beautiful Country, he wrote: “It will not be a surprise if in another decade Japan-India relations overtake Japan-US and Japan-China ties.” In the decade since, his vision has not been realized. In Modi, Abe has finally found a willing partner who is not given to Cold War nostalgia.

With Modi’s term, so far, seeing a dramatic upswing in India’s relations with Japan and a significant decline with China, it can now be said that India’s World War II conception of Asia has finally turned on its head.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Donald Trump and India: President-elect's hawkish views on China bode well for us
Jaideep Prabhu Nov 14, 2016 18:29 IST

Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential elections came as a total surprise not just for his opponent, Hillary Clinton, but even many of his supporters. If rumours are to be believed, Trump himself was in a subdued mood the whole evening until Florida turned in his favour. News of his success has been met with what can only be described as a meltdown among his detractors across the political spectrum. To be fair, Trump is certainly not the first unqualified occupant of the Oval Office; he may not even be the least qualified. The reason we feel his victory to be an affront to civilisation is that he is boorish - insouciantly and publicly. Trump is an indication of all that is broken with America, not in just that people would vote for him but that they would be angry enough with the 'establishment' to even consider such an obviously unfit character.

Given the United States' military and economic reach, Trump's victory will undoubtedly affect the world but thankfully less so than ordinary Americans. The question in this part of the world is, how will a Trump presidency affect India?

With its quasi-pivot to Asia, the United States has been heavily involved with several countries in India's vicinity. Washington's ties with Delhi have also gone from strength to strength since the George W Bush administration. Despite ebbs and flows, an Indo-US partnership has become a bipartisan issue. Nonetheless, Delhi and Washington have had difficulty seeing eye-to-eye on several points of mutual interest due to differing priorities. There is room for cautious optimism that Indo-US goals will align further under President Trump.

Trump is probably the first tenant of the White House who has had no experience whatsoever in public office, be it as a small town mayor, in the military, or elsewhere. As such, he comes to office with no ideological baggage – one wonders if he has even seriously thought about some of America's challenges to have definitive views on them. Even during the primaries and campaign, the then presidential candidate's responses to questions could only be described as abstract expressionism. In such an environment, it is difficult to predict what policies Trump will pursue.

There have been, however, a couple of motifs that have been consistent in his messaging. For example, he has repeatedly hinted at mending relations with Russia. According to Trump, the United States has been fighting an old Cold War they understand rather than the new Cold War they are in with China on which they are yet to get a grip. This bodes well for Delhi because it stops Vladimir Putin from being nudged into the embrace of Xi Jinping. Additionally, it allows India greater room in proposing important projects like the International North-South Trade Corridor that need Moscow's support. A less antagonised Russian bear may even prove to be a useful ally against the Taliban, the ISI, and Islamic State (IS) in Afghanistan.

On Pakistan, Trump has promised a far tougher stand but he will be the first American president to deliver on such a promise. Despite several scholars disproving the mistaken American belief that the US 'needs' Pakistan in that region, influential elements in the US government have been reluctant to jettison Islamabad even after many provocations. While a realistic US appraisal of Pakistan is something to look forward to, its historical probability is low.

There is a concern that the United States will shun their alliance responsibilities under Trump. This has been the indication with not just Nato but also in East Asia. However, the president-elect called the South Korean premier soon after the election results were confirmed to assure her of America's continued support. In all likelihood, Trump would just like to see America's allies pull their weight a bit more. This is a complaint Washington has had for a long time, though what exactly pulling their weight would entail in terms of increased independence from alliance policies was never clear.

Trump's hawkish views on China reinforce the belief that he will not abandon US allies in the region. Admittedly, he has veered away from the traditional US course of discouraging independent nuclear arsenals. Yet this would also require willingness from the other side to embark on such an ambitious and politically fraught programme, something both sides may be able to ultimately avoid.

The future of trade pacts such as the Trans Pacific Partnership and TPIP are also unsure. They have been on weak legs even before the US election season but the incoming president's hostility to them is well known. He would either let negotiations lapse or at best reopen the technical aspects of the treaty for further discussions, thereby punting the TPP's coming into force down a few years until the end of his term or into his second term. Either way, this is good tidings for India, who would lose billions standing outside the pact. It allows Delhi's mandarins time to strategise a response, be it via joining the trade pact or bracing for the fallout by negotiating free trade agreements of its own.

Another area of concern is Trump's belief that Iran got off too lightly in the nuclear deal negotiated last year. He has done both, threatened to tear up the agreement and police it closely too. If Iran is baited out of the deal by an obstructionist Trump White House, it is not sure how much support from the world community further sanctions on Iran will have. This could get thorny for India but this is not a purely Trump problem - Republicans have been saying similar things ever since negotiations began. India will have to persuade its American partner of the wisdom of restraint and the favourable ripples it could have in other hotspots such as Syria.

The most visible feature of Indo-US relations - arms sales and joint military exercises - will most certainly not go wanting. Defence stocks are up in the United States after Trump's victory as the budgetary cuts enacted by his predecessor are thought to be on the chopping block. Foreign sales will make domestic defence spending more affordable and India is keen to modernise its military. Beyond the monetary aspect, it also makes little sense for the United States to plan a more robust policy in East Asia while discouraging local partners to take a more proactive role in what will always primarily be their security. Washington's most reliable partners will be those most concerned and powerless in the face of China's rise, the states around the Indo-Pacific Ocean rim and warmer relations with Russia will not be of much use here.

Perhaps the greatest tussle will be over the economy, but that is also a mixed bag - while Trump has promised to curb immigration and slash the H1B skilled worker visas, he has also called India a land of economic opportunity and even invested in some real estate in the country. Trump will, like previous administrations, pressure India on opening up its economy further and doing more to protect intellectual property. The question is how much effort he will put into this challenging aspect of Indo-US relations.

All this assumes, of course, a certain modicum of rationality, a desire to deliver on election promises made, and a sound staff probably taken from the Bush years. But Trump is a neophyte to this stage and all bets could be off - in which case much of this speculative exercise could be just gibberish and we are in for a very bumpy ride over the next four years.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Cross Posting
Government bridging gap with West Asia

PM Narendra Modi in a meeting with the Deputy Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia
HIGHLIGHTS

• Narendra Modi has travelled to UAE, Qatar, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
• Sushma Swaraj has touched down in Bahrain, Israel and UAE.
• In the coming months, India will play host to leaders from UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Iran.

NEW DELHI: In one week. prime minister Narendra Modi held two important bilateral meetings on the sidelines of G-20 summit, with Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. And that was after he delayed his departure from Delhi enough to be able to meet with Gen Abdul Fattah el Sisi and sign a dozen agreements.

In the past year, the Modi government has virtually plastered itself across the Gulf and Middle East. Modi himself has travelled to UAE, Qatar, Iran and Saudi Arabia. President Pranab Mukherjee became the first Indian president to travel to Israel, Palestine and Jordan, while Sushma Swaraj has touched down in Bahrain, Israel and UAE. Other cabinet ministers have done their bit while NSA, Ajit Doval, flies under the radar but is working on security relationships across the region. This week it was the turn of minister of state MJ Akbar to engage the Iranian leadership, after visiting Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, while VK Singh has been helming government's diaspora outreach and mass evacuations from the region's troubled spots.

In the coming months, India will play host to leaders from UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar and Iran from the Gulf region, while president of Israel, Reuven Rivlin is expected to return Mukherjee's visit. In 2017, India and Israel will celebrate 25 years together, expect a top level visit either by Modi or Netanyahu -- and this after both leaders have met twice already.

India's interests in the region are evident -- spanning opportunities in energy (over 50 per cent of oil and 85 per cent of gas), trade and diaspora to challenges of terrorism and radicalization, India's infamous "Hormuz dilemma" (choking off the Straits of Hormuz would knock off India's oil supplies, thereby a strategic vulnerability) and the Pakistan obstacle.

The Asia to India's west has been a challenge to Indian foreign policy. Pakistan and Afghanistan have sucked the energy out of India's outreach to the region, while unhelpful OIC resolutions against India have frozen MEA interest. As the Middle East and the Levant collapsed in a heap of terror and sectarian wars in the past few years, a perplexed India again stayed out, despite the previous Manmohan Singh government coining a "Look West" strategy in 2005.

But in 2016, the outlook is different. The challenges remain, but India appears more able to exploit opportunities presented by regional and international developments to advance its interests. A growing Indian economy, depressed oil prices and a world economy made it more attractive as an economic destination. Modi used a rash of high voltage engagement with Gulf leaders to court investment, while demonstrating an interest in ironing out the glitches in the Indian system. In one year, investments from UAE jumped by $1 billion, even though trade came down. The growth of IS has highlighted the need for India's security system to stay involved in the region as it seeks to keep a handle on terrorism and radicalization at home. As Yemen, Iraq and Libya showed, India also needs to build the capabilities to evacuate thousands of distressed citizens at a moment's notice.

On the economic front, the government has set up an inter-agency monitoring system including MEA and FIPB to facilitate and help overseas investments, iron out systemic problems etc. India is offering oilfields to international bidders from the region, while Saudi Arabia's Aramco has indicated it wants a big bang entry into the Indian energy sector in both upstream and downstream projects. Top government sources said they have short-listed projects in energy and infrastructure sectors for companies from Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia, which will be flagged by Nitin Gadkari when he visits UAE in October. If the Gulf region is important for India's energy security, India has told these countries it is open to being an indispensable partner for their food security, something flagged by Modi to the Saudi prince and will be re-emphasised by MJ Akbar in Saudi Arabia and UAE in October.

As part of the new policy, MEA is taking a closer look at its envoys in these countries -- sources said government might look for attributes like ability to advance economic and security interests, which could even entail a reshuffle in the region.

It is in the security and defence areas that opportunities abound -- India has security pacts with UAE, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. In counter-terrorism and intelligence, the tip of the iceberg is the repatriation of terror suspects to India and sanctions on Pakistani terror outfits by the Saudis. India wants to move to the next level by holding military exercises with these countries, much like what they do in the east.

Further down the road, India will be looking for an exclusive naval base either in the Horn of Africa or in the Gulf. On a political level, India wants to constrain Pakistan's operating space in this region, by pushing the boundaries of engagement with countries where Pakistan used to be the natural security partner. Interestingly, as India deepens its involvement in this region, it has to cleave a tighter balancing act. The wild cards here being Iran and Israel. Iran is a natural partner, and Israel has become among India's top defense and security partners worldwide, enjoying the trust and confidence of the Indian system in a way that is unmatched even by the Americans.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

The article has some points exact what I've been raising for long. I'll highlight them in red.
Countering China: India’s Uncertain Response – Analysis

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi with China's President Xi Jinping. Photo Credit: Narendra Modi, Wikipedia Commons.

