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India, a Key Player in the Transformative World Order - Dr Uttam Sinha

India’s former representative in the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific presenting his views on the sub theme ‘Emerging World Order - Indian Perspective’ at the ‘Defence Seminar’ sessions said that India remains a key player in the transformative world order as a rising power and the world faces a shift in balance of power.

So said Dr. Uttam Sinha, former Indian representative - Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific, contributing to the above theme at the ongoing ‘Defence Seminar’ sessions at Colombo Galadari on Tuesday (1). 

Below is the full speech;

It is always fascinating and certainly perplexing analyzing current dynamics of the emerging world order. The world entered the 21st century with no great power rivalry as was prevalent in 20th century. But peace and harmony are relative and can easily be disrupted as seen in the South China Sea, the Crimea and West Asia.

The world order is always almost an argument about balance of power-not so much clash of civilizations or the end of history. Many would disagree with this, considering balance of power an outdated concept - a European idea of the 19th and 20th centuries. Likewise, many would regard balance of power as “incompatible with democracy, free enterprise, welfare economy and peace”. Balance or imbalance of power may not be the best way forward in an anarchic state system. But be that as it may, it cannot equally be disregarded. So long as the reality of power exists the management of that power, the balance, will always be there. As Kissinger says: “There can be no peace without equilibrium, Without balance”.  

The world is invariably and often mistakenly looked at as a binary conceptualization. Peace or conflict, confrontation or engagement, idealism or realism. All these are a continuum. Just like idealists do not have monopoly on moral values, realist must recognize that ideals are also part of reality. Likewise resolution of conflict will be an essential component of democracy and development. This will be tested frequently with the new emerging powers.

Transition tends to be difficult. The US so used to uni-polarity finds it often difficult to surrender its power. But in the 21st century uni-polarity is untenable and therefore the US will have to accommodate itself to the growing power of other major states and can only guard its interests by guiding a transition to a multilateral state. Also the rapid pace of change; the unexpected and the uncertain outcomes challenges decision making. As old enmities and alliances and blocks dissolve and reform rapidly it becomes difficult to have a strategy. About a year ago, August 28, Obama said “we don’t have a strategy yet” in response to the conflagration in the ME.

There is little doubt that the shift of power has begun. However, how the world would look like is not clear. But it is a complex world for sure and thus very difficult to frame the politics of this complex world, particularly on how states should respond. Should it be hard power of coercion or the soft power of attraction or as Jospeh Nye says a combination of the two which he smartly used the word “smart power”. Interestingly a noted Indian scholar Amitabh Acharya describes the world order as a “multiplex”, a metaphor response to the inadequacies of the ‘bi-polar’ and ‘multi-polar’ world – a medley world or to simply put it an interdependent world with regionalism as a defining trend.

When realists ask the old question ‘who can do what to whom’ in the 21st century, the blunt, the most uncomfortable and the most deterministic response to it is geography. We know that geography explains history, it will also profoundly determine the future. Indeed, the interdependent world today is reinforcing geography or to put it in another way the relief map is reinforcing the interdependent world. Today issues are anchored to specific terrains and the natural frontiers will greatly act as the final arbiter. For example, to understand the challenges of climate change, warming Arctic seas, resource scarcity such as water and oil the environmental interpretation will be crucial. Viewing seas as a great “commons” or considering Himalaya as the ultimate watershed or charting the monsoon as a rain-dependent phenomena gives us a new lens to look at the world. Mackinder’s summarization of his article “The Geographical pivot of history” that “man and not nature initiates, but nature in large measures control” is critically relevant to understand the interplay between the geo-physical, the geo-economics and the geo-strategic. Ideas will have to meet the dictates of geography.

In the 21st century, no state is an island. No state can afford to be an island. This is to say that states without any exception are heavily engaged in a world that is integrated and interconnected. Thus states have to manage the linkage between internal and external, regional and global, commercial and political, and defence and diplomacy. These are the central challenges of strategic policy making that states will have to contend with.

