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203 CHAPTER 11 Impulses: Trends that will Shape India’s World Samir Saran, Sunjoy Joshi and Ashok Singh T he emergence of BRICS has certainly been accompanied by a variety of discussions on its usefulness, cohesiveness, efficacy and purpose. Many commentators and analysts today question the rationale and usefulness of such a group due to the perceived and real difference in approaches of individual members on global governance issues, security policies and their larger external engagements. While many of these commentaries may be ill informed, their assertions should not be dismissed and certainly merit greater analysis and discussion. Such analysis must account for the internal drivers that will shape the behaviour and preferences of a nation across a variety of issues. This is important, as today we find innumerable instances of a nation’s external relationships constructed around coincident interests. The world in the 20th century, where relationships were based on ideology and geography, has transformed dramatically to one of today, where we see nations gather together around issues and where there are no rigid poles around which nations must choose to align. Accordingly, it is important to understand whether such national preferences could shape complementary and compatible partnerships in the global arena. In this chapter we try to analyse India’s contemporary domestic developments , the rapid social transformation (or the lack of) and the growing aspirations that may have significant bearing on its priorities and choices, both internal and external. For close to half a century, the West blinking through its Cold War lenses acknowledged the presence of countries like India because of their obstinacy about charting an ‘independent’ course. Simultaneously India’s grinding poverty engaged Western institutions in aid philanthropy as a civilisation that yet offered a unique blend of liberalism, mystique and spirituality. At the turn of this century, a new India was discovered. The Malthusian gloom and doom of mathematical progressions did a somersault – the population numbers now represented an ever-growing pool of 204 CHAPTER 11 educated, English-speaking and technically capable human resources with an unquantifiable economic potential. This was the arrival of ‘Confident India’, ‘Engaging India’, and sobriquets for what was in essence ‘Consuming India’ – its large poverty-stricken population the feeder of an ever-burgeoning middle class. The romance of its unimpeachable democratic credentials made ‘Rising India’ a potential ally, with the narrative of ‘shared values’ creating a common ground. However, at its core, the ‘Rising India’ or ‘Emerging India’ narrative rested at best on one word: potential – another name for hope fuelled by the economic aspirations of the West itself – the dream of an ever-growing middle class which, in becoming the nucleus for consumption-led growth, would keep its own assembly lines running unstoppably into the future. According to the IMF, in the five years from 2005 to 2010, while the euro zone grew by 15 per cent and the US by 16 per cent, India grew at an enviable 67 per cent (after adjusting for purchasing power parity). Consumer spending in developing Asia remained surprisingly resilient during the economic downturn of 2008. The BRICS economies continued to outpace global growth during this period. 2009 saw global GDP shrink for the first time since 1946 – the end of World War II. Amidst this meltdown, emerging economies like China and India stood apart – economic powerhouses refusing to slow down. This exceptional growth became the basis for the narrative of an India whose time had come, and this narrative was eagerly lapped up by a credulous multitude desperate for an awakening into their school textbook dreams about the glory that had been India. Three years after the global financial crisis – with annual GDP growth rate threatening to slip below six per cent warning levels – the textbooks began to more than fray at the edges. Hope has suddenly given way to despair and, in an orgy of self-flagellation, assessment after assessment has vented frustration and disappointment at a story that petered out in the middle of the script. Policy paralysis, chaotic governance and contradictory priorities within the Union of India now make even the European Union look cohesive and organised. And yet this very visible political churning must be recognised as an irrevocable deepening of democracy. It must be seen as the expression of an incipient revolt against the thinly disguised feudal patronage system that served to subvert its democratic institutions. This revolt has made ‘Argumentative India’ even louder as it seeks to contest for and reclaim every inch of economic and...

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