China’s rise, and especially, its growing strategic footprint in the Indian Ocean region has provoked policymakers India to come up with appropriate policy approaches to counter its northern neighbour. However, India’s policy towards China so far can be best described as a somewhat confused and uncertain one. India in recent years has shown signs of cultivating closer ties with the US, moving away from its tradition of seeking strategic autonomy, it continues to remain cautious in potentially alienating China due to the importance of its bilateral economic relations with China. Some analysts have made much of India’s strengthened ties with the US, dominating the security architecture in the Indian Ocean and Asia-Pacific regions. The US designated India as a “major defence partner” in June 2016 in the hope that India will play a key role in complementing its own strategic shift towards the region. A senior Obama administration official has said that this partnership will mean that India will be the only country outside Washington’s formal treaty allies that will gain access to almost 99 per cent of the latest American defence technologies.

Furthermore, there are trends that point towards growing US-India military cooperation. The signing of the Logistics and Supply Memorandum of Agreement with the USA in August 2016 is one such indicator. India now also carries out more joint exercises with the US than with any other nation, including the annual Malabar maritime exercise that in 2007 was broadened to include Japan, Australia and Singapore.

However, such developments can equally be viewed as a sign of India’s relative weakness vis-à-vis China rather than a pronounced long-term shift towards the US. While there are ambitious plans to enlarge the Indian Navy, including the building of three Aircraft Carriers fielding a combined 120-130 aircrafts, these will not be ready until at least 2030. Until then, an alliance with the US can amplify India’s strategic impact in the region.

Interestingly, much of the hubbub over this bilateral defence cooperation has been coming from the US itself as part of its long-term effort at wooing India to align with the US ‘Pivot to Asia’. The US Department of Defense’s strategic guidance released in 2012, which set out its expected shift towards the Asia-Pacific, highlighted the importance of a strategic partnership with India to “support its ability to serve as a regional economic anchor and provider of security in the broader Indian Ocean region.”

With the US “Pivot” aimed at curtailing a rising China, India faces a conundrum as it has been forced to pick sides. By hitching its wagon to the US, India is aware of the possibility of provoking an adverse Chinese reaction.

India’s hesitant policy towards China is evident from its approach towards the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). While some commentators have attempted to depict India as hostile to the project, there is little actual evidence to support this. India’s development of the Chahbahar Port in Iran, located just 72 kilometres from the Gwadar Port in Pakistan, is perhaps the only direct response and challenge to the Chinese project. However, while India may not be comfortable with the project, outright hostility would be anti-intuitive due to the tacit understanding that if CPEC turns out to be a true ‘game changer’ for Pakistan’s troubled economy it would bolster the civilian government in Islamabad thereby opening up possibilities of greater engagement with India. Improved economic regional integration would, in turn, benefit India’s national security as well.

It would then be wrong to view these developments as a ‘zero-sum’ game. Despite, at times, a jingoistic tabloid press in India, there are many influential people who advocate for deeper engagement with China. India’s former Petroleum Minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar, suggested that an envisaged gas pipeline from Iran to Pakistan should be extended to India and then onto China, thereby creating further interdependencies and avoiding competition. India’s former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Oman and UAE, Talmiz Ahmed, has also said that “there is no need to fear the OBOR – both the OBOR and China need India as a partner”.

Indeed, Narendra Modi’s government has shown a commitment to deeper engagement with China. During Modi’s visit to China in May 2015 trade agreements worth $22 billion were signed. Such deals indicate the confidence with which both party’s view the future of this relationship.

India response to China’s rise has so far been muddled and somewhat contradictory. While partnering with the US more closely is seen by some as a clear evidence of India picking sides, this seems more of a case of US courtship than the other way round. India, to a certain extent is free-riding on the US security architecture until it has augmented its own military strength. Currently, it is not in India’s interests to compete with China. Despite Indian economic growth and a Chinese slowdown, India is still far behind in terms of its ability to challenge China. Economic interdependence -trade between the two is valued at $70 billion – perhaps further explains India’s muted reactions regarding regional and international disputes involving China. Given Modi’s history of close interactions with the Chinese during his tenure as Gujarat’s Chief Minister, further engagement, barring any unexpected negative developments, can be expected.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses a rally in a cricket stadium in Srinagar, India (November 7, 2015).
Image Credit: REUTERS/Danish Ismail
The Myth of India’s Non-Aligned Boycott
Why India’s media was so ready to buy into the idea that Modi boycotted the Non-Aligned Summit.

Over the course of his premiership, Narendra Modi’s often flamboyant sorties abroad have become a mainstay of India’s English-language news cycle. India has compiled an impressive photographic anthology of Modi’s embraces with powerful world leaders and has cataloged his exuberant reception by overseas Indians in New York, London, and Sydney. Yet in September of this year, a surge of media coverage broke with the norm. Journalists rushed to write up not another charm offensive, but instead a historic diplomatic snub. Modi, they reported, had skipped the Non-Aligned Summit in Venezuela, and in so doing had cast doubt on the movement’s continued relevance to India.

A curious and polarized debate followed. Curious, because barely anyone stopped to question whether Modi had purposefully shunned the conference. And polarized, because the media’s seeming enthusiasm for the boycott clashed with the pro-Non-Aligned sentiment of several public intellectuals, including former foreign policy elites. Through the pages of influential national dailies, a clear divide was revealed: between a “vanguard” middle class-India that already sees itself as part of the First World, and an “old-school” establishment that remains wedded to the movement. What really drove Modi to miss the Summit became an irrelevant point. Instead, India’s association with the Non-Aligned was put on trial.

Bureaucracy and a Birthday, Not a Boycott

On the question of why Modi was a no-show, nuanced context makes all the difference. Missing from most accounts were the conference’s persistent scheduling problems, following two postponements after original plans to meet in September 2015. In fact, attendance at the 17th NAM Summit was the product of eleventh hour diplomacy: Caracas was still delivering invitations to the Summit two weeks before the meeting.

Inside sources from within the Venezuelan organizing committee confirm that Delhi desired to participate at the highest level, and attempted, to no avail, to pin down the conference’s final dates for more than a year. It was less a case of foreign policy realignment than of banal scheduling circumstances that only 12 heads of state turned up in Margarita, compared to the more than 30 world leaders in Tehran at the previous Non-Aligned Summit in 2012.

A glance at Modi’s diary during the dates of the Summit suggests he was simply too booked up to travel. On the Summit’s second day, a visit from Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to the Indian capital saw Modi making a $1 billion development aid pledge to this important South Asian partner. On the Summit’s penultimate day, Modi was busy receiving blessings from his mother on his 66th birthday, celebrations for which crisscrossed the country but mostly centered on Modi’s home state of Gujarat. There, among other activities, groups of revelers sought to honor their prime minister through world record attempts: a 3,750 kg birthday cake didn’t make the cut, but a thousand wheelchair users snared the Guinness World Record title for the largest ever wheelchair logo, spelling out a birthday message to Modi.

These events were clearly some time in the planning, yet none of them stemmed the media mythmaking about Modi’s absence from the Summit, with one report delivering the remarkable insight that Venezuela had postponed the conference by a year in an effort to make Modi’s attendance possible. Rumors of this variety set the stage for what might count as Indian foreign policy’s non sequitur of the year: his absence signaled that once-cherished global commitments were, as former External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid put it, being dumped in a “wholesale manner.”

The reality of the delays, of course, was that overwhelming domestic challenges rendered Venezuela a beleaguered host. It is worth remembering that Venezuela’s decision to host the Summit was made back in 2012 – a time when the country was in relative calm and oil prices averaged above $100 per barrel. In the past year, however, the country has experienced continued recession, triple-digit inflation, food shortages, and protests ranging in character from handfuls of citizens banging pots and pans to marches involving hundreds of thousands of people. All of this culminated in political crisis for President Nicolas Maduro, who won the presidency in 2013 with only 50.6 percent of the vote, and has since been challenged by an opposition-led National Assembly elected in December 2015. The Summit was an opportunity for Maduro to shore up political support, domestically as much as internationally, and he wanted to do it well.

The notion of Modi’s “Summit boycott” was also belied by official statements put out by India’s Ministry of External Affairs, which reaffirmed New Delhi’s support of the Non-Aligned Movement’s “pursuance of the collective interests of the developing world” and its status as an “influential grouping” at the United Nations, particularly on the issues of peacekeeping and disarmament. Moreover, the Modi government’s choice of deputy — Mohammad Hamid Ansari, an accomplished career diplomat and India’s vice president — signaled the respect of high-level representation. If Modi’s personal absence from the Summit was meant to convey a symbolic break from the grouping then it was a largely diluted one, far from his hallmark decisive posturing. And Ansari himself keenly insisted that India had not shifted its foreign policy toward the movement, clarifying that “India’s participation remains.”

Media Hype and Distortions

The real story that needs unraveling, of course, is how Modi’s non-attendance at the Non-Aligned Summit could be so effectively mythologized into a purposeful policy maneuver and then seized upon to spark a national debate.

As political scientist Sumit Ganguly has recently pointed out, Modi’s vision of India is of a country well on the way to becoming a great power. Reaching this destination depends — to use archaic but still meaningful language — not on close associations with the Third World, but on taking a long-deserved place among the ranks of the First.

Modi’s vision is reflected back in what Nalin Mehta, an Indian social scientist and media watcher, describes as a “general middle class triumphalism which thinks that India has already arrived.” What makes the issue of India’s continued engagement with the Non-Aligned Movement so topical and so controversial is how it powerfully symbolizes this rising power’s pigeonholing within a developing country collective. Pockets of India’s middle classes fail to see the continuing relevance of this group of largely weak friends and instead expect India to have already graduated from this cohort.

In catering to middle class triumphalism, and positioning Modi as a key agent in India’s global upgrade, the media often uncritically amplifies — or outright exaggerates — his agenda. Ashok Swain, Professor of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University, Sweden, sees the Indian media overwhelmingly as a partner to Modi’s “aggrandized claims of policy successes,” including in the domain of foreign policy. For instance, Shekhar Gupta, a formidable force in Indian journalism, pointed to Modi’s Summit absence and concluded that he “has tossed away [the] past, and audaciously so.” This dynamic between Modi and the media explains how a rumor could be hyped, circulated, and interpreted as proof of change, even if later reports filed by what are known as “domain experts” on foreign policy were more careful in reporting the significance of Ansari’s attendance in lieu of Modi.