Asia will be the centre of attention. Ironically there wasn’t any Asia till the Modern European powers arrived as colonial powers. Asia is not like the European West. None of the sovereign states ever considered/or conceived themselves of inhabiting a continent. The notion of the collective is absent. There is no common religion and language is varied. Some countries like Japan, South Korea and Singapore are economically prosperous and technologically advanced; India and China are in a sense planetary power and are of continental scale with a combined population of 3.5 billion. Vast stretches of Asia are Muslim populated. Asia indeed represents a complex tapestry. Asian states are no longer, to use the phrase, “an adjunct of European powers”. There is growing confidence in many states in Asia to actively engage in rule-making and not merely follow rules. But also on the other hand there is a national interest driven diplomacy.   
 
Yet in this multiplicity and complex world, four specific order can be mapped:
-    European system and its Westphalia model of sovereignty
-    Islamic system and the idea of the community the Ummah
-    Chinese system based on traditional ideas of a middle kingdom
-    American order, trying to find a new purpose akin to about 100 years ago when Woodrow Wilson envisioned a just and organized common peace   

Where does that leave India? What world order does India seek? Can India be an influential part of the world order? Can it leverage its role to make itself a “diplomatic superpower”, a carry forward of the Non-Aligned Movement. Will it be as many strategic analysts comment a status quo power that accepts liberal norms and behaves as a “responsible stakeholder” in the global system; or a revisionist power that seeks to redefine the norms of international engagement.

India

No one can say that India is not an important actor in the global interdependence. National strategy is not whether there should be continuity or change. It is largely about reviews and priorities, which is to say recalibrating national strategy. This is what India is going through and this clearly requires a different set of policy ideas. Achieving external objectives and shaping international regimes cannot be delinked from building national capacity.

India quite simply matters to global affairs. A figure suggests that more than 50 per cent of India’s GDP is linked to the world. 

India is undergoing notable economic transformation that will provide it the requisite assets to have a purposeful footprint in world affairs. India’s engagement in the world is having high resonance and this is abundantly seen in the building of relations with all major powers but importantly not distinguishing from its principal role in the neighbourhood. The changing global order is encouraging India to think of policy outcomes and of activities with achievements. 

This is reflected in some of the initiatives like the "Make in India”, "Digital India”, "100 Smart Cities”, "Skill India” and "Clean India”. There is also a set of whole new lexicon in India’s engagement with the region and the world. Terms like ‘Neighbourhood First’, ‘Look East’ to ‘Act East’ are slogans to start up actions. Even on the climate change debate as we head towards Paris, India will like to be part of the narrative or even change the narrative by emphasizing ‘lifestyle emissions’ and ‘sustainable consumption’. In the changing global order India does not merely want to be a balancer but a ‘strategic influencer’. Also important is to take responsibility and lead as being a ‘first responder’ in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief situations. All these are very modernising. India is looking at the world in terms of possibilities rather than risks. It seeks resources, technology, and good practices from international partners.

At a global scale the interaction between India-China and US will be one of the most important factors in determining the strategic balance in Asia and beyond. Like China, India has a new leadership and like China undergoing both external and internal transformation. The US, on the other hand, is trying to come to terms with the changed geopolitical landscape. In the larger global setting, India would clearly welcome the growing reality of a multi-polar world including a multi-polar Asia. 

Interests are constructed through the process of social interactions. India is defining not merely defending its national interest in enlightened and modernizing way. One can also argue that there is a sociological perspective to its national security thinking. Issues dealing with norms and culture are becoming more salient.   

Another notable trend of India’s national capacity building is societal empowerment and the sharing of power in the system of governance. These are consciously designed to marry principles of democracy with the need for conflict management. 

- coalition government
- protection of minority rights, it is always been enshrined but needs to be constantly emphasised through policies
- decentralisation of power
- decision making by consensus and cooperation 

Even in its approach to terrorism - The biggest paradox is the more success you have on war on terrorism, it is likely to push them more into the domain of terrorism. There will always be a new generation of people adapting new methods of violence and disruption. Thus polices that are at one level strong and uncompromising on national integrity and on the other to win hearts and minds. (REMOVE)

Recall to civilization and culture

There are strong considerations of national honour and past greatness that is driving decision making in India. For example, soft-power initiatives like the International Day of Yoga, is an expression of greater self-confidence and a recall to the ancient spiritual culture. Such initiatives create common cultural spaces for convergence. What we see in some of India’s current policy is a recall to a traditional notion of sri-yantra or geo-philosophy. This means a confluence of science, philosophy, spirituality, and politics to achieve peace and prosperity. In many sense some of India’s response to the changing global order is triadic, i.e., ichcha (will); gyan (knowledge) and kriya (action).

