India At 76: The Vishwaguru In Turbulent Times

India enters the 75th year of its independent existence amidst a widespread clamour for a multipolar world order and yet a growing crisis of multilateralism. The heightened great power rivalry between the United States and China has led to competing visions of a rules-based order.

The Joe Biden administration in the U.S. contends that the world has entered an era of ¡°democracies vs autocracies¡± and Xi Jinping¡¯s China continues to berate American hegemony.

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Although geopolitical trends, India¡¯s own democratic values, and threat perceptions vis-¨¤-vis an assertive China pull it closer to the U.S., New Delhi is cognizant of its own path. Like an old soul in a young body, India is a 76 years old young nation-state carrying the wisdom of an ancient civilization, re-emerging in its ability to help reshape the norms and rules in a rather divided world.

The Death of the Asian Century

The dream of an Asian century lies in cinders now, as Beijing aims to reorganize the international system in its own image, and makes no bones about its aggressive push to build a unipolar Asia. China¡¯s territorial transgression at the India-China Line of Actual Control (LAC) and its unabashed military power projection across the Indo-Pacific region has laid to rest any remains of an illusion called the Asian century.

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Although Beijing continues to fret about the Indo-Pacific geopolitical construct and the many power coalitions like the Quadrilateral Dialogue (Quad) between India, the U.S., Japan and Australia, it has no one but itself to be blamed. The Indo-Pacific is undoubtedly the primary region driving the foreign policy re-conceptualization and implementation of countries across the globe, even the ones beyond this geopolitical and geo-economic space.

Therefore, in matters of vision and practice, the Indo-Pacific has clearly subsumed the Asian century. The reality of the Asian century rested on the pillars of India and China. Now, the question is how well New Delhi can navigate the new reality of dealing with a proximate power like China, by engaging with distant powers like the U.S., while propounding the idea of a more inclusive Indo-Pacific, and the task of reforming multilateralism to ensure a more empathetic distribution of global goods.

Autonomy amidst Engagement and Estrangement

The world stands at the cusp of a geopolitical, geo-economic and technological shift that is making countries, big and small, reorient their strategies to deal with the opportunities and risks. If the webs of interdependence among countries are inevitable, so are the new lines of division. The race for new technological breakthroughs and the fight for resources that fire such technologies are entering a more aggressive phase. Emerging technologies are going to shape the day-to-day lives of people across the world, and are already affecting power distribution and diffusion while altering the way wars are fought on and off the battlefields.

The outbreak of the deadly pandemic has opened a new dynamic of diversifying global supply chains and India needs to reorient its engagement and negotiation with like-minded partners, to protect and promote its own interest while pushing for a more resilient global structure. The challenge of global economic governance and managing the forces of a fractured globalization will put New Delhi on a path of juggling engagement even with countries, estranged on security matters.

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The global challenge of mitigating the impact of climate change, and reducing carbon footprints while ensuring growth and development remains a major diplomatic task requiring alignment of internal efforts and external partnerships. India¡¯s growing energy demands and ensuring uninterrupted supply of the same at affordable pricing, while simultaneously pushing for a transition to renewables will remain an achievable yet difficult task.

India¡¯s G20 presidency and the displaying of its soft power influence come at a time when the call for more realpolitik in foreign policy and national security has become more pronounced. As India posits itself as a bridge between the developed and the developing world, as a leading voice of the Global South, its growing bonhomie with the Global North will be of paramount importance. India¡¯s route to atma nirbhar (self-reliance) on defence preparedness and military modernization also calls for an adroit juggling of old and new partners.

This dynamic is no more obvious than the one that New Delhi has had to navigate between Russia and the U.S. At a time when the strategic alliance between China and Russia takes a sharper anti-western curve, and challenges brew in multilateral platforms, where New Delhi has to deal with Beijing and Moscow, the Indian foreign policy establishment might have to take some hard-nosed assessment of where its maximum gains lie.

In the final analysis, India¡¯s path remains one of finding relative consensus on solutions to global problems through diversity and not a binary approach. The idea of Vishwaguru is not an unwarranted expression of self-pride but one that is grounded on the premium that a civilizational power like India puts on the value of inclusive growth and progress for all in its region and beyond. A Vishwaguru is aspirational without being ambitious at the cost of others in the comity of nations.

*The Author is a Strategic Analyst based in India and the Honorary Director of the Kalinga Institute of Indo-Pacific Studies (KIIPS). He is a regular commentator on International Affairs and India¡¯s Foreign Policy.