That breaking away from the movement seems so central to India’s rise is underscored by the inconsistent scrutiny of Modi’s presence or absence at other world summits. In the days following the Non-Aligned Summit, for example, it was Sushma Swaraj, India’s minister for external affairs, not Modi, who could be seen returning the salvos from Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as state representatives gathered in New York for the 71st session of the UN General Assembly. Yet not one reporter thought to suggest that Modi failed to hold India’s UN representation a priority.

The Non-Aligned Movement in a Contested World Order

While the establishment view of India’s path to greatness has reliably emphasized India’s crucial positioning as a bridge between the Global North and the Global South, such a vocabulary is increasingly out of fashion in the English-language media. The divide between those who are eager to leave the Third World behind and those who see it as integral to India’s rising strategy is growing.

But the substance at Margarita shows that the movement remains a stakeholder in the global order, even if that order is now defined more by the contested liberal hegemony of the West than by the bipolarity of the Cold War. The conference was a hotbed of dissension against liberal internationalism, as reflected in discussions over economic governance, regime change, unilateral sanctions, and reform of the Security Council.

It cannot be ignored that with over 120 member states, the movement is the second largest international body after the United Nations and represents over 50 percent of the world’s population. Its prestige of numbers alone gives weight to its views on the normative dilemmas of global multipolarity.

As far as India is concerned, at least three of the movement’s key goals remain relevant to its foreign policy: sovereign equality in international law, non-intervention in the domestic affairs of states, and the prioritization of economic and social rights in international human rights policy. These goals echo New Delhi’s interests in domains as diverse as UN reform, peacekeeping, trade negotiations, and even climate change.

All of this suggests that India should not abandon its old-school, pro-nonaligned commitments too readily, regardless of the views of its status-hungry media. It is in the Indian interest that New Delhi, now perhaps more than ever before given its closer relations with the United States, can serve as an interpreter between those invested in the reigning liberal world order, and those critical of its premises and political outcomes. Few rising powers can lay claim to such a unique global positioning.

 

[prohumanity]

The pseudo-liberal media mafia spreads and controls the narrative but now, in USA , average citizen has understood this game and thus,they voted Trump as their President.

US foreign policy has been dictated by this small group of clintonites who wanted to attack and destroy four nations..Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran. Two have already been destroyed..Syria is being destroyed as we speak.

As for India, it seems the nation is safe in the hands of BJP leaders. There is no doubt about their patriotism and dedication for the country. They have all the info and they are trustworthy when it comes to national security.

Pakistan is a major problem, I think it is secretly still being supported by old masters..Saudi, UK and may be USA.
This might change soon as Prez. Trump is not fond of Pakis and Paki influence in US is waning by the day.
Americans do not like Pakis and India has earned the respect and admiration of American people.

India must continue on the path of stronger and more powerful military to deal with Paki evil army heads whose existence and meaning depends on India hatred and spreading terrorism in Indian kashmir.

At the end of the day, Trump is a businessman..and he will do what is good for business..there are good early signs that Prez Trump has positive feeling for India and has high regard for PM Modi.

The eagle and elephant can join together and that could become an amazing partnership. Let Russia also join the party and that indicates end of Al Quida and bloody ISIS.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

India as a Leading Power
Though outdated stats to some extent.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Once again, American propaganda magazine pitching for making India a US ally.

Image Credit: Flickr/ NATO
India and NATO: Partners in Arms?
The time is ripe for increased cooperation between India and the U.S.-led alliance.

Since the end of Cold War, India and NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) have been on trajectories that will likely converge in the not-too-distant future. Scholars and strategists, like Michael Rühle, Robert Helbig, M.K. Bhadrakumar, David Scott, and a few others argue for India and NATO to come out of their respective shells and openly partner to deal with issues of common interest and concern. This article looks into the present undercurrents relating to an India-NATO partnership, and argues that the process has already begun but needs to come out in the open.

Recent Turnaround Events

On March 22, 2016, U.S. Congressman George Holding, co-chair of the House India Caucus, introduced the U.S.-India Defense Technology and Partnership Act (HR 4825). The bill proposes to amend the Arms Export Control Action in order to formalize India’s position a major partner, on par with America’s NATO allies and closest partners. Holding told the House, “The legislation will cement the process that has already been made and will lay a foundation for future cooperation and growth.” The bill has been referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and is currently under consideration for being passed into a law.

On May 20, 2016, the U.S. House of Representatives approved an amendment to the National Defense Authorisation Act (NDAA)-2017, which in principle has elevated U.S. defense ties with India. This bipartisan legislative move aims to bring India on par with NATO allies in terms of defense equipment sales and technology transfers. The two countries are now at an advanced stage of negotiation over the transfer of Predator combat drones, which India formally asked the United States for during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the country in June this year. Moreover,Washington leaned on the other member countries of Missile Technology Control Regime to include India as its 35th member nation on June 27, 2016. This forward leap clears up the pathway for the Predator transfer deal come to fruition.

In addition to India’s deepening of bilateral strategic relations with the United States, the country is also expanding the scope of its strategic and military activities with other NATO member countries while keeping a closer eye on the Indian Ocean and endeavoring to boost its firepower along its vast land borders with Pakistan and China. For example, on September 9, 2016,

India signed a formal agreement to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets from France’s Dassault Aviation, for a reported 7.9 billion euros ($8.4 billion). This deal qualifies as India’s first major acquisition of combat aircraft in two decades.

Thus, India’s highest decision-making echelon is opening up to the idea of collaborating with NATO states to meet its enhanced national security needs, both in its neighborhood and in distant regions. NATO meanwhile sees this as an opportunity to share international responsibilities with an emerging global power on a note of mutual trust and cooperation.

Fundamental Commonalities and Emerging Synergies

India is emerging as a global power to be reckoned with under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The country has started asserting its influence at various international forums in order to augment its national interests. This was illustrated, for example, by Modi’s early focus on states in South Asia and high-level meetings with China, the United States, Japan, Australia, and Russia after becoming the prime minister. Unlike in the Cold War era, today India stands tightly integrated into the international economy and global political system. On the one hand its foreign trade accounts for over half its GDP; on the other hand, it is an active party to all major contemporary global issues of concern, like climate change, countering Islamic extremism, and terrorism, and so on.

India is now facing rising commercial competition with China in the economies of the Indian Ocean littoral and growing Chinese claims over the South China Sea. This is instilling a sense of rising paranoia among the country’s military circles and domestic companies operating on the high seas. New Delhi is trying to address this with “soft power balancing” strategies, however doing so is a struggle under the might of Chinese global and regional dominance.

Meanwhile, NATO as a security alliance is currently undergoing a transformational change from within. It is now involved in an array of capacity-building measures in order to re-fashion itself to suit the necessities of the day, while also preserving its fundamental identity and values. Some of these measures include technology upgrades, increasing interoperability, and so on. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, this collective security institution has been unable to define a common threat for all of its member states – especially any enemy state/states. However, it is now foreseeing the rise of a Russia-China strategic alliance as a prospective threat for the sustenance of the established world-order. So, in order to counterbalance the rising influence of these dissenting great powers on the seas and across different continents, NATO is gearing up with essential changes to its strategic doctrine.

India and NATO both uphold a shared set of values, like democracy, rule of law, individual liberty, human rights, and international law. In fact, many of India’s constitutionally defined principles and practical actions on its national and international fronts tally with NATO’s own values and actions. While NATO has fought for the universalization of democracy and people’s rights, India has a clean track record of upholding international laws, human rights, individual liberty, and other moral values. Moreover, at the strategic front India has extended its neighborhood framework beyond the Indian subcontinent over the past decade. This has brought it closer to NATO, which has forayed eastwards from the Mediterranean with its “out-of-area” operations during the same time.

Hence, the fundamental commonalities and emerging synergies are bringing the two parties together, both at the political and military levels. This is also acting as a strong catalytic force for initiating policy reformulation and strategic reorientation on both sides as they foresee this strategic partnership coming up in the near future. However, even today there exist certain thwarting forces and obstacles that are holding them back from joining hands outright.

Roadblocks for Cooperation

India and NATO experienced a distinctly cool relationship throughout most of the post-Second World War period and for 20 years following the end of the Cold War. However, they have failed to translate the current uptick in the relationship into any meaningful collaboration, which would have otherwise imbued them with mutual benefit. They are still caught up in a longstanding imbroglio.

First, neither of two parties has ever attempted to give away concessions which would have satisfied the minimum terms for mutual engagement. The U.S. administration has pushed to make India a partner of equal status to other NATO allies for the United States. However, as of yet, the U.S. government has not fully embraced India as a strategic partner over any of its existing partners in South Asia, including India’s arch-rival Pakistan, and elsewhere. On the other hand, India continues to swing toward Russia and China in its attempt to show the international community that it remains outside of the U.S.-led bloc.

Moreover, India’s traditional stance of non-alignment is preventing it from positively reciprocating the welcoming gestures of the U.S. administration to work in a well coordinated manner. The country’s political-military establishment has always held a cynical attitude toward aligning with any military bloc or superpower under the notion of safeguarding national sovereignty. On the contrary, India did informally align with the Soviet Union for most of the Cold War years out of practical need for ensuring its security.

Both parties have gained in other ways while resisting open cooperation and partnership. India, on the one hand, has fully enjoyed its flexibility to engage with any state/non-state party on its own terms. It sided with the majority of the international community in criticizing the United States and those of its NATO allies who executed a military intervention in Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein. Similarly, the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) — a NATO-led security mission in Afghanistan — continued to freely engage with Pakistan in its War on Terror in Afghanistan despite India’s hue-and-cry toward calling Pakistan a terrorist state.

Where To Next?

The genesis of the India-NATO partnership can be traced to the Strategic Concept laid out in the 2010 Lisbon Summit Declaration, which agrees to further enhance the Alliance’s existing partnerships and to develop new ones with interested countries and organizations. The gestation period of this conception took more than five years; however, it has now slowly come out in the open.

There is an imperative need on part of both parties to collaborate immediately. The big question remains how they can move in this direction. One prospective way forward may be found in heeding an old Chinese proverb: “It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.”

At this juncture, NATO needs to explain to New Delhi’s strategic community how it has changed since the Cold War and clearly convey its intentions to forge a “partnership of equals.” Moreover, NATO needs to make Indian policymakers realize that it is a win-win situation for both parties to enter cooperation and collaboration. On the other hand, India needs to come out of its Cold War mindset and consider NATO a potential partner.

