THE GIST of Editorial for UPSC Exams : 09 FEBRUARY 2019 (World Without Solutions (The Indian Express)

World Without Solutions (The Indian Express)

Mains Paper 4: Society
Prelims level: Not Much
Mains level: Post independence development in Indian society

Context

•  In the  21st century, all global paradigms seem to be coming apart because humanity has lost its moorings.
•  The liberal order faces challenges, an anti-mercantilist global economy is losing the glue, and democracy itself does not seem to be a useful device to hold nation-states together.
•  Outside the Western world, religion is making a comeback to recreate what scholars in the West had named the Dark Age.

The Ruins of Empire

•  The Revolt against the West and the Remaking of Asia, he tried to understand the minds of great Asian leaders — Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru in India, Liang Qichao and Sun Yat-sen in China, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Abdurreshial Ibrahim in the Ottoman Empire.
•  He describes these leaders as “outsiders” within the main anti-colonial tradition.
•  India also ignored Ashoka, its greatest Buddhist king, who didn’t write his name on his edicts, didn’t recognise caste, and told people never to denigrate the religion of others nor praise their own.
•  India focused, instead, on “Westernisation”.
•  India’s “Western-style modernity” radiating from Bollywood films and post Nehruvian high-growth capitalism readying itself for internal and external conflict.
•  2014 Indian voters, elected Hindu supremacists to power Islamic State became a magnet for young men and women in Western democracies Britain voted to leave the European Union.

Conclusion

•  It is remarkable that in India, the Romantic poets like William Wordsworth were more influential than the Victorian poets.
•  So, where have we landed in the 21st century?
•  In a world of inequality of wealth, brawling people and nations with no solutions in sight.
•  Islamist Pakistan and Hindu India as neighbours “driven by the narcissism of small differences”.

Online Coaching for UPSC PRE Exam

General Studies Pre. Cum Mains Study Materials

Prelims Questions:

Q.1) Which of the following are participants of Moscow Format?
1. India
2. Taliban
3. United States

Select the correct answer from the codes given below:
(a) 2 only
(b) 1 and 2
(c) 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3

Ans: D

Mains Questions:
Q.1) Critically evaluate how Western liberalism has failed South Asia.