By Dr Bertrand Ramcharan
Seventh Chancellor of the University of Guyana Erstwhile Professor at the Geneva Graduate Institute, Fellow of the LSE and Fellow of Harvard University
Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India’s Minister of External Affairs, who visited Guyana recently, has written a thoughtful book, The India Way, that has sharp insights on the emerging global order. Its discussion of ‘Strategies for an Uncertain World’ has been described as ‘brilliant…, indispensable reading’ by a commentator from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Dr Jaishankar, who was India’s top career diplomat before becoming Minis-ter of External Affairs, had diplomatic postings in Washington, Beijing, Mos-cow, Tokyo, Prague, Budapest, Colombo, and Singapore, and thus knows the world well. He is an astute historian and strategist, drawing on Indian strategic thought going back to the Mahabharata, notably its Bhagavad Gita. He urges that a country must draw on its history and heritage as it seeks to navigate its way in international affairs. This is an insight that we in Guyana would do well to absorb. We must define policies that draw on the experiences, interests, and aspirations of our constituent peoples.
Dr Jaishankar thinks that India is transitioning from a civilizational society to a nation state which, in order to lead abroad, must be able to deliver at home. He writes: “It is our ability to rise to domestic challenges that will determine India’s place in the world. We are at least focused on the right issues now: digitization, industrialization, urbanization, rural growth, infrastructure, skills etc…” He considers that policy in a large country is a parallel pursuit of multiple priorities in a multi-polar world.
Dr Jaishankar is a trenchant political realist. As he writes: “Polarization permeates our world, whether in domestic politics or in international relations”. “In a world of naked self-interest, nations will do what they have to do with less pretence.” In a world of multiple poles and greater choices, the future is one of management of differences and finding some stability in a changing dynamic. Realism must prevail, and India cannot give any other nation a veto on its policy options. “Single-minded pursuit of national interest will make our world look like a bazaar, with more players, less rules and greater volatility.” There is now, he thinks, a more transactional ethos in the world.
The world, he adds, will be increasingly multipolar as distribution of power broadens and alliance discipline dilutes. A more nationalistic approach to international relations will undeniably weaken multilateral rules in many domains. This prospect of multipolarity with less multilateralism suggests a more difficult future, even for the near term. A new energy needs to be poured into reformed multilateralism: “The current anachronistic order must be pushed to change, along with its outdated agenda.”
He underlines that as major powers selectively advance arguments, much of the basic consensus that underpins the current reality will start to fray. The emerging world order is also likely to fall back on balance of power as its operating principle, rather than collective security or a broader consensus. World affairs will see a proliferation of frenemies. A more transactional ethos will promote ad hoc groupings of disparate nations who have a shared interest on a particular issue. These developments will encourage more regional and local balances with less global influence on their working.
A multipolar world that is driven by balance of power is not without its risks, he cautions. Unchecked competition can spiral downwards, both regionally and at the global level. For that reason, international relations envisage collective security as a safety net – to the extent possible. An individualistic world means that the entrenched order is more open to newer players. Longstanding collective positions may become less rigid.
In the security domain, he thinks that there will be a departure from the old group-think to more contemporary pragmatism. There are new coalitions of convenience on global issues like counterterrorism, maritime security, non-proliferation or climate change. As the world moves in the direction of more plurilateralism, result-oriented cooperation starts to look more attractive.
Dr Jaishankar assesses that India has to carefully navigate its way in the near future, whose contours are starting to define themselves. Leading nations will be more nationalistic. Power distribution will continue to spread and multipolarity will accelerate. “But greater players will not mean better rules; probably quite the opposite. As new capabilities and domains rise, global rules will struggle to keep pace. … At various levels of global politics, balances of power will be sought and often achieved. Loose and practical arrangements of cooperation will proliferate across geographies. Some will be composed of the like-minded, others more opportunistic, and still more, a mix of the two. Regional politics and local balances will gain importance.”
India, he continues, will have to engage a broader set of partners more creatively. The transactional bazaar will bring together frenemies, grappling with the compulsions of globalization. “Nations will have to forge issue-based relationships that can often be pulling them in different directions. Keeping many balls up in the air and reconciling commitments to multiple partners takes great skill. There will be convergence with many but congruence with none. Finding common points to engage with as many power centres will characterize diplomacy.”