The more time the two parties take chewing over matters relating to this emerging partnership, the higher the pain they will endure in the process. Hence, at this juncture, it is both prudent and rational for India and NATO to deliberate on the idea of full-scale collaboration, including formulating an official road map without delay.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

India’s interests tilt eastwards, it walks a new tightrope
India’s economic and strategic interests are hugely tied to the Indian Ocean, the 21st century’s theatre of huge rivalries. If Trump translates his rhetoric into reality, a harried China will be a nightmare there.
WRITTEN BY RAM MADHAV |Updated: January 2, 2017 8:16 AM

“Nations have no permanent friends or allies in diplomacy; they have only permanent interests,” said the famous English statesman Lord Palmerstone. One country that takes this seriously is America. Henry Kissinger, the man who affected a major shift in US foreign policy as secretary of state during the Nixon regime by allying with ideological arch rival China, amended the statement by stating, “America has no permanent friends or foes; it has only permanent interests.”

Nearly 45 years after the Nixon-Kissinger duo’s path-breaking friendship overtures to Mao’s China, the world is witnessing another American leader, president-elect Donald Trump, attempting to implement that formula, this time to say that China is no friend of America’s but a job-stealer and an enemy.After getting elected, Trump continued his tirade against China, giving enough indications that what he said during the campaign wasn’t just poll rhetoric.

His ten-minute phone conversation with the Taiwanese president, Tsai Ing-wen, followed by his comments to Fox News on a “One China policy” have rattled China and made many sit up. “I don’t know why we have to be bound by a “One China” policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade,” Trump told the channel with his hallmark bluntness.

Two days after his phone call to the Taiwanese president came another set of comments from Trump. Through tweets, Trump commented, “Did China ask us if it was okay to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (the US doesn’t tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don’t think so!” Trump’s decision to appoint a fierce critic of China, author of the book Death by China, economist and professor at the University of California, Irvine, Peter Navarro, to head the newly created White House Trade Council leaves no one in doubt that US-China relations under Trump will be a great deal of fire and brimstone.

Will India remain unaffected by this changing dynamic between the two superpowers? Especially when the Indian Ocean region is emerging as the 21st century’s powerhouse?

In the last couple of years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s foreign policy has included a conscious strategy of de-hyphenation. A spirit of bilateralism, uninfluenced by subjective third country factors, has been the benchmark of our foreign relations recently. Prime Minister Modi has developed close personal and working relations with both President Obama and President Xi Jinping. At the same time, he has further strengthened India’s bilateral relationship with Japan on the one hand and Russia on the other.

However, in a changing scenario, India will not find it too easy to maintain this de-hyphenation policy. There will be expectations and consequent pressures from each side on India. The Chinese media’s recent warning in the state-run Global Times, asking India to “draw some lessons from the recent interactions between Beijing and Trump over Taiwan” is an example. It even called India a “spoilt child”, the provocation for the harsh words being HH Dalai Lama’s meeting with the President of IndiaPranab Mukherjee.

India’s ambition to grow as an “influential and responsible global power” calls for it to manage equilibrium in the region. It is a challenge for India to ensure that its neighbourhood stays less volatile. At the same time, India has had long-term relations with America. The two countries were once described by PM Vajpayee as “natural allies”. In the last two years, PM Modi has taken these relations much farther and deeper. We need them in our pursuit of progress. At the same time, India needs to be watchful about US moves with at least four important countries — Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. These have a greater bearing on India’s interests in the region and beyond.

It is highly unlikely that President Trump would take a hostile stance vis-à-vis India. In our conversations with some members of Trump’s transition team, what emerged prominently was that while no one doubted his pro-India credentials, the relationship is more likely to be “transactional” in nature. In a “transactional” relationship, mere goodwill and a “natural alliance” are not going to be sufficient. There will be expectations of “give and take”. India needs to prepare for this.

India’s diplomatic interests are tilting eastwards towards the Indian Ocean region where the global power axis lies today. India’s trade, economic and strategic interests are hugely tied to the Indian Ocean. In this century, the Indian Ocean is going to be the theatre of great power and huge rivalries. If Trump translates his rhetoric on issues like the South China Sea, the trade imbalance, Taiwan and currency devaluation into reality, it may lead to greater tensions in the region. A much-harried China, with its economic and military might, will be a security nightmare in the region.

India needs to do a tightrope walk in such circumstances. The times pose a challenge, no doubt, but they also provide an opportunity. What we need is some out-of-the-box thinking in our diplomatic objectives and goals. Right now, that is missing. But we can’t afford the lack of it for too long. The writer is national general secretary, BJP, and director, India Foundation.

 

[dude00720]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...-january-20/articleshow/56281795.cms?from=mdr

This looks interesting if true.

 

[HariPrasad-1]

India may confront many internal & external challenges: President Pranab Mukherjee
The President said that emergence of Asia as the new 'centre of economic power' has gradually shifted the centre of gravity of the world financial power from the West to the East.
BY: PTI | NEW DELHI |Published On:November 1, 2016 9:04 PM

Pranav da told that very correctly. Emergence of a great power is never easy. For any stone to be a beautiful statue, it has to undergo many hammering, cuts and polishing. We can never be a great nation untill we fix our issues and set our frame work right. We can not allow that established forces to dominate the nation polity, economy and other spheres of influence. Arrival of Modi is a challenge to these establish forces. He has also re-engineered the international relation in very pragmatic way. His act east policy is an example. Many revolutionary steps have been taken to upgrade infrastructure to curb corruption. There are many new equation that are taking place. Country has emerged as a strong nation and people today hope that we get a respect that we deserve. We need to pursue our national interest very aggressively to emerge as a great and respectable nation.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Decommissioned Military Hardware – A Potential Diplomatic Asset for India

 

[Indx TechStyle]

There’s An Indic Way Of Thinking About Foreign Policy But We Are Doing It The Wrong Way

Spoiler: SNAPSHOT

Datta Ray’s book provides some fascinating insights into the workings of India’s Ministry of External Affairs.

Datta-Ray, Deep. The Making of Indian Diplomacy: A Critique of Eurocentrism. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2015. 380 pp.

Indian diplomacy has long vexed its observers, occidental and oriental alike. Lacking in a culture of periodical declassification and easy access to past and present practitioners, the workings of South Block remain impervious to methodical scholarship. In this environment, a book that promises to reveal not only how Indian diplomacy is conducted but also why it is such an enigma is a welcome arrival. As the title avers, The Making of Indian Diplomacy: A Critique of Eurocentrism seeks to properly establish the functioning of the members of the Indian Foreign Service in the culture and traditions of their homeland rather than in Christendom's theories of statecraft.

Several things are of note in this project: first, Deep Datta-Ray, the author, is making a cultural approach to the study of diplomacy and foreign policy. While this may seem perfectly normal to most, it is a method that has had few takers in the historical profession. Though it has become more popular over the last decade, international relations remains firmly in the grip of abstract theories such as realism, constructivism, or Marxism. And yet, diplomats and their political masters do not leave their values and biases at home each day as they come in for work; they are enmeshed in a cultural web which cannot but inform their policies.

Second, Datta-Ray criticises scholars who complain that Indian foreign policy makes little sense for judging it by Western customs of politics, governance, and power. Despite nearly two centuries of British rule - between Crown and Company - over India, cultural transfer from metropole to periphery remained superficial at best. In other words, Thomas Macaulay failed to create brown Englishmen; Indians remain rooted in their traditions and understanding of the world.

Macaulay's failure would not be a startling revelation in itself but Datta-Ray goes on to argue that the entire modern project in Europe is deeply rooted in its Christian heritage and incompatible to the Indian ethos. The binarism of exclusivist monotheistic cults transcends mere theology and permeates all aspects of culture, resulting in a fundamentally different understanding of the cosmos and man's place in it. Islam, being an Abrahamic offspring, literally, meshes better with European notions of power relations and the state than dharmic religions do. Again, this is not a new argument: originally put forward in academic circles in the mid-1970s, it has percolated into the awareness of ordinary Indians perhaps a decade ago. However, Datta-Ray's systematic application of this idea to foreign policy is a first and deserves careful consideration.

Unfortunately, The Making of Indian Diplomacy is filled with turgid prose that could impress only dissertation committees. Such jargon-laden, impenetrable language, the hallmark of cultural studies, is one of the reasons the humanities has lost respect in society. Datta-Ray commits such perversions upon the English language - the Queen was never meant to sound like this - that it would make Guillaume Apollinaire proud! Yet those who brave the presentation are rewarded with some fascinating insights into the workings of India's Ministry of External Affairs.

Indian history remains, disappointingly, strongly entangled to privileged access and Datta-Ray, son of Sunanda K Datta-Ray, seems to have it. This project needed the personal intervention of then prime minister Manmohan Singh, such was the resistance of the bureaucracy against an interloper. Even then, one MEA mandarin asked the author, "What do you want with our documents? They only reveal process, not intent." This gives an insight into Indian bureaucratic thinking that marks it different from Western practice.

Fortunately, Datta-Ray has used his opportunity well - embedded with the Indian Foreign Service allowed him to observe, talk informally, and interview officially dozens of young aspirants, serving officials, and retired civil servants. The resulting monograph can be understood as discussing the structural and intellectual differences between Western and Indic diplomacy.

The Body of the Beast

Before looking at policies and attitudes, Datta-Ray asks who populates the service. He finds that many of the applicants come from modest backgrounds in the hinterland, some not even aware of the IFS until they had cleared the Union Public Service Commission examination! Many come to government service as a means to mediate between it and their village, or enlist its assistance to protect their region from the state. There is less suspicion of the state compared to Western countries, for one primary reason - it is present in the villages, where private corporations find it unprofitable to venture. Ironically, the failure of the state to adequately provide basic necessities for its citizens is also its greatest strength.

Many of the incoming civil service cadre seem to hold an organic view of society in which the state remains a place people can come together and lift themselves up through the opportunities it provides. While the cosmopolitan disenchanted may scoff at such idealism, Datta-Ray has revealed an interesting undercurrent that will last as long as a government job is seen as a guarantor of upward mobility. However, is it necessarily different from the West? One would assume that governments world over attract service-minded people, some more fortunate than others, however cynical it may leave them at the end. A quick comparison to a small sampling of other countries would have helped the argument along much better.

The Making of Indian Diplomacy praises how several IFS officers left lucrative careers in the corporate world to enter into government service. Some officers, ironically, do not want to leave home; others see a civil service job as a badge of status despite working conditions that are less than adequate. For example, at one point during the negotiations over the civil nuclear cooperation with the United States, the Indian delegation consisting of a Joint Secretary from the MEA and two lawyers found itself matched by an American official and his team of 55 lawyers! The Joint Secretary in question, S Jaishankar, when quizzed by his astounded counterpart, simply shrugged and replied that Indians make do. Jugaad, the popular term nowadays for making do, seems romantic only to those who never had to resort to it. MK Narayanan, the national security advisor from 2005 to 2011, glibly dismisses this as Indians not being a litigious society. However, the truth might simply be insufficient resources, poor recruiting power, and a deterring application process. Western foreign service departments are a lot more casual about lateral entry hires from industry, ensuring adequate manpower and expertise available to their ministers and senior bureaucrats at all times. These are certainly factors that make the IFS stand out from Western services but perhaps not in a way to be desired!