Let us examine this.

Regional integration    

The idea that the state was being transcended was an important component in the emergence of “functional” interpretations of IR that have become firmly embedded as means of understanding regional integration. Increased knowledge, know-how, technological access is driving cooperation. Territorial organisations (states) would be transcended and replaced by functional organisation dealing with tourism, trade, water, electricity. Resultantly nationally-based identity and nationalism will decline – what David Mitrany, the British scholar and political theorist describes as “a working peace system”. This will also spill over into other forms of integration.

Neigbourhood thrust has been visible with connectivity, culture and commerce. Settlement of the land boundary with Bangladesh; with Nepal tapping hydro-electric power and with Bhutan the relationship has been further consolidated. A sub-regional grouping involving all these countries is taking forward the connectivity and cooperation agenda. India appreciates national reconstruction and reconciliation while its “Act East” opens up possibilities for cooperation. The relationship with Pakistan is challenging but it will never be off the agenda.

Non-Traditional Security Issues

The distinctions between traditional and non-traditional security issues are increasingly blurred. In fact traditional and non-traditional security issues overlap and often reinforce each other. At the policy level there is a growing understanding of the connection between these two threats. Another aim is to understand their impact on the region and what can be done to tackle them. For example, water food and energy security arguably carries the largest societal, political, and economic consequences. “Linkages between non-traditional security threats and weak political and economic performance not only reinforce the negative development but also threaten the very fabric of the state.”

It is interesting here to note that rivers, as a source of freshwater and economic dividends, are bringing in new dynamism in regional cooperation. This is not an easy outcome despite the fact that South Asian states have shown remarkable riparian sensibilities by agreeing to water treaties, many of which are water sharing agreements, for example, the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan and the 1996 Ganga Treaty with Bangladesh. Rivers at one level are political, divisive and emotive and at another they are civilisational, spiritual, and localized in its interpretation. India’s riparian position vis-à-vis its neighbours make it a dominant hydro-player but not a domineering one. Rivers are central in India’s current neighbourhood approach, and are being considered from every possible angle: policy/politics and science. A re-conceptualization of South Asia as a “riverine neighbourhood” is capturing the imagination of the people. Hydro is becoming a powerful and widespread prefix. So let me use this by saying that hydrodiplomacy along with hydro-sensibility and hydro-frankness will greatly help cut through hydro hubris and hydro-suspicion.    

There are also critical eco-system issues in the neighbourhood that are gaining ascendency, and rightfully so. In an enlightened spirit, trans-boundary protected areas (TBPA) on the Sunderbans between India and Bangladesh and the Siachen glacier area between India and Pakistan are being considered. South Asia cannot always be thought about as a flashpoint!      

As India recalls it rich heritage, civilization, its great minds and thinkers one is reminded of Swami Vivekanand, the great social reformer and one of India’s greatest vishwatma (the spirit of the universe). As he travelled India and the world, he observed the four shortcomings of India as poverty, education, disrespect for women and lack of confidence. While the first three still remain critical challenges to overcome to make India internally strong and resilient, it is the fourth that today has dramatically changed. A more confident India in its engagement with the world, a more “business-like India”, largely assured and to a great degree quite certain. In doing so it is looking beyond the 20th century orthodoxies. If equilibrium is what the global order thrives for then shared power is the outcome and will be at the heart of Asia’s emerging security architecture. India would certainly like to be part of it.

So let me sum up

•    The global order is a paradox: At one level the world is multipolarising and multilatrealising at an unprecedented scale and speed. One the other hand, the world also seems to be bilateralising or at best regionalising.

•    The world has never been more interdependent in terms of production processes, economic stability, food security, climate security, and even health and political security.

•    Foreign policy is back being dominant and might conceivably help countries build domestic support for multilateral co-operation. This interdependence can only be viewed as very positive. Nothing can be better than preserving a functional international order.

•    Emerging countries, given daunting development challenges, will continue to claim for flexibilities in the form of “special and differential treatment” in WTO and “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities” in the UN climate process.

•    India’s priorities are clearer with respect to its neighbourhood, its broader region, and in making a global impact. Diplomacy is not foreign or alien. It is public affairs and it is helping play a role in India’s national development.