Act and Intent: India has a very challenging history and geography. The geography gave it a strategic placement in South Asia with the natural advantage of looking towards the Indian and Pacific Oceans from the South; it has land connectivity with the West and North-East Asia from the North. Its history has been dotted with multiple invaders and imperial powers. The repeated violation of its sovereignty gave the foreign rulers huge opportunity to siphon off India’s precious resources and national wealth.
The rulers had designed the extended imperial period to ensure they got all the fruits of the natural wealth. They also made sure that native Indians did not rise to any position of authority. This was very well orchestrated in almost every walk of life. Most startling descriptions come from the ‘participation’ of Indian troops in World Wars I & II. In World War I Indian troops under the British Indian Army took part in the British campaign of Western Front, Gallipoli, East Africa, Mesopotamia, and Egypt to name a few. British Army Officers controlled the Indian troops who filled the ranks.
To put it in perspective, the disconnect between act and intent was startingly disjoint for Indians to be fighting on foreign soil. India as a nation had no disputes with those countries whatsoever but still, its men were sacrificing their blood for people who put themselves in command of things. The extended period of foreign rule, which unfortunately India had to endure, created two fundamental conditioning; one among the native Indians of that era to look up to instructions and orders from Western rulers; and second among the elite West, as Indians didn’t matter in any capacity, they only exist to follow what they will decide is the ‘right way’!
Resilience & Vision
It is important to know the history, it may be dark, but it traces the path we as a nation have walked on. We must know how our present struggles and efforts will shape the future trajectory and where it should collectively lead us. Since India took its destiny into its own hands, on 15th August 1947, it realised it was like a new born baby with challenges galore just to survive. The circumstances only created bigger difficulties. The artificially created trauma of partition, the war that the country fought with meagre resources overcoming poverty and hunger, and still an ongoing struggle to ‘unite the nation’ under one flag. These were not small challenges, they had the potential to overwhelm the national focus and push an implosion, and many would be expecting exactly that to happen.
India’s history has been dotted with multiple invaders and imperial powers. The repeated violation of its sovereignty gave the foreign rulers huge opportunity to siphon off India’s precious resources and national wealth
India overcame such difficulties, remained united, and followed the iconic constitutional democracy, it is a testament to its resilience, the vision of its founding leaders, and the sheer hard work of the nation as a whole. This is the realism that the country has celebrated every Independence Day since 1947 and it is worthy of celebrations.
Indian growth has been a stellar story of resilience and vision, almost all the marquee moments in the nation’s history would commend these two aspects. We chose to follow our path through Non-Aligned Movement when the global theme was to ‘join the club’. We struggled to feed adequately to our poor population but had the vision to embark upon a space programme that would benefit our agrarian heartland and turn the nation into the global food basket. During the mischievously thrust Kargil War, the nation decided to maintain the sanctity of LoC despite that entailing choosing more difficult options and highly demanding on the country.
The coronavirus pandemic, which China still audaciously continues to deny its irresponsible conduct, saw mega powers shutting out the global community to ensure their well-being. India embarked on a different mission to assist the poorest of poor nations and whosoever requested help with its Indigenous vaccine, while simultaneously struggling to contain the spread of the virus within the country. It is said, “It’s only the difficult times that show true character!” The world witnessed how India has always risen beyond its statistical capabilities to support the global cause without expecting acknowledgment while the international approach mostly asks for reciprocal benefits.
Unexpected Achievements
The world now believes there’s something that has fundamentally changed in India. The global capitals are working that out, hoping to understand the nuances behind why they are now prepared to give greater importance to the same country. It’s not a voluntary action. Nothing was expected from the people who felt superior in all aspects just a few decades ago. Their attention has been drawn by strings of ‘unexpected achievements’ India has recorded and, true to its nature, has remained humble.
The world witnessed how India has always risen beyond its statistical capabilities to support the global cause without expecting acknowledgment while the international approach mostly asks for reciprocal benefits
The foremost is India continues to value its democracy and institutions as non-negotiable and an essential ingredient of its national character. That has led it to become the world’s largest democracy successfully empowering it’s almost one billion electorate to take charge of the nation’s aspirations. India has become the world’s fifth-largest economy shrugging behind more celebrated and industrialised countries. India is today’s global space and nuclear power and that achievement has been through indigenous efforts, essentially by overcoming the denial of technology and restrictive regimes. India is credited to be the world’s Food Basket and Global Pharmacy, this must be seen in the context of India being the world’s most populous nation. This achievement would have been something of a dream for any country.
While India has always professed global peace, it has not let its eyes slip any of the challenges that geopolitics is springing at an alarming frequency. Through achievable and steady means, India has become the world’s fourth most powerful military while it has a defence spending that is the third most valuable in the world. Modern India does not shy away from difficulties, it respects them. It understands the world is made of different people, different regions, different perspectives, and different challenges. It never tries to fixate everything in a straitjacketed manner. That has been key that led India to gain larger acceptability across the capitals and, in some cases, where the conflicts have been direct and relations hostile between the two countries. India continued to support Palestinians’ rights while maintaining special relations with Israel. Indian views received wide support in numerous global forums including the recently held G20 Delhi summit where India could successfully bring diverging views to a common joint summit statement.
India has become the world’s fifth-largest economy shrugging behind more celebrated and industrialised countries. India is today’s global space and nuclear power. And, India is credited with being the world’s Food Basket and Global Pharmacy
Different League
Summarily seen, the world has come to terms with the realisation to account for Indian views in major global issues from trade to climate and war to technology. This can be a cause for rightfully rejoicing in India, but it also puts that much more responsibility on the national leadership to carefully articulate India’s perspective now that it is ‘being heard’. It also demands India carefully assess each of the geopolitical developments, especially building in the region as with growing influence it’s more likely to get fouled from one corner or the other. Leaders in India will also not mind heeding one of the suggestions articulated by Global Times, which is credited to mostly running ‘coloured’ narratives. A loud headline published on March 29, 2024 in the Global Times said, “India wants a bigger global profile, but it won’t get if it’s absent on the Asian stage.”
Coming from a very hostile media there is still a sense behind this headline, which tells India needs to get out of its ‘comfort zone’. This comfort zone mostly refers to India’s muted or no-response approach on issues that are likely to be circumvented shortly and pose a challenge to its national interest. A nation’s readiness to work that extra mile if need be demands a combination of both verbal responses and visible actions thereby clearly signalling its intent.
These are the essentials to indicate national thought process to friends as well as foes, and it must be done timely. India understands it is now in a different league playing some new games. The rules here will surely be different -there cannot be ‘no show, no free passes, and no prizes’ for the runners-up!
-The writer has varied experience in the security paradigm and is a keen follower of global geopolitics. His work has been regularly featured in national publications. Visit newsanalytics.in to access more articles from the writer