Datta-Ray reveals an interesting tidbit about promotions in the civil services: everyone gets positive reviews. As a result, personnel files are useless when it comes time to raise one above his peers. One officer confided in the author that this was because seniors were afraid that they would be accused of casteism if they marked anyone down. Datta-Ray uses this state of affairs to argue for a peculiarly Indian "total evaluation" process that goes beyond words on paper to assess the suitability of an officer for a higher position. It is this system that allowed Shivshankar Menon, former national security advisor to Manmohan Singh and successor to Narayanan, to supercede 16 positions to become the foreign secretary in October 2006. Of course, a less charitable view might be that "total evaluation" is making a virtue out of necessity and that it merely conceals an egregious problem in Indian institutions, namely, using caste victimisation as a weapon to conceal incompetence.

Intellectual Weltanshauung

Datta-Ray recounts when Menon explains the role of a diplomat to the incoming batch of IFS recruits as that played by Krishna in the udyoga parva of the Mahabharata. Rather than launch into a scholarly evolution of diplomacy a la Harold Nicolson, Keith Hamilton, Richard Langhorne, Martin Wight, or Ernest Satow, the former NSA latched onto a text most Indians are intimately familiar with. The great epic remains the backbone of Indian political thinking, Datta-Ray argues, because it avoids the pitfalls of viewing the world in false dichotomies just as Indian foreign policy has shown a tendency to avoid.

This is a limited reading of the Mahabharata, and indeed, Indic thought. There are several incidents in the great epic that run counter to Menon's portrayal that can be recounted: one, Krishna's urging Yudhishtira to perform the Rajasuya yaga; two, his advocacy of war within 13 days of the Pandavas' exile; three, when Krishna intercepted the elephant goad thrown by the king of Pragjyotisha, Bhagadatta, at Arjuna despite a promise not to participate in the war in any way except as charioteer/advisor to the third son of Pandu; or four, the infamous manner in which Drona was made to lay down his weapons. These roles do not, strictly speaking, fit our modern imagination of a diplomat's task. Yet to restrict foreign policy strictly to conference room machinations and champagne is too narrow an understanding of the profession. A diplomat must also provide wise counsel to his political masters, something Krishna unfailingly did for the Pandavas. If the IFS is indeed inspired by the Mahabharata, one wonders if any of them have ever truly engaged with the text. Similarly, the breathtakingly amoral Arthashastra does not shy away from advocating the use of kutayuddha if the national interest required it.

The Making of Indian Diplomacy gets to the crux of the matter when it asks why India should become a Great Power. Datta-Ray asks this in the context of Menon's meteoric elevation and an internal memorandum by Rajiv Sikri, one of the bypassed officers. Sikri, he finds, has fallen into the trap of Western modernity and advocates Great Power status for India for its own sake. This does not satisfy Datta-Ray, who declares such a quest as un-Indian. In support, he quotes former external affairs minister, Natwar Singh's response - that India's goal is to remove poverty, not become a Great Power - when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared that the United States intended to help India become a major power in the 21st century.

According to Datta-Ray, Indian diplomacy avoids the anarchic and binary world of power politics by understanding the international community and India's place within it as a unified cosmos. All states are interlinked and, therefore, foreign relations is not a zero-sum game. This explains why India continues to deal with Pakistan despite the constant terrorist attacks Islamabad supports against India, or why Delhi de-links its territorial dispute with China from other facets of its relationship. In essence, the view that vasudhaiva kutumbakam, or, the world is one family, guides Indian diplomacy.

This, continues, Datta-Ray, is seen even in India's nuclear weapons policy - Nehru and Indira Gandhi both rejected Western rationality even at the risk of appearing irrational to pursue their own reasoning. In this, they did not even trust their senior-most bureaucrats for fear that they would push India into the same anarchic-binary world Nehru had avoided through his non-alignment. Finally pushed into crossing the nuclear rubicon, India refrained from weaponisation until 1998 when circumstances forced it to take the next step. Even then, Indian diplomacy maintained its traditional roots. K Subrahmanyam, one of the architects of India's nuclear doctrine, echoed Nehru and his daughter when he reasoned that in the nuclear age, the main purpose of foreign policy should be to prevent wars; humanity must unite and cooperate to survive.

There are a host of problems with this interpretation of Indian foreign policy. The first is to use Nehru as the yardstick of Indianness. The first prime minister, influenced on the one hand by Mohandas Gandhi's asceticism and on the other by British notions of progress, can hardly be an example of the traditional Indian values Datta-Ray has deployed throughout his argument. Nehru certainly did not view himself the way Datta-Ray seems to. As he himself wrote in The Discovery of India that he came to India as a foreigner; Nehru had also remarked to John Galbraith, the US ambassador to India, that he was the last Englishman to rule in India. In fact, the question arises that if the IFS really is imbued with the Nehruvian spirit, is it relying on the corpus of Indic works and experiences or on a Leftist, perhaps Christian socialist version of Western thinking?

It is unfortunate that public perception of India has been captured by Gandhi's misinterpretation of dharmic values.Vasudhaiva kutumbakam was not, as Sarvesh Tiwari has ably shown, a recommendation but an admonition. Ashoka, the great renouncer became so only after he had conquered his enemies.Ahimsa, fashionably misappropriated by Gandhi against the British, was described in a very different context by Buddha and Mahavira. In fact, Indic ethics, which are carried more in the works of literature than philosophy, speak very much in a language of realism - about proportion, balance, alliances, caution, and strength.

If anything, the examples Datta-Ray gives shows the Indian diplomatic establishment in its worst light: not trusted even by prime ministers, animated by the values of an ingabanga leader, wracked by the low quality of its recruits, unable to attract fresh talent, and riven by its own politics and demons, it mirrors much of what is wrong with Indian institutions and its polity. With decision-making centred around the prime minister's office, foreign policy resembles more a fiefdom and India a flailing state rather than a robust and rising democracy. Did the Mahabharata, the text that informs so many IFS officers, not have counsel on governance, the limits of authority, and power?

Despite his questionable choice of examples, Datta-Ray does convince, with just his anecdote about Menon and the Mahabharata, that there is indeed an Indic way of thinking about foreign policy, even if the wrong lessons seem to have been drawn here. However, he must be cautious in making the jump from the IFS knowing about the epic, to actually following its precepts. Indeed, there is much folk wisdom and rhetoric on how Indians view themselves as part of a bigger cosmic whole; Man does not stand above nature but is a part of it. Yet it is unclear how much this thinking dictates everyday function. Despite such concerns about the environment, for example, the Ganga has turned into toxic sludge, tree cover is receding, and the air in urban centres is unbreathable. To know or to have read Aristotle is not to do as he advises.

In places, it seems Datta-Ray has created a straw man out of Western civilisation; the notion of acting with purpose rather than for its own sake that the author sees in Indic ethics sounds similar to the value Niall Ferguson sees in his very Western, Kantian Henry Kissinger. There are, indeed, differences between how Indic and Abrahamic traditions view the world but as most critics of the West are prone to do, Datta-Ray exaggerates the divergences and homogenises the West in a manner he finds problematic for India or the East.

A book must be judged not only on its argument but also the questions it tickles in the readers’ minds; in the latter, Datta-Ray has succeeded spectacularly. He is among the first to try and apply Indic frameworks to modern challenges, ambitiously threatening to subvert the normative understanding of modernity. It is perhaps too much to expect perfect coherence in the first attempt.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

India is a Fourth Global Power on World Map along with US,Russia,China
Never expected something positive about Indian Emergence from Pakistani Media, anyway, start watching from 6:30.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Welcome to an emerging Asia: India and China stop feigning friendship while Russia plays all sides

In a hard place. (Reuters/Danish Siddiqui)

After a few timid signs of warming, Sino-Indian relations seem to be headed for the freezer. While Beijing refuses to take Indian security concerns seriously, New Delhi may have decided to take the Chinese challenge head-on. To complicate matters for India, its erstwhile ally Russia, which has become a close friend of China, is showing interest in establishing closer ties with Pakistan.

The latest move that clenches teeth in India is China refusing to lift a hold on Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar, accused of plotting multiple acts of terrorism against India, and blocking him in December from being listed as a terrorist by the United Nations. Since March, China has blocked India’s attempts to put a ban on Azhar, under the sanctions committee of the UN Security Council, despite support from other members of the 15-nation body. In response, India has gone beyond expressing dismay by testing its long-range ballistic missiles—Agni IV and Agni V—in recent weeks. Pakistan, aided by China, has also jumped in by testing its first sea cruise missile that could be eventually launched from a Pakistani submarine.

China has upped the ante, indicating a willingness to help Pakistan increase the range of its nuclear missiles. China’s official mouthpiece, Global Times, contended in an editorial: “if the Western countries accept India as a nuclear country and are indifferent to the nuclear race between India and Pakistan, China will not stand out and stick rigidly to those nuclear rules as necessary. At this time, Pakistan should have those privileges in nuclear development that India has.”

China’s $46 billion investment in the so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, also troubles India as the land corridor extends through the contested territory in Kashmir which India claims as its own. India views CPEC as an insidious attempt by China to create new realities on the ground and a brazen breach of India’s sovereignty and territory. The Chinese media have suggested that India should join CPEC to “boost its export and slash its trade deficit with China” and “the northern part of India bordering Pakistan and Jammu & Kashmir will gain more economic growth momentum.” New Delhi has questioned if China would accept an identical situation in Tibet or Taiwan, or if this is a new phase in Chinese policy with China accepting Pakistan’s claims as opposed to the previous stance of viewing Kashmir as disputed territory.

Faced with an intransigent China, India under the centre-right government led by Narendra Modi is busy reevaluating its China policy. Modi’s initial outreach to China soon after coming to office in May 2014 failed to produce any substantive outcome and he has since decided to take a more hard-nosed approach. New Delhi has strengthened partnerships with like-minded countries, including the United States, Japan, Australia, and Vietnam. India has bolstered its capabilities along the troubled border with China and the Indian military is operationally gearing up for a two-front war. India is also ramping up its nuclear and conventional deterrence against China by testing long-range missiles, raising a mountain strike corps for the border with China, enhancing submarine capabilities, and basing its first squadron of French-made Rafale fighter jets near that border.

