In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

246 CHAPTER 13 India’s South-South and Emerging Power Dilemma: IBSA–BRICS Equation Hari Hara Subramaniam Viswanathan T he process of globalisation has had many consequences, both intended and unintended. One of the unintended consequences was the need to modify some of the old simplistic categorisations. A more sophisticated paradigm was needed to look at the new roles that many of the erstwhile developing countries started to play. It was no longer valid to divide the globe cleanly into the first, second and third worlds. Many developing countries like India, when they started emerging as fast growing economies, had to play multiple roles. One could even look at them as multiple identities . The fact that their economies were growing did not mean that they were no longer developing. That role continued to have relevance. So was the concept of South-South co-operation which proved to be an effective engagement between the developing countries during the Cold War days. Added to this is the emergence of a multitude of new multi-lateral groups. The aim of this paper is to look at these multiple identities of a country like India and the challenges involved in balancing them. If we look at recent history, it will be evident that India, though a developing country with serious financial constraints, has been an active player in South-South cooperation. Many developing countries benefited from India’s modest but effective cooperation over the past five decades. After the reforms and the opening up of the Indian economy in 1991, India started getting absorbed more and more into the global economy. Thanks to the IT and services sectors, India started playing a critical role in global economic growth. In the new millennium India has been registering impressive growth rates. After the global financial crisis of 2008, India was one of the few countries which continued to register positive growth. That is why India is included in the list of emerging powers. These achievements notwithstanding , India faces huge challenges in the areas of poverty reduction, inclusive growth, health, education and infrastructure. In that respect, it is still among the developing countries with low per-capita incomes. There are 247 INDIA’S SOUTH-SOUTH AND EMERGING POWER DILEMMA: IBSA–BRICS EQUATION also other identities that India has acquired by virtue of being a member of groups like IBSA, BRICS, RIC, G-20 and SCO. Are these different identities creating a dilemma for India and her foreign policy? Or can these be used to leverage India’s increasing profile on the world stage? One has to note that these different identities are by no means mutually exclusive. There is a significant level of overlap in their areas of interest and issues. How India juggles these various identities successfully and harmoniously is the point of interest. It should also be remembered that this is not a situation peculiar to India. Many countries including other emerging powers face these challenges. It appears that, in a multi-polar world in future, the important poles need not be only nation states but influential poles could be formed by groupings like the above. Of course, there will be criss-crossing of convergences and divergences between the groupings and within this dynamic policies will evolve. SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION This is a term which has been in existence for quite some time now. But until the end of the Cold War it was used in the context of North-South dialogue which meant engagement between the developed and the developing world. This was based on the ‘donor-recipient’ model and history has proved that the model was not effective enough to address the problems of poverty, growth and development of the ‘third world’, as it was described at that time. ‘The concept of South-South cooperation had evolved from being concerned with geo-politics and opposing imperialism, global racism and colonialism to an emphasis on geo-economics and political economy.’1 The emergence of new economies like BRICS raises the important question of the benefits and prospects for the entire South. Should the poor countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America be circumspect when emerging countries like BRICS talk of South-South cooperation? The question also arises about the role and relevance of a group like the G-77. While it is true that the old rhetoric of the G-77 such as anti-imperialism, anti-racism and anti-colonialism and so on may be rather out-dated today, the group has a convergence...

Share