THE GIST of Editorial for UPSC Exams : 15 January 2020 (The world from Raisina (The Hindu))

The world from Raisina (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: International Relations
Prelims level: Raisina Dialogue
Mains level: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India

Context:

• As the world is moving from an era of predictability to an era of unpredictability led by the US and China, a new Middle Power coalition is the need of an hour.
  Challenges towards the Rising India:
• The narrative was scripted over the two post-Cold War decades, 1991 to 2011.
• Narrative of plural secular democracy: It was based on the improving performance of the economy and India’s political ability to deal with many longstanding diplomatic challenges within a paradigm of realism.
• Three successive prime ministers – scripted the narrative of India rising as a plural, secular democracy, as opposed to China’s rise within an authoritarian system.
• Opening of new vistas: India’s improving economic performance had opened up new vistas for cooperation with major powers and neighbours.
• New challenges to the narrative: Now the economy’s subdued performance and domestic political issues have created new challenges for Indian foreign policy.
• The new approach to relations with India adopted by both President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping has created a more challenging external environment.

Relations with the US:

• Each time New Delhi has tried to meet a US demand, Washington DC has come up with new demands.
• Any resolution of US differences with China, can only reduce whatever little bargaining clout India has.
• The US has, in fact, actively lodged complaints against India at the World Trade Organisation.
• On the geopolitical side, US intervention in West Asia has always imposed an additional economic burden on India.

Relations with China:

• There has been continuity and consistency in India-China policy over the past two decades, with some ups and downs.
• As the bilateral power differential widens, China has little incentive or compulsion to be accommodative of Indian concerns, much less the interests.
• China never fails to remind India of the growing power differential between the two.
• In dealing with China, India will have to, paraphrasing Deng Xiaoping, “build its strength and bide its time.

Russia’s focus:

• It will remain focused on Eurasian geopolitics.
• It will also be concerned with the geo-economics of energy.
• Both these factors define Russia’s relations with China, and increasingly, with Pakistan, posing a challenge for India.

Way forward in the relations with Pakistan

• The government’s Pakistan policy has run its course.
• It yielded some short-term results thanks to Pakistan’s efforts not to get “black-listed” by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
• But the rest of the world is doing business with Pakistan, lending billions in aid.
• The global community may increasingly accept future pleas from Pakistan that terror attacks in India are home-grown.
• Related to the situation in Kashmir or concerns about the welfare of Muslims, unless incontrovertible evidence to the contrary is offered.
• The need for a new Pakistan policy: Backchannel talks should be resumed and visas should be given liberally to Pakistani intellectuals, media and entertainers to improve cross-border perceptions as a first step towards improving relations.

The Middle Powers and opportunities for India:

• It is a mix of developed and developing economies, some friends of the US and other friends of China.
• It is an amorphous group but can emerge into a grouping of the like-minded in a world of uncertainty capable of taming both the US and China. A new Middle Powers coalition may be the need of the year.
• Germany, France, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Vietnam and perhaps South Korea. One could include Russia, Nigeria and South Africa also in this group.
• Like India, these countries have a stake in what the US and China do, but little influence over either.
• These countries which constitute the part of the Middle Powers should engage the attention of India’s external affairs minister.

Disruptive policies not an option:

• There is a view among some policy analysts that India too can adopt a “disruptive” approach as a clever tactic in foreign affairs.
• Disruption is not an end in itself. It has to be a means to an end.
• Powerful nations can afford disruption as tactics.
• The strategic elements defining Indian foreign policy in the post-Cold War era have not changed.
• India cannot risk such tactics without measuring the risk they pose to strategy.

Conclusion:

• With the changing geopolitical atmosphere particularly with respect to the US and Chiana, India needs to adopt a suitable approach to its foreign policy especially involving the Middle Powers.

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Prelims Questions:

Q1. With reference to the All India Oriental Conference (AIOC), consider the following statements:
1. It was founded in 1918 by the founders of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI) with a pan Indian dialogue of Indological scholars in view.
2. It is an annual Conference.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer: A
Mains Questions:
Q1. How Raisina dialogue is significant for India’s strategic and foreign policy?