More interesting is a significant shift in India’s Tibet policy with the Modi government deciding to bring the issue back into the Sino-Indian bilateral equation. India will openly welcome the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader who has lived in exile in India since 1959, at an international conference on Buddhism to be held in Rajgir-Nalanda, Bihar, in March. And ignoring Beijing’s protests, the Dalai Lama will also visit the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh which China claims as part of its own territory.

After initially ceding ground to Chinese sensitivities on Tibet and refusing to explicitly acknowledge official interactions with the Dalai Lama, a more public role for the monk is now presented as an essential part of the Indian response to China. In the first meeting in decades between a serving Indian head of state and the Dalai Lama, Indian President Pranab Mukherjee hosted the Buddhist leader at the inaugural session of the first Laureates and Leaders for Children Summit, held at the president’s official residence in New Delhi in December.

Pawn for giants: China strives to curb the influence of the Dalai Lama, who lives in India. The religion emerged in India during 5th century BC and has numerous sects. (Data: Pew Research and Dalai Lama’s schedule)

China has not taken kindly to these moves by India and vehemently opposes any attempt to boost the image or credibility of the Dalai Lama.

China has been relentless in seeking isolation for the Dalai Lama and often succeeds in bullying weaker states to bar the monk. After the Dalai Lama’s November visit to the predominantly Buddhist Mongolia, where he is revered as a spiritual leader, the nation incurred China’s wrath and soon apologised, promising that the Dalai Lama would no longer be allowed to enter the country.

But India is not Mongolia. There is growing disenchantment with Chinese behaviour in New Delhi. Appeasing China by sacrificing the interests of the Tibetan people has not yielded any benefits for India, nor has there been tranquility in the Himalayas in recent decades. As China’s aggressiveness has grown, Indian policymakers are no longer content to play by rules set by China. Although India has formally acknowledged Tibet as a part of China, there is a new push to support the legitimate rights of the Tibetan people so as to negotiate with China from a position of strength.

This Sino-Indian geopolitical jostling is also being shaped by the broader shift in global and regional strategic equations. Delhi long took Russian support for granted. Yet, much to India’s discomfiture, China has found a new ally in Russia which is keen to side with it, even as a junior partner, to scuttle western interests. Historically sound Indo-Russian ties have become a casualty of this trend and to garner Chinese support for its anti-West posturing, Russia has refrained from supporting Indian positions.

Worried about India’s growing proximity to the United States, Russia is also warming up to Pakistan. The two held their first joint military exercise in September and their first bilateral consultation on regional issues in December. After officially lifting an arms embargo against Pakistan in 2014, Russia will deliver four Russian-made Mi-35M attack helicopters in 2017 to Pakistan’s military. It is also likely that the China-backed CPEC might be merged with the Russia-backed Eurasian Economic Union. Jettisoning its traditional antipathy to the Taliban, Russia indicates a readiness to negotiate with the Taliban against the backdrop of the growing threat of the Islamic State in Afghanistan. Towards that end, Russia is already working with China and Pakistan, thereby marginalising India in the regional process.

As the Trump administration takes office in Washington on Jan. 20, it will be rushing into headwinds generated by growing Sino-Indian tensions and a budding Sino-Russian entente. Trump’s own pro-Russia and anti-China inclinations could further complicate geopolitical alignments in Asia. Growing tension in the Indian subcontinent promises to add to the volatility.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Image Credit: Flickr/ MEAIndia
At Raisina Dialogue, Modi's Blueprint for Indian Foreign Policy in 'Unsettled Times'
India continues to reckon with what kind of power it wants to be, this time in acknowledgement of global shifts.

On Monday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a speech on Indian foreign policy and the country’s place in the world in New Delhi. Modi was delivering the opening address for the 2017 Raisina Dialogue, which was held for the first time in 2016 and is approximately India’s analog to other regional security forums, including the Shangri-La Dialogue and the China-hosted Xiangshan Forum.

Modi’s speech came as his government marked two-and-a-half years in office and comes two weeks after his 2016 New Year’s Eve address, which included a spirited defense of the Indian prime minister’s controversial policy of removing high denomination rupee notes from circulation in India, known as demonetization.

On the eve of Modi’s speech to the Raisina Dialogue, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank both released revised GDP growth estimates for India that highlighted demonetization’s toll. The IMF’s estimate lopped a full percentage point off India’s expected growth, bringing its expectation of Indian growth below that of China in the year ahead. (India had previously had the distinction of being the world’s fastest growing major economy in 2016.)

Given the Raisina dialogues focus on international issues, Modi didn’t directly touch on the increasingly uncertain economic picture back at home. Instead, he was afforded an opportunity to reflect on India’s continued rise as a major power, his government’s accomplishments on the global stage, and New Delhi’s visions for a regional security architecture in Asia. (In a coincidence, Modi’s remarks came within hours of Chinese President Xi Jinping addressing the World Economic Forum’s meeting at Davos with a defense of globalization and open trade.)

Modi’s address was largely familiar for anyone that’s been tracking Indian foreign policy over the last few years. He emphasized India’s focus on economic development, noting that “India’s transformation is not separated from its external context.” However, from there, the Indian prime minister’s remarks transition into a timely treatment of the surge of populism, protectionism, and anti-globalization sentiment seen worldwide in 2016 — most prominently with the election of Donald Trump in the United States and the United Kingdom’s June 2016 referendum decision to leave the European Union.

Interestingly, echoing themes present in Xi’s remarks at Davos, Modi acknowledged that these were “unsettled times” in which India was pursuing its transformation. He cautioned that “walls within nations, a sentiment against trade and migration, and rising parochial and protectionist attitudes” were evidence of global uncertainty and put “globalization gains” at risk. Modi, similar to Xi’s message on existing global governance mechanisms being inadequately representative of rising powers, cautioned that “institutions and architectures built for a different world, by a different world, are outdated.”

The similarities between Modi and Xi’s takes on global affairs diverge, however, when the Indian prime minister turns his attention toward the Asian security architecture. Modi calls on states to “guard against any instinct or inclination that promotes exclusion, especially in Asia.” Warning against “exclusion” evokes an idea that U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter spent most of last year promoting, namely the U.S.-led “principled and inclusive security network in Asia.” Contrast Modi’s remarks on exclusion with the ideas on regional security governance outlined by the Chinese Foreign Ministry in a recent white paper, for example.

While Modi expressed a continued belief in older trains of Indian foreign policy thought that saw a multipolar world as a just and desirable outcome, he took the opportunity on Tuesday to call for a “security architecture” in Asia that is “open, transparent, balanced, and inclusive” that is “rooted in international norms and respect for sovereignty.” Modi also offers a subtle critique of China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative: “Only by respecting the sovereignty of countries involved, can regional connectivity corridors fulfill their promise and avoid differences and discord.”

The Indian prime minister’s speech also included a significant line on how New Delhi increasingly conceives of its power projection capabilities and influence in the Indian Ocean region:

In all directions, our maritime interests are strategic and significant. The arc of influence of Indian Ocean extends well beyond its littoral limits. Our initiative of SAGAR — Security And Growth for All in the Region — is not just limited to safe-guarding our mainland and islands. It defines our efforts to deepen economic and security cooperation in our maritime relationships.(Emphasis mine.)

The section in bold above could presage a shift in Indian strategic thinking about where the country’s primary areas of maritime interest begin and end. In two significant policy documents released in recent years — India’s 2015 Maritime Security Strategy and 2009 Maritime Doctrine — areas defined as primary areas of interest are squarely within the Indian Ocean littoral.

Modi’s inclusion of these words may indicate that New Delhi is poised to elevate areas outside the Indian Ocean littoral, including the South China Sea, the Mediterranean, and perhaps even the Western Pacific in Indian maritime strategic thought. The Indian Navy’s capabilities for extended expeditionary operations in these areas will remain limited for some time, but Delhi may increasingly seek to speak out more on normative issues affecting security outcomes in these regions. Modi additionally reminded the audience of India’s function as a “credible first responder,” both in the Indian Ocean region and on land (in the case of Nepal).

There’s a lot more in the address that largely rehashes old accomplishments in Indian foreign policy. Modi draws attention to Delhi’s ongoing strategic convergence with Tokyo, which has quickly blossomed into a close dyad in the ten years since India and Japan elevated their relationship to a strategic global partnership under Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s first term as prime minister. Modi also nods at gains with the United States along the “entire spectrum” of ties and mentions Russia as an “abiding friend.” Interestingly, Modi draws attention to defense cooperation with Russia without specifically mentioning progress on defense-related matters with the United States. (This is somewhat curious given the quick pace of India-U.S. defense accomplishments since Modi’s inauguration in May 2014, including India’s elevation to a U.S. “major defense partner” last year.)

As a final thought, it remains notable that Modi used his speech to remind the global audience at the Raisina Dialogue that Pakistan remains “isolated and ignored.” Since the eruption of violence in Kashmir over the summer and a surge in cross-Line of Control violence in Kashmir, India has worked directly to isolate Pakistan within the South Asian region. Pakistan’s isolation, while increasingly robust within South Asia, is not complete; both China and, more recently, Russia have intensified their ties with Islamabad.

Xi’s Davos address picked up quite a bit of global attention this week, with headlines lauding the Chinese leader’s defense of globalization. Even while India continues to lag China in terms of its global clout and economic significance, Modi’s speech merits serious reflection as a statement of Indian plans as the world prepares to enter a period where U.S. leadership grows uncertain and a democratic swing-state like India may take on greater significance in Asian security outcomes.

We’re still waiting for an unambiguously articulated ‘Modi doctrine’ from the Indian prime minister, who has largely reaffirmed his predecessor’s priorities of economic development and domestic stability while tweaking his diplomatic style. Nevertheless, anticipating a potential recession in U.S. global leadership and surge in anti-globalization sentiment worldwide, India is beginning to think more seriously about what kind of power it wants to be. Amid both global and regional uncertainty in early 2017, however, India continues to hold its cards close to its chest.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

by The Diplomat

A view of the interior of the newly-constructed Lemon Tree Premier hotel, located outside the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi April 2, 2013. The cluster of hotels built here is known as Aerocity.
Image Credit: REUTERS/Adnan Abidi
Life In Aerocity: Finding India’s Place in the New Strategic Context
“India will be a leading author in the next chapter of world politics.”

Over the past three years, through periodic observations, I have measured the rise of New Delhi Aerocity, the commercial complex adjacent to Indira Gandhi International Airport. Unlike the unruly and burgeoning outskirts of this megacity – the teeming slums, clogged arteries, impromptu shrines and haphazard construction – Aerocity is sterile and organized, and, hopefully, a secure compound of paned-glass modernity. Like its cousins, Gurgaon’s DLF Cyber City and Noida’s Jaypee Sports City, Aerocity is a planned urban-development with a specific commercial design, in this case an international business hub intended to enhance the airport’s economic engine beyond aeronautical activities, a common characteristic of our futuristic global age.

