Round The World

New Delhi, 10 November 2023

Changing International Relations

THE INDIAN IMPERATIVES

By Dr DK Giri

(Secretary General, Assn for Democratic Socialism)  

What kind of world are we living today in? When we look around, we find the humanity caught in a race for dominance, territorial aggrandisement, debt trap, wars and the consequent changing security environment. In particular, three wars have disrupted the international political system, to be precise equations and crippled the economies. I am referring to the on-going wars in Ukraine, Gaza, and Covid 19. The last one immobilised the whole world without a bullet fired. Where does India position herself in this turbulent world? 

The struggle for dominance by a few countries over the others has been witnessed over the last 350years. The few countries, call them big actors orhegemons,walled themselves collectively against the rest of the world at the macro-level on the one hand.And on the other, at the micro level, they pitched themselvesagainst eachother to advance their national ambitions, and to establish their own hegemonyamong the hegemons. 

For three centuries, Europe was the home of such hegemons. While each of them was constantly trying to establish its dominance over others in Europe through wars and conquests, together, they tried to spread their tentacles across the world for dominance, by building separate imperial structures under them. Through the process of colonialism, they had set up an exploitative world structure, whereby the resources from other parts of the world flowed into the European metropolises. After the second world war, the hegemonic influence shifted out of Europe to the United States, and the Soviet Union which became two super powers. 

Following the second world war, the cold war exhausted the Soviet Union, and eventually, the Soviet empire collapsed causing its components to break free. The fall was driven by two main reasons – the SovietUnion had siphoned offmuch of its resources for military purposes in the arms race against the United States. Second, the communist dictatorship had suffocated its citizens and hollowed out of its resources on military misadventures, taking the country to a point of logjam. That condition called for introduction of glasnost and perestroika. The rest is history. 

At the same time, during the cold war, the west–the United States and Europe propped up China as a counterweight to the Soviet Union. Now China is flexing its muscles to replace Rusia as the second supreme power, or further, Beijing seeks to be the numero uno power in the world by reclaiming its old empire. It is a question of time,however, the Chinese autocratic state or its imperial ambitions would meet the same fate of as that of Soviet Union. In the age of constant pursuit of individual and national freedom, and the right to self-determination, dictatorship and imperialism will not survive the popular resistance. 

On territorial expansionism, a few countries suffer from an unsatiated appetite, and others are unable to settle their disputes or reconcile the legitimate claims of others. China leads the pack on grabbing others’ territories. Russia is trying perhaps to reconstitute the Soviet Union by annexing other countries’ territories. The wars it has been engaging in including the on-going Ukrainian war is the evidence of such desire. Even the war in Gaza, and tensions elsewhere are the stories of territorial disputes. 

A sinister strategy was being quietly followed to coerce many countries to embrace globalisation, that was in a way, meant to slide them into a debt trip. The lending institutions like the IMF and the World Bank, at the behest of hegemons, attached many loaded stipulations like export orientation, import liberalisation, privatisation and so on. Experiences showed that countries which have undiscerningly followed IMF-World Bank prescription, have come to grief, as the economies of Latin America and South East Asia. Now China is deviously deploying the debt-trap through BRI and depleting the economics of receiving counties. The economic conditions of Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan in our neighbourhood testify to the vicious Chinese scheme. 

For four-and-a-half decades, after the second world war, the global security environment was marked by the cold war and blockpolitics. A deterrent strategy, bipolarity and the arms race were its main features.Both the super powers avoided a direct military confrontation although they engaged in many proxy wars across the globe. With the collapse of one super power, the United States assumed the role of the policeman and launched several assaults across the world. Even Russia, under Putin’s dictatorship and design mentioned above, engaged in conflicts with its neighbours including unleashing a full-scale war against Ukraine. The war in Gaza has its own special history. Moreover, the Chinese imperial ambitionsmake the security scenario precarious. 

In view of these changing international relations what could be the Indian imperatives? India, under the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had its “tryst with destiny” in 1947with a certain vision. But that vision was soon derailed by some ill-conceived and naïve decisions taken by Nehru himself. The manner in which he handled the Kashmir issue in 1948, the Chinese annexation of Tibet in 1958, the war with China in 1962, the utopian concept of non-alignment, UNSC membership, and nuclearissue. The consequences of such decisions have been detrimental to our economic conditions and security situation. 

India needs to build a strong economy marked by self-reliance, full employment, a welfare state system, strategic alliances and so on. In particular, in foreign policy, New Delhi needs to have robust strategies to contain China and thwart Pakistan. New Delhi needs to pool the destiny inSouth Asia with smarter neighbourhood policy. An essential pre-condition for any country to sustain peace, progress and stability is to preserve a peaceful environment in and around it. That is a fundamental existential reality.---INFA 

(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)