Big things are happening now in the South Asian giant. This year, India serves as the chairman of the G20 countries and is about to overtake China as the world’s most populous country.
Despite the difficulties in world trade, the Indian economy is predicted to grow by a good six percent this year, which is the fastest among large countries.
It has been noticed in the power centers of the world that India’s weight is increasing. That is why, for example, the United States, the EU and Russia are seeking wider cooperation with India.
In this story, we open India’s emerging role in the rapidly changing world politics.
The war in Ukraine made India reassess its position
India has been a friend of both Western countries and Russia. In connection with the war in Ukraine, it has tried to strike a balance between the different parties.
In the West, India has been criticized for not condemning Russia’s attack at the UN and not joining the forced labor.
According to experts, there is a practical reason for this, that India has not turned its back on its long-term partner Russia.
– India wants to maintain its autonomy. It does not want to be pressured in any matter, especially regarding Ukraine, says in a video call TV Paul.
He works as a professor of international relations at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
According to Paul, India does not fully share the West’s view that Russia should be isolated. India believes that an isolated Russia may become more dangerous to the current world order.
– To some extent, India wants to maintain its relationship with Russia, because it does not want Russia and China to ally. It would be a disaster for India. The balance of power must be taken into account here, says Paul.
The partnership between India and Russia dates back to the Cold War era, when the Soviet Union supported India.
Russia is still India’s main arms supplier, and the country’s armed forces depend on Russian spare parts.
The most senior in the West have already accused India of being Russia’s henchman, because it has multiplied its oil purchases from Russia after the start of the war in Ukraine.
India works like this because no one is stopping it.
India in a decisive role between China and the USA
The United States looks down on India’s energy deals with Russia, because from Washington’s point of view, good relations with India are more important than Russia’s watertight trade embargo, says a professor of political science at Indiana University Sumit Ganguly.
Ganguly, who specializes in Indian foreign policy, has made his career at US universities. In addition, he is a member of the influential The Council on Foreign Relations think tank.
According to Ganguly, the United States looks at India primarily through China glasses.
– The United States needs India to stem the growth of China’s influence, says Ganguly.
According to him, the foreign policy leadership of the United States understands that India’s refusal of Russian oil would lead to major economic difficulties in the country and thus domestic political upheaval.
And right now India should be stable.
If the world’s most populous country is firmly in the camp of liberal democracies and foreign policy against China, the budding new cold war between Beijing and Washington will look better for the West.
This is not an impossible dream.
– India accepts the US-led world order. Unlike China, it does not seek to change it, TV Paul estimates.
As recently as a decade ago, many in Washington saw Russia as the most important, long-term partner in taming China.
However, as China’s influence grew, US relations with Russia began to weaken year by year. After the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the idea of a possible partnership was buried.
– Now India has definitively replaced Russia, says Professor Ganguly.
However, it is unclear how willing India is to support the United States in the fight against authoritarian regimes.
Among India’s foreign policy elite, there is a deep distrust of the United States stemming from its Cold War history. Washington’s fraternization, sometimes with Pakistan and sometimes with China, has not been forgotten.
Many in Delhi also yearn for so-called strategic autonomy, even though it never existed, according to Professor Ganguly.
– In the end, the Cold War set the framework within which India could operate. It wasn’t independence, Ganguly sums up.
Russia can become a burden for India
The war in Ukraine has exposed the vulnerabilities of India’s defense policy due to excessive reliance on Russia, estimates Harsh Pant in a video call from Delhi.
Pant is a professor of international relations at King’s College London and vice-chairman of the research and foreign policy department at the Observer Research Foundation, an Indian think tank.
– If Russia continues this war against Ukraine and the wider West for the next months and years, it will greatly reduce Russia’s ability to help India in the defense sector, says Pant.
Russia, which has become the target of extensive economic sanctions from Western countries, has presented For India from the list of products (you will switch to another service), which it would like Indian companies to supply to Russia. The list includes automotive components and chemicals, among other things.
According to Pant, India is reluctant to export goods to Russia that could make India a target for Western sanctions.
According to him, a new era will begin in the relations between India and Russia if the rapprochement between Russia and China continues.
Pant estimates that if the Russia-China axis becomes stronger in the future, India’s ties to the West will become closer and at the same time India’s relationship with Russia will deteriorate.
China, China, China
Like the United States, India considers China to be the most serious security threat. In particular, the long-term border dispute is causing friction between the countries.
India and China are at odds over where exactly the long border between them in the Himalayas runs.
This video of a previous border skirmish spread on Twitter in December. It shows Indians armed with sticks driving the Chinese away from the hilltop.
Until now, the soldiers have fought with sticks and stones, but an escalation of the situation may lead to the use of firearms. Then there might be a need for Russian arms deliveries.
This is one reason why India has not condemned Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
– When Indian soldiers fight with Chinese soldiers on the border, India cannot publicly anger Russia, says Pant.
India and China fought a brief war over a border dispute in 1962, when China made a surprise attack and drove Indian troops off the border in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh.
The conflict ended when China mostly withdrew from the territories it occupied.
– In recent years, there has been a widespread view in India that China does not want a stable relationship with it, says Pant.
According to him, there is a consensus among Indian decision-makers that if China does not show a genuine desire to resolve the border issue, it will be difficult for India to return to the pre-2020 situation and normalize relations between the two countries.
In addition to the border dispute, India is also annoyed by, for example, China’s opposition to India’s admission as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
Eyes turned to the Indo-Pacific region
As border disputes escalate, India has increasingly joined the camp of the West.
One tool in damming China’s influence is the Quad group, which includes the United States, India, Japan and Australia.
Officially, the Quad does not work against China, but in practice its purpose is to counter China’s power aspirations in the Indo-Pacific region.
– China does not want India as a competitor in the Indo-Pacific region. China wants to dominate and supplant the United States. This is where India becomes somewhat of a spoilsport for China, says Paul.
India’s armed forces have the third largest budget in the world after the US and China. Among other things, India has nuclear powered submarines and last fall it launched another aircraft carrier.
However, the performance of the armed forces is primarily based on large, poorly equipped land forces.
– India lacks a large-scale competitive military industry capable of producing functioning weapon systems, says Professor Ganguly.
However, reforming the land forces alone is not enough if India wants to become a significant military power.
– India should direct a significantly larger part of its defense budget to the navy if it wants to become a strong player in the Indo-Pacific region, says professor TV Paul.
Internal unrest is a foreign policy problem
Better armed forces and a strong economy alone do not guarantee a country’s rise to a superpower.
The growth of India’s influence is hindered by the fact that it is one of the most unequal countries in the world, says Professor Ganguly from Indiana University.
India is prosperous, but at the same time, next to the skyscrapers, there is extreme poverty, which we are used to seeing mainly in sub-Saharan Africa – not in developing Asia.
In China and the United States, wealth is much more evenly distributed. According to Professor Ganguly, this will have a big impact on India’s foreign policy in the long run.
Inequality leads to internal unrest in the country and a still fluctuating foreign policy.
– A very unequal society cannot survive as a superpower, because there will always be internal unrest in the country, sums up Professor Ganguly.
You can discuss the topic on Sun 22.1. until 11 p.m.