Aerocity construction Credit: Roncevert Ganan Almond
In the shadow of the future, history always awaits in India. At Aerocity, the nearby Delhi Metro connects you to the city center, and within half an hour you can wander through Old Delhi to Kashmiri Gate, locus of the siege of Delhi, a key battle during the Mutiny of 1857. Sometimes known as India’s First War of Independence, an event credited by Karl Marx as a national revolt, the Mutiny ushered in a new age in the history of the subcontinent and the world: the establishment of the British Raj and direct colonial rule, the beginning of an end. The Congress party – of Gokhale, Tilak, Gandhi and Nehru – would be founded a generation later. The seeds of change were planted in the reddened soil of Delhi.
With the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, a revolt of sorts, a new era appears in the making once again. As Arun Kumar Singh, the former Indian ambassador to the U.S., notes, the Trump presidency remains undefined; and it is unclear, in my view, whether President Trump will sustain America’s global leadership. In its report on global trends, prepared every four years for the incoming president, the U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC) describes an international landscape in flux, as the post-Cold War, unipolar moment has passed and the rules-based international order is being subject to revision. Without a doubt, India will be a leading author in the next chapter of world politics and the Asia-Pacific will be the manuscript upon which it is written.

The new café at Aerocity, therefore, seemed like the appropriate place to consider the NIC’s findings and India’s place in the new strategic context.

Victim of Success

The period of the greatest globalization in the world economy – from 1989 to 2008 – fueled a historic rise in living standards for almost a billion people. As described by the NIC, the biggest “winners” included members of the new middle class in emerging economies, with India being an exemplary example. [Among the “losers” were lower-to-middle-income households of advanced economies, a political reality confirmed by the 2016 U.S. presidential election.]

Beginning in the 1990s, India enacted liberalizing economic reforms fueling historic growth rates that crested in 2010. The scale and speed of the growth was exceptional: India doubled its per capita income in 17 years; the United Kingdom took 154 years to perform the same feat. As a result, many of the world’s households who graduated from subsistence – living in “extreme poverty” (below $2 a day) – reside in India. And with increased wealth comes increased hope.

Among the global trends identified by the NIC is a growing distrust of governments and elites due to a widening gap between government performance and public expectations. In this vein, the rise of Narendra Modi, with his Gujurat-model, may be interpreted as a response to India’s economic downturn in 2011 and the perceived incapability of the Congress-led coalition government. In turn, the test for the prime minister is satisfying the increasing middle class sensibilities of his electorate while addressing India’s profound structural and societal challenges.

Fortunately for South Block, the NIC predicts that India will be the world’s fastest growing economy during the next five years as China’s economy slows. At the same time, India is facing escalating demands for education and employment that accompany its rising, youthful population. According to the NIC report, India will need to create as many as 10 million jobs each year in the coming decades to meet new demand in the workforce. In the meantime, disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence and increased automation could eliminate jobs and place India in a middle-income trap. Insufficient opportunity may lead to radicalization of the country’s bulging youth.

For example, in search of meaning and identity, disaffected youth could turn to religious and ethnic identity, which in India, despite its worthy efforts at promoting tolerance, could mean sharpened communal divisions. Recent protests in Chennai, the country’s fourth largest metropolitan area, asserting Tamil culture may be evidence of this phenomena. Moreover, India is projected to surpass Indonesia as having the world’s largest Muslim population in 2050. In the words of the NIC:

“The perceived threat of terrorism and the idea that Hindus are losing their identity in their homeland have contributed to the growing support for Hindutva, sometimes with violent manifestations and terrorism. India’s largest political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, increasingly is leading the government to incorporate Hindutva into policy, sparking increased tension in the current sizable Muslim minority as well as with Muslim-majority Pakistan and Bangladesh.”

Added to this dynamic is the problem of widespread prenatal sex selection. The NIC projects that within 20 years, large parts of India will have 10 to 20 percent more men than women. Such societal imbalances – which take decades to mitigate – have been linked to abnormal levels of crime and human rights violations such as rape, human trafficking and sexual exploitation. Even if anecdotal, newspaper headlines of sexual violence, on any given day in Delhi, is a black and white reminder of this problem.

In sum, the NIC warns that India could become a “victim of its own success” as the country’s growing prosperity leads to a “paradox of progress” where effective governance runs into the complications of the youth bulge, rapid urbanization, inadequate infrastructure, poor public health, severe environmental degradation, and exclusionary identity politics. Nowhere is this dynamic more evident than in India’s megacities.

Megacity Mania

By 2035, the NIC forecasts that more than three-fifths of the world’s population will live in urban areas, an approximate 7-percentage point increase from 2016. This means that an overwhelming majority of the world’s projected population of 8.8 billion (a 20 percent increase from today) will reside in cities. By this time India will have become the world’s most populous country with 1.5 billion people, almost half of whom (42.1 percent) will be urban dwellers; the subcontinent may have three of the world’s 10 biggest cities and 10 of its top 50.

The challenge of megacities (measured at 10 million or more) is enormous. Again from the NIC report:

“Although megacities often contribute to national economic growth, they also spawn sharp contrasts between rich and poor and facilitate the forging of new identities, ideologies, and movements. South Asia’s cities are home to the largest slums in the world, and growing awareness of the economic inequality they exemplify could lead to social unrest. As migrants from poorer regions move to areas with more opportunities, competition for education, employment, housing, or resources may stoke existing ethnic hatred, as has been the case in parts of India.”

As Katherine Boo so memorably recorded, slums like Annawadi, adjacent to Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, are scenes of intense human drama and immense tragedy. Slums can also overwhelm the capacity of local governments. From Google Earth you can see how Mumbai’s slums have altered the symmetry of the airport layout, with one arm of Terminal 2 stunted to account for the protruding tent city. These slums present a unique security threat, providing potential access for terrorists seeking to capitalize on the high-visibility and strategic value of Mumbai’s airport.

And with rising urbanization comes increased pollution. The NIC reports that South Asia already has 15 of the world’s 25 most polluted cities, and more than 20 cities in India alone have air quality worse than Beijing’s. By 2035, air pollution is projected to be the top cause of environmentally related deaths worldwide. The incredible levels of Delhi’s air pollution already alter the daily lives and life spans of its citizens.

Traffic on Delhi’s beltways – a snarling slow-moving parade of two-wheelers, three-wheelers, and four-wheelers (in addition to the occasional horse-drawn cart) – leaves one bleary-eyed and sniffling. Many days the air quality index (AQI) is “hazardous,” meaning that conditions causing “serious aggravation of heart or lung disease and premature mortality in persons with cardiopulmonary disease and the elderly” and “serious risk of respiratory effects in general population.” In order to curb pollution, the Supreme Court has intervened to enforce an odd-even system wherein daily vehicle-use is segregated based on license plate numbers.

These new urban centers also serve as hotbeds for religious movements. For example, the NIC categorizes India’s Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism, as a “predominantly urban phenomenon.” In support, the report cites Shiv Sena – the most radical Hindutva political party – which has governed Mumbai for several decades. The future could see growing support for sectarian elements and the potential for violence in efforts to enforce cultural homogeneity in the community. For India, which still has fresh scars from Partition, this is not an idle threat. To borrow from Shiv Visvanathan, the “silences of Partition” could give rise to new and unpredictable voices. In measuring norms of democracy and tolerance, the NIC cautions that the world will look to see how India “tames its Hindu nationalist impulses.” Given India’s civilizational influence, the most attentive audience will be its neighbors.

Limited War, Unlimited Consequences

Since its founding modern India has struggled with securing its periphery – the frontier arch extending from the headwaters and tributaries of the Indus River to those of the Brahmaputra. In turn, India’s national security policy has focused on the immediate threat from Pakistan, volatility in Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, and a lurking China peering over the Himalayas.

The NIC counsels that Pakistan, unable to match India’s economic prowess, will seek other methods to maintain even a “semblance of balance.” The risk of conflict with Pakistan must be understood within a greater trend toward interstate conflict due to diverging interests among major powers, ongoing terrorist threats, continued instability in weak states, and the spread of lethal and disruptive technologies. According to the NIC report:

“Future conflicts will increasingly emphasize the disruption of critical infrastructure, societal cohesion, and basic government functions in order to secure psychological and geopolitical advantages, rather than the defeat of enemy forces on the battlefield through traditional military means.”

Weaker parties may resort to asymmetric warfare and surrogate attacks, a form of limited war, but with the potential for unlimited consequences in the case of nuclear-armed India and Pakistan.

Indeed, New Delhi has struggled with finding the balance between “confrontation” and “engagement” with Islamabad, to paraphrase Srinath Raghavan in his keen contribution to Shaper Nations. In 2016 we witnessed a re-occurrence of this dynamic in Kashmir. India accused Pakistan of supporting incursions over the Line of Control (LOC), including by Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, a designated terrorist organization. In turn, New Delhi allegedly engaged in “surgical strikes” against Pakistani forces in Kashmir. Most recently, Modi signaled the terms for future engagement: “Pakistan must walk away from terror if it wants to walk towards dialogue with India.” The subcontinent’s security dilemma, however, may not allow for such tightrope finesse.

The blurring of war and peace in South Asia may lead to potentially catastrophic violence. The NIC report predicts that Pakistan will seek to develop a credible nuclear deterrent by expanding its nuclear arsenal and delivery means, including short-range, “battlefield” nuclear weapons and a sea-based option, which lower the threshold for nuclear use. In one of its future mock scenarios, the NIC forecasts a “mushroom cloud in a desert in South Asia” – a nuclear exchange between Delhi and Islamabad – the first nuclear conflict since 1945.

In a more positive frame, the NIC tributes India with being the region’s “greatest hope” to drive regional trade and development. As part of a broader effort to assert its role as the predominant regional power, the NIC predicts that New Delhi will expand its orbit by offering neighboring countries – Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Burma – a stake in India’s economic growth through development assistance and increased connectivity to India’s economy. In Afghanistan, New Delhi has sought to foster a direct and productive relationship, having spent more than $2 billion on economic cooperation.

For China relations, the picture is complex. India must carry the burden of having an irredentist great power on its northern border. New Delhi is still recovering from shock of the 1962 war. Despite Indian objections, China is continuing to build the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which passes through Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. According to the NIC, China’s actions and indifference for India’s interests are driving New Delhi’s to balance and hedge. The strain in the bilateral relationship is further aggravated by Beijing’s position in world governing bodies.

