‘India’s leadership ambitions remain unrealised’

The long-held dream of becoming a regional and global front-runner that India has harbored for more than seven decades, remains unrealised, according to a South Asia expert.

In his analysis, Ashley J. Tellis, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, states that the second-most populous country cannot play a larger role on the world stage, without restoring its economic momentum and liberal credentials.

Published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington D.C-based foreign-policy think tank, the analysis titled ‘India’s path to the big Leagues’ suggests that New Delhi needs a new approach to revive its hopes of joining the club of great powers.

Tellis, who has severed as a senior adviser to the ambassador at the US diplomatic mission in New Delhi and on the National Security Council staff as special assistant to former US president George W. Bush, talks about a variety of issues, including tensions around religion and citizenship that stirred domestic politics under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

According Carnegie’s Tellis, India will have fewer partners in the west if the country continues to dilute its liberal character. Such policies, the analysis alludes, will only remind the world more of India’s extant weaknesses than of its strengths.

On India’s ability to control the region, it once hoped to dominate as a power, Tellis said: “India’s economic weakness has diminished its capacity to control its own neighborhood even as it has fortified other global ties.” Falling short of calling India an isolated nation in the region, Tellis said: “I see a region that is changing unfavorably from the viewpoint of Indian interests.”

Earlier this year, India found itself at the centre of awkward territorial disputes with Nepal and China, its most powerful neighbour in the region. Responding to a question about the border dispute with China, the former special assistant to president Bush said, “The Indian leaders need to recognize that the Chinese threat cannot be either charmed or wished away.” To deter China at all levels, Tellis said, India needs adequate resources. “India needs sufficient resources to sustain its military modernization, strong partnerships with key outside powers,” he said by email from Washington D.C.

On the state of secularism and democracy in India, the South Asia expert said: “India is going through a wrenching debate on what secularism really means.” Depending on the outcome, he said, India might just end up as another electoral democracy or a regional role model.

Carnegie’s Tellis attributed the country’s weaknesses since independence to economic policy failures of different kinds. “These persist today, but are exacerbated by political failures as well,” explained the South Asia expert.‎

Domestic Challenges

In another analysis on India, Milan Vaishnav, Director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, talks about the growing polarisation and centralisation of power in South Asia’s largest democracy.

Vaishnav, who also hosts Carnegie’s podcast on India, explains that both trends firmly grip the country. Centralisation of government authority, he said, is unlikely to be restrained.

Sharing three principle concerns about the state of democracy in India, Vaishnav said: “First, since 2014, India appears to have moved decisively in a more avowedly majoritarian direction— especially since the start of Prime Minister Modi's second term in May 2019.”

Second, he said, Modi has consolidated authority both within his political party as well as across the governmental machinery. “Third, the Modi government has repeatedly demonstrated contempt for dissent and sought to paint vocal critics of the government as anti-National,” said the South Asia expert by email.

According to Carnegie’s Vaishnav, the emergence of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as the central pole of Indian politics has reconfigured religious, cast and partisan dynamics in the country. Vaishnav, who is the author of ‘Rethinking of public institutions in India’, also mentioned that accountability agencies in the country have suffered a decline in their institutional integrity.

“The diminished character of accountability institutions will not only weaken India's liberal character, but it will also hurt economic dynamism in the long run,” said Vaishnav from Washington D.C.

According to Vaishnav, who examines issues such as corruption, governance, disruptive politics and state behaviour, India’s executive branch is expected to retain the upper hand on critical issues such as privacy, individual rights, and public health.

On the rising majoritarianism in India, Vaishnav said: “For one, it risks creating a two-tiered class of citizenship in which a majority community dominates all others. Second, it will hamper social inclusion and equitable development.”