The world, as Dr Jaishankar sees it, is in transition and a multipolar world with frenemies, balance of power and a clash of values today presents a challenge for global politics. The shelf-life of the old post-1945 order is declining. In a telling reflection, he writes: “India must reach out in as many directions as possible and maximize its gains…In this world of all against all, India’s goal should be to move closer towards the strategic sweet spot.” At the same time, with a mesmerizing touch, he writes, “India must be a just and fair power as well, consolidating its position as a standard bearer of the global South”.
In a caution pertinent to CARICOM, he writes: “The loose coalition of developing states will play some part, although it increasingly differentiates on issues of concern. And as multipolarity grows and discipline erodes, it is really sharper regionalism that can produce outcomes beyond the control of major powers. Multilateralism may well take a back seat as rules and norms come under greater scrutiny and the consensus among the Permanent Five (US, Russia, China, UK and France) weakens. All in all, this points to more fluidity and unpredictability.”
India is, without doubt, a leading and valuable player on the world stage, deserving of a seat on the UN Security Council. It now has the largest population of any country in the world and, like China, is a civilizational power: its values inspire the world at large. It has one of the largest economies in the world and, according to a recent article in the Financial Times, is currently the world’s largest buyer of arms.
India has made great leaps forward in its development and yet has millions of people in poverty. For these people, the situation has not improved much from the degradation described by V. S. Naipaul in his book, India: A Wounded Civilization.
Goldman Sachs projects that India’s GDP will overtake that of the Euro area in 2051 and America’s by 2075 if it maintains a growth rate of 5.8% for the next five years, 4.6 % in the 2030s and beyond. India is heavily reliant on services, which account for about 40% of its exports.
India is pincered between two hostile powers: China and Pakistan, with both of whom it has fought wars, and with both of whom the danger of conflict is ever present. On top of this, it has rebel movements within its midst, in places such as Kashmir, where Pakistan makes its presence felt.
India has been one of the historic leaders of the perhaps fading Non-Aligned Movement. It is a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Council. It is also a member of the BRICS group, whose philosophy and mission are not clear, containing as it does countries with similar aspirations such as Brazil, India, and South Africa, and countries with territorial ambitions such as China and Russia. More recently, India has been working with the USA, Japan and Australia in the QUAD group that seems to be concerting efforts to deal with any perceived aggressive behaviour on the part of China.
Next to Indonesia, India has one of the largest Muslim populations in the world that is sadly now under duress by the current government. The US State Department’s most recent Religious Freedom Report listed India among 17 countries of particular concern for their treatment of religious groups.
India has the largest diaspora in the world, with some eighteen million Indians living in various countries, including Guyana. While India is mindful of the situations of these Indians abroad, some of them precarious, its primary focus is, naturally, on the situation of the 1.4 billion Indians at home, millions of whom need relief from grinding poverty.
On the world stage, India needs to cultivate international support country by country. It has few natural allies, unlike its hostile neighbour, Pakistan, which leads, and can count on the support of, the Islamic Conference of nations that comprises almost sixty nations, including Guyana.
India’s international strategy has been historically anchored in its support for the United Nations Charter and this continues to be the case – in principle. However, India’s support for the UN is coloured by the cultivation of its vital interests, for example on the continued burning of coal.
India supports a position of non-interference in the internal affairs of States and has been distinctly against UN intervention inside Member States, something that it took a firm position against in the case of Libya. My good friend, former Indian Ambassador to the UN Hardeep Singh Puri, now a Cabinet Minister, has written a trenchant book on this.
As we saw above, Dr Jaishankar espouses a commitment to multipolarity. He does not see the world in terms of a cold war duality. He sees an emerging cast of big powers, mainly America, China, Russia and India and sees India engaging with multiple partners. He told the Economist in its issue of 17 June, 2023: “We would like to have multiple choices – And obviously try to make the best of it…Every country would like to do that.”
The Economist commented: “The emergence of new great powers – for now China and arguably India; in future perhaps Brazil, Indonesia and Nigeria – is making geopolitics more complicated and prone to the sorts of contradictions and trade-offs that Indian foreign policy embraces. India is not only maintaining its lucrative relationship with Russia as a hedge against the West. It also considers its partnership with Russia as a means to limit Russian support for its two major adversaries, Pakistan and China.”
This, then, is the world that the still restless young State, the Dear Land of Guyana, will need to navigate during its forthcoming membership of the UN Security Council. Like Sun Tzu’s Art of War, and Machiavelli’s The Prince, Jaishankar’s India Way should be on the bed-side reading table of the strategists of Guyana’s foreign policy – especially The Helmsmen.