Seat at the Table

Unsurprisingly India is seeking an expanded role in international institutions to match its increasing presence on the world stage. For example, New Delhi would like a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a club of countries that contributes to non-proliferation by controlling access to nuclear technology. This is consistent with the NIC’s finding that states, in an attempt to gain new privileges, will seek to adjust the hierarchy in existing institutions.

New Delhi is growing increasingly frustrated with Beijing’s blocking of India’s seat at the table of global governance. However, necessary reform of international institutions to reflect a new distribution of power is unlikely given conflicting interests among member states. The NIC foresees the exercise of veto power by key players:

“Competing interests among major and aspiring powers will limit formal international action in managing disputes, while divergent interests among states in general will prevent major reforms of the UN Security Council’s membership. Many agree on the need to reform the UN Security Council, but prospects for consensus on membership reform are dim.”

During this struggle, international norms and institutions may stagnate and decay. Joseph Nye warns that the U.S. may turn inward with a corresponding loss in global public goods. The global community may lose what my graduate professor Bob Keohane described as gains in cooperation, efficiency and interdependence from regimes developed over the course of the last century. A devolvement to regional bodies, spheres of influence, and improvised crisis-management will create new costs and uncertainty.

One result of this 21st century disorder will be the strengthening of U.S.-India relations. The NIC characterizes India as “an increasingly important factor in the region as geopolitical forces begin to reshape its importance to Asia” and predicts that the United States and India “will grow closer than ever in their history.” Some of the foreign policy landmarks of former U.S. President Barack Obama’s legacy reflect this convergence: his announcement of U.S. support for India’s permanent UNSC seat; the decoupling of Pakistan from the U.S.-India relationship; and the U.S. backing of Delhi’s inclusion in the NSG despite earlier conflict related to nuclear proliferation. Indeed, India and the United States, as the world’s two largest democracies, will be key architects for building a future based on liberal values related to civil, political, and human rights.

A State of Motion

India faces significant challenges in moving forward to achieve its full potential. As the NIC observes, the country sits at the vanguard of global trends related to world trade, urbanization, environmental impact, terrorism, inter-state conflict, religious identity, and international governance. India must be prepared to shape its destiny, not be a passive participant in its “tryst with destiny.” The future of world politics requires an active and assertive India.

Much like with the geopolitical landscape, construction continues here in Aerocity. Laborers, migrants from dry villages of the Gangetic plane and abandoned Himalayan hill stations, new megacity residents, enter each day to realize the promise of 21st century India. Swaying cranes, swinging shovels, rumbling bulldozers, Aerocity is in constant motion, kicking dust into the air, another layer in the fog above Delhi. When the jackhammer pauses, I put down the NIC report and look upward, in search of the sky.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Image Credit: kurdishstruggle
Would India Support a Post-ISIS Independence Push by the Kurds?
How involved does New Delhi want to be?

The fight against the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) over large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria captured by the terror group in its juggernaut expansion and declaration of the “caliphate” in 2014 will at some point be coming to a conclusion. And with that will come a new set of challenges for the region.

While the Iraqi Army along with its affiliates has orchestrated a major push from the south on the ISIS’s bastion city of Mosul, the Kurds have moved in from the north to close in amidst hope of permanently stamping out the structures of the Islamic State from the northern spheres of Iraq. The success of these operations, which have over the past few months started to show as ISIS dwindles, has also started to give the Kurds more impunity to push for one of their own long-standing demands, the declaration of the independent state of Kurdistan.

In the north of Mosul, not far from the capital city Erbil of the autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq, the Kurdish forces fighting ISIS have dug-in deep and built trenches well beyond the territory that they currently govern, stretching more than 1,050 km in northern Iraq into land that was under the Iraqi Arabs before ISIS took over. According to reports, the Iraqi Kurds have orchestrated the takeover of this land as a standing policy being pushed by officials of the Kurdish government in Erbil. This is seen as spoils for the sacrifices made by the Kurds, known to be the largest ethnic group in the world without their own state, who have fought ISIS through thick and thin for a stronger push in post-ISIS Iraq on their long-standing call on the formation of a fully independent and sovereign state of Kurdistan.

Currently, Erbil is used not just by the Kurds but various militias that are fighting ISIS as a place to rest and replenish before going back to the frontlines such as in Mosul, Al-Bab and elsewhere The Kurdish fighters believe that many of the insurgents currently fighting in battle-hardened areas such as Mosul are in fact crime syndicates that have adopted the veil of the so-called Islamic State. Older groups such as Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia and Jaesh-al-Mujahideen, who were always known as Daesh (the Arabic term for ISIS) perhaps pose the biggest challenge for the Kurds, and indeed the people of Mosul and adjoining regions have been confronting this challenge since long before ISIS.

As a result of the Kurds’ battle with ISIS, they have gained increasing amount of legitimacy amongst certain sections of the international order involved in the regional conflict. The Kurdish Yekîneyên Parastina Gel‎ (YPG), also known as the People’s Protection Unit, an infantry militia largely made up of Kurdish fighters, is known to be a “democratic” army that holds internal elections to appoint commanders. The YPG has its roots in the formation of the Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD) in 2003 as one of the Kurdish opposition parties in the Syrian parliament. Today, perhaps as reward for its efforts against ISIS and for the interests of the Kurdish people, the YPG has official diplomatic missions in Prague, Stockholm and Berlin, and a new one in Moscow, with another in Paris planned for the near future. Analysts believe that Beijing could host the first such YPG mission in Asia.

Both India and China now have operating consulates in Erbil. In August of last year, New Delhi opened the doors to its official consulate in the Kurdish city, offering full consular services. Deepak Miglani, an Indian Foreign Services officer with prior experience of serving in other conflict hotspots such as Kabul and Kandahar in Afghanistan was appointed as the first consul general in Erbil. This not only expanded India’s diplomatic access in the larger Middle East region, which hosts more than 8.2 million Indians, but added an interesting aspect to India’s security outreach and validated the battles of the Kurdish forces against ISIS and its regional offshoots.

The autonomous government of Erbil has long been asking India to take a bigger presence in the region. New Delhi’s apprehensions had been warranted, as it did not wish to sour relations with Baghdad, which views the growing calls for autonomy from the Iraqi Kurdistan, specifically related to the production of oil, as in direct conflict to the interests of the central Iraqi government. Both New Delhi and Beijing have economic interests there as well, with China’s SINOPEC acquiring Addax Petroleum, which developed the Taq Taq oil field near Kirkuk. India has also previously bought oil from Kurdistan via Turkish companies and Mumbai based Reliance Industries Ltd in 2007 had invested in two oil blocks in Kurdistan, Rova and Sarta, only to sell majority stakes in both in 2012 after pressure from Baghdad.

Erbil has previously taken center stage whenever Indian diaspora in the region have been caught in the regional conflicts. In 2015, India launched a diplomatic effort to track down 39 missing construction workers who had reportedly been taken hostage by ISIS and have since then been known to have been killed, a claim corroborated via multiple sources (although the Indian government has yet to declare them as deceased). During that period, India sent its experienced Middle East hand and former Ambassador to Iraq, Suresh K. Reddy, to Baghdad and then Erbil in an effort to use contacts with former Ba’athist leaders from Saddam’s regime, some of whom are now high-ranking commanders in ISIS for regions such as Mosul and Tikrit. Other Indian diplomats with regional experience such as Sanjaya Rana and Arabic-speaking officer Abu Mathen George were also sent to Erbil, not only to help in gathering information about the missing Indians, but inadvertently also cement India’s narrative in the Kurdish region.

In 2014, during the peak expansion period of ISIS, the Kurdish Democratic Party’s then head of international relations, Heman Harwani, told India’s The Hindu newspaper that the “old Iraq is dead” and that the future perhaps holds a confederation of Shia, Sunni and Kurdish states or an out-and-out partition of the country. “We have to move forward now, and see India as an important partner,” Harwani added.

Indian Ambassador to Iraq George Raju’s visit to Erbil in May 2016 can be seen as a major move for India to gather a strong diplomatic foothold there. Last year, after the ambassador’s visit, the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) sought India’s help for its war against ISIS. Falah Mustafa, the head of KRG’s Department of Foreign Relations called on India to assist the region with humanitarian aid and, perhaps more importantly, military assistance. Mustafa conveyed this to Miglani during his first briefing as Consul General. The Kurdish region is today home to more than 1.8 million refugees and Internally Displaced People (IDP) of Iraq from all walks of life.

However, with this recent Indian outreach to the Kurds, it begs the question: Is New Delhi is prepared to support the larger cause of the Kurdish people as well? This cause is in direct conflict with the position of the Iraqi government and of course that of regional heavyweight, Turkey. This latter views the Kurds as a greater long-term peril to its own interests than ISIS, which explains why Ankara turned a blind eye towards the terror outfit during its early rise, hoping it would confront Kurdish militias.

India has long maintained a balanced approached in the region. New Delhi is comfortable without much moral or ethical conundrum of who rules states in the larger Middle East region as long as its own large diaspora is protected. A sudden collapse, such as the one witnessed in Yemen recently where India orchestrated a large evacuation operation by air and water, is perhaps its biggest lingering headache. New Delhi has held good relations with all, whether it is Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Bashar al-Assad’s Syria or Ayatollah Khamenei’s Iran. New Delhi’s base argument is not intertwined in any long-term “plan,” but on the principles of maintaining stability in the region, whether that is via dictatorship or democracy, so as to protect its 8 million plus people, their remittances to India worth more than $40 billion every year, and the security of India’s oil supplies, as it imports more than 70 percent of its requirements from abroad and most of it coming from the Gulf states and Iran.

It is extremely unlikely that India would any military aid to the Kurds in their fight against ISIS. However, it is more than probable that humanitarian aid in the form of medicines, tents, portable housing, food and other support could be initiated in the future directly with Erbil instead of going through the UN, specifically as ISIS’s hold on that part of Iraq rapidly dwindles and more so with the Development Partnership Administration (DPA), India’s answer to USAID and UK’s DFID, signing up with other agencies such as the U.S.-based Millennium Challenge Corporation to exclusively provide aid to third world nations. Beyond this, under the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has also been proactive in marketing itself as a “friend” of poor nations, using the Indian Air Force as a soft-power tool by flying in aid to countries hit by natural disaster, from Nepal to Fiji.

India’s approach to the Kurds could mirror its approach in Afghanistan. While it is going to stay away from taking a stance on the issue of a Kurdish push for an independent state, it will provide developmental aid and projects in areas that will help build India’s image as a force of positivity and a country doing good for the people. This, then, automatically means that KRG’s calls for military assistance against ISIS will not find many takers on Raisina Hill. And that is a tried-and-tested foreign policy status quo India seems comfortable with in the Middle East.