He (read, the government) wants India to avoid alliances in the name of national interest and advocates plurilateralism.
An updated version of “The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World” has hit the stands from the stable of Harpers, and it has the vision of External Affairs Minister Dr S. Jaishankar, an influential architect of India’s foreign policy who always believes India has firmly established a favourable balance of power.
Jaishankar’s firm grasp on his subject is well known across the world. Once a filmmaker in Mumbai told me that Jaishankar is the perfect profile of a diplomat a director wants. But that is not important here, what is important is how he and his team in the Ministry of External Affairs have shaped India into a new era of expansion. The book explains the mind of Jaishankar and why he, and the Indian government (read Prime Minister Narendra Modi) feel it’s imperative to break free of a past hampered by India’s soft state image and India’s missed chances. It is almost like a clarion call for the nation to rise, show its power and show it is ready to embrace the world.
Writes Jaishankar in the preface, aptly titled, “One Trend, Four Shocks”: “It is something of an irony that well before the pandemic hit us, the world had come to terms with ‘going viral’. The rapidity, seamlessness and interpretation of our era were exhibited across domains. Economically, it was expressed as a centralised globalisation that elevated ‘just in time’ to a religion. Politically, it spawned across a borderless culture with an entitlement to intervene. Socially, it encouraged a global elite who could comfortably sit in judgement over the world. Diplomatically, it enabled gaming the system and weaponizing the normal. Technologically, we entered an existence of great promise and huge vulnerabilities. Never mind each had a cost, until of course the aggregate risk made it hard to duck the difficult questions. The virus may be the key challenge in global health, but pervasiveness is now a reality in various aspects of our life. And each, in a sense, has a compulsion to return to checks and balances. Jobs, quality of life, and privacy matter, just as do sovereignty, cultures and security. They cannot be left at the mercy of ostensibly anonymous global forces.”
Strong words. Jaishankar makes it clear that it is high time Indians have a better sense of the world they live in. There has been a significant transformation of the balance of the world after the 2008 financial markets collapse in the United States and some solid rebalancing has happened. The minister feels the ongoing evolution has now been given a sharper edge due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, developments in Afghanistan, the Ukraine conflict and greater friction among key powers.
The writer feels there is a resurrection happening across the world because of the stresses caused by disruptions, coercion and conflicts. So for Jaishankar, the world is changing. And this change is upon India as never before because the power equations are changing, and changing fast. So, access to technology, connectivity, and trade are now paramount. The world, Jaishankar feels, is governed by a strange logic because large nations have entered into unbridled competition. He is clear when he recommends exploiting the new circumstances in a realpolitik mode. Now it could be diametrically opposite to Jawaharlal Nehru’s political romanticism. And, of course, Nehru’s sense of moralpolitik. Jaishankar makes it clear that it is India which is establishing a favourable balance of power.
In the chapter “The Pacific Indian: A re-emerging maritime outlook”, Jaishankar picks up lines from Rabindranath Tagore which read: You cannot cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. “As the world changes, it will naturally throw up new concepts and terminology. ‘Indo-Pacific’ is among the more recent additions to the global strategic lexicon.” And then in the same page, India’s foreign minister says very strongly: “The waters are changing as we speak and the Indo-Pacific is not tomorrow’s forecast but actually yesterday’s reality. Many things in the world come around. It is worth reflecting on the fact that the Royal Navy acted on an Indo-Pacific approach for decades without necessarily articulating the term.”
Jaishankar says the Indo-Pacific may be in fashion as a strategic concept now. But it has been an economic and cultural fact for centuries. After all, Indians and Arabs have left their imprint all the way up to the eastern coast of China, just as the people of South-East Asia did on Africa. “As each major power has its own perspective, their narratives sometimes can be different. For India, it is all about the pathway of its own steady rise, while also responding to the compulsions arising from the postures of others,” writes Jaishankar.
He made it clear that the Indo-Pacific is not just a natural arena for its influence but one of overriding security consequences. And by maintaining a strong posture there, Jaishankar feels India’s value rises and ensures a more enthusiastic welcome further East. So what is the need of the hour? Rise in economic power and genuine international activism, a categorical imperative. And why not? India has already emerged among the major economies of the world and is in the pursuit of all-out diplomacy, a key factor in the book. Writes Jaishankar: “It is time for us to engage America, manage China, cultivate Europe, reassure Russia, bring Japan into play, draw neighbours in, extend the neighbourhood and expand traditional constituencies of support.”
The writer says there are new principles shaping Indian diplomacy, and these are most crucial. He (read the government) wants India to avoid alliances in the name of national interest and advocates plurilateralism. He cites an interesting example. “If India drove the revived Quad arrangement, it also took membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. A longstanding trilateral with Russia and China now coexists with one involving the US and Japan.”
One needs to delve deep into the book to understand Jaishankar. There is a strong belief in many Western nations that India has come closer because it shares their democratic values. Jaishankar smashes the glass ceiling. He makes it clear that if the West does not understand that India does not see it as an ally, but only as a partner—and even then not on all issues. In the chapter, “Krishna’s Choice: The strange culture of a rising power”, he writes: “Much of that arises from an ignorance of its thought processes. That is hardly surprising when much of the West was historically so dismissive of our society. It is revealing that the standard American introduction to Indian strategic thought does not even refer to the Mahabharata, though that epic so deeply influences the average Indian mind.”
The author picks up examples from the great Indian epic and says eloquently: “Like most warriors, Duryodhana thought in an unorthodox manner, while Arjuna also understood what was outside the box. Without neglecting the established areas of capability, it is vital that this nation prepare itself better for what awaits the world. That may be in areas like artificial intelligence, robotics and data analytics or sensing, advanced materials and surveillance. Particularly if leveraging others is central to success, it is imperative that a contemporary and informed assessment of capabilities is made. Arjuna understood what Sri Krishna was about; Duryodhana did not.”
Is that a political statement? Looks like. A Foreign Minister, after all, knows his politics well, right?
How many institutions in India read such books to understand the nation’s foreign policies? They should, the students will be surely enlightened. And rant less on Twitter without understanding the subjects. For the next generation, it is important to understand India’s rediscovered nationalism and India’s rise in global profile.