Western scholars and policymakers are paying a critical attention to India because it has credible record of democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, minority rights, and religious tolerance along with sustainable economic development over the last two-and-half decades
As the 2015 G20 Summit meeting at Antalya, Turkey, took place against the backdrop of the November 13 Paris terror attacks, the long-awaited agenda for the reform of global institutions, particularly IMF and World Bank, did not make much headway.
The final G20 Summit declaration hardly reflects any substantial change except inclusion in its communique´ of G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors’ Meeting that “We remain deeply disappointed with the continued delay in the progress of the 2010 IMF quota and governance reforms. We reaffirm that their earliest implementation is essential for the credibility, legitimacy and effectiveness of the fund and remains our highest priority. We strongly urge the United States to ratify the 2010 reforms as soon as possible.”
The communiqué only reflects a deep division within G20 about the aspects of reforms of global financial institutions. The idea of reform of institutions of global governance, particularly UNSC, IMF and World Bank, gained currency after Kofi Anan’s draft proposal of reforming the Security Council in 2005, economic collapse of South East Asian countries in 1997, and the development of BRICS. Moreover, the increasing failure of unilateralism of Pax-Americana along with 2008 economic crisis that engulfed the United States, Europe and other parts of developed world — all combined — drove the point that global challenges of peace, security, terror, democracy and sustainable development are possible only with meaningful participation of emerging economies represented by BRICS and other non-Western leading members of G20 in the decision-making structure of institutions of global governance.
The growing disjunction between relative decline of the North/West and its continued monopoly over global power structure, and the rise of emerging economies of South/non-Western countries (such as India, China, Brazil, Russia, Mexico, Turkey, South Korea, etc) and its continued exclusion from global power structure is too visible to be ignored. The formation of the G-20 is the recognition of this emerging political reality of the globe.
Dubbed as ‘Asian Driver of Global Changes,’ India and China are expected to play leading role in reform of institutions of global governance. Scholarly debates, particularly in the West, on this subject range from attempts of Global South to replace the North-dominated instruments of global governance, to one of accommodation of leading members of Global South as India, China and Brazil within the existing West-led global structure of dominance.
However, beneath these debates, there are two specific concerns among the large number of Western scholars: (A) most of the emerging economies are State-led capitalism and therefore undermine the Washington consensus on “free market” and (B) these emerging economies signifies a varying degree of political authoritarianism and hence would not be committed to the idea of global governance based on “democracy” and “human rights”, which supposedly underpins the West-dominated structure of global governance.
For these reasons, Western scholars and policymakers are paying a critical attention to India, as among all emerging economies India has credible record of democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, minority rights, and religious tolerance along with sustainable economic development over the last two-and-half decades.
Will India conform to the expectation of the West without compromising its independent foreign policy and legacy of Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)IJ Will India abandon the cause of Global South while seeking an accommodation within the West-dominated global institutions of governanceIJ
The scholarly debates within India on these questions reflect two positions: Ranging from selling out the independent legacy of foreign policy and becoming a junior partner to US-led global order as evident from India’s negative vote against Iran in IAEA and abandoning the cause of Palestine, to lack of power approach towards international politics as evident from its refusal to participate in many of the US-led global invasion in the name of fighting “terrorism” or “democracy promotion” or prevention of “Weapons of Mass Destruction”.
It seems that these positions are misplaced and results from understanding of NAM in terms of product of bi-polar structure of international relations or ideological justification of mixed economy or what is called “command economy” in Indian phraseology and hence was/is expected to lose its relevance with change in the international as well as in domestic political and economic context.
However, the Non-Aligned was/is not opposed to political alignment, but rather opposed to being a part of military blocks/alliance. This partly explains why India can move with an ease from once being politically aligned to the USSR to now being increasingly tilted towards the USA in accordance with change in international structure but without becoming a part of military alliance sponsored by either party and without surrendering its right to differ from either of political entity from one issue to another.
Moreover the Non-Aligned approach with its features of non-ideological, anti-hegemonic, multilateralism, pragmatism, gradualism, moralism and fuzziness blends well with the process of globalisation and helps India in expanding and strengthening its ties across the divide of North and South, and visualises its role in any reformed structure of global governance as one of balancer between North and South.
It is this latitudinal elasticity of the NAM that helps India skillfully navigate and strike a balance between the aspirations and demands of South and dominations of North during the process of negotiation at multilateral institutions of global governance, whether related to trade, finance, intellectual property rights, security, climate, service, etc.
Though India’s thrust on reform of Security Council with possible inclusion of itself as “permanent member with veto power” does reflect its historically nurtured aspiration to acquire the status of major/global power, however it is also guided by India’s vision of multi-polar world with a commitment to strengthening multilateralism and global multilateral institutions, a key aspects of NAM, that had been systematically marginalised under the aegis of Pax Americana.
The concern for multilateralism and Global South also led India to secure the right of “food security” within the structure of WTO and making free the large part of South from the binding GHG emission within UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) — the two thorny issues that blocked the multilateral negotiations for decade. Though India, particularly under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has raised the international profile of the country, its capacity to perform as an effective global actor is marred by its incapacity to secure a peaceful regional periphery and a high-level of social and economic inequality, income disparity, high index of poverty, lack of basic facilities and infrastructure, and recurring incidence of caste, linguistic, communal and class violence at domestic level.
(The writer is a doctoral student at Centre for West Asian Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia)