The year 2023 will go down in history as a crucial one. Globally, there may not have been many transformative events from a geopolitical perspective which also includes the lack of a headway in the protracted Russia-Ukraine conflict. But despite prevalence of similar dynamics at the systemic level, for India 2023 would be noted as a year that was marked by many key developments.
First, India surpassed China as the most populous country in the world this year, thus ending the Middle Kingdom’s even older than a century record. This may not seem a big deal today, but these demographic changes have the potential to snowball into India’s economic progress in the decades to come while China will be left grappling with an ageing population and slowing economy. Besides this, India also hosted its maiden G20 summit successfully this year which was marked by multiple feats, including the entry of African Union in G20 making it G20+1, a consensus-based outcome of the summit in the form of Delhi Declaration, and launching of India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor.
An important highlight of the G20 summit organised by India was the way it reached out to the countries of the global south. For the first time in the history of the summit, a special outreach towards countries of the global south was done by the host nation when India organised a Voice of Global South Summit in January 2023. The idea behind this was to brainstorm with developing countries on issues of common concerns such as energy security and incorporate their voices in the agenda of the G20 summit.
What’s interesting is that India organised the second edition of Voice of Global South Summit the same year in November 2023, though this time in a virtual mode. The mandate of this summit was to discuss ways of making global supply chains inclusive and resilient with its fellow developing countries. As year closes by, it can be safely declared that India has indeed made a dedicated effort to secure its diplomatic outreach in the Global South. But is this a new facet in India’s behaviour at the global level or a precedent for this exists?
Since its Independence, India has always made a common cause with the developing world. On the eve of independence when the early contours of foreign policy were being laid out in the constituent assembly, Prime Minister JL Nehru had outrightly decided to stay away from usual power politics and steer India towards the concerns of fellow decolonised countries. The logic was two-fold.
First, India didn’t have tangible power in the form of a strong economy or military to flex its muscles in the domain of great power games at that time. And second, Nehru’s India wanted to champion the cause of the third world on its own. This had much to do with the Nehruvian world view according to which moral imperatives and not power play must guide a country’s global behaviour.
Resultantly, India chased the chimera of ideological non-alignment even as it time and again faced material challenges in the form of the Kashmir raids in 1948 or the 1962 China war. Despite seeking help from reigning great powers such as United States to ward off the China threat during the 1962 War, Nehru’s India was firmly in the grip of non-alignment. Ironically, this policy didn’t prevent India to tilt very closely towards Soviet Union under Nehru’s successor Indira Gandhi. But for many decades thereafter it took on the form of an anti-west sentiment in India’s foreign policy. There were certain moments of breakthroughs in India’s relationship with the west including the post-liberalisation phase after the cold war when PM PV Narsimha Rao made a 6-day tour to United States that positioned India as a country that meant business.
Equally significant was President Bill Clinton’s visit to India in the year 2000 and the backchannel diplomacy between then-Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh and Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott that laid the groundwork for the civil nuclear agreement signed under UPA government thereafter. But despite these developments, overall, the sentiment of an anti-West hangover in India’s foreign policy remained until 2014. This was not only evident in the Manmohan Singh government’s apprehension in endorsing the emerging security architecture in the Indo-Pacific but also in its dilly-dallying tactic in signing foundational agreements to operationalise military partnership with the US.
The anti-West hangover was a result of the ideological leftovers that were not only present within Congress but also in the leftist political parties that made a point to blackmail Singh government by flexing its numbers in the parliament. One can’t also deny the role played by China appeasers in the leftist camp and within the ruling dispensation as well.
Since 2014, in a long break from the Nehruvian policy of non-alignment which was keeping India’s national interest hostage to the whims of ideological relationships, India has achieved a much-needed balance in its foreign policy where it is now courting countries in the west as a key partner but is also reaching out to the global south. Under PM Modi, India has made rapid strides in improving its relationship with the West. The biggest example of this is the India-US relationship. Despite there being a lot of detractors of this equation, truth is that the convergence of interests between India and US has been sealed fantastically in the form of India’s endorsement of the notion of Indo-Pacific, India’s proactive interest in Quad grouping and its signing of foundational agreements such as LEMOA, BECA and COMCASA with the US that has given their military relationship a heads up. All of this has been achieved in the last decade only.
The same is true for India’s relations with rest of the western countries which are now firmly entrenched in the twin driving forces of economic and security partnership. Nearly every single country in the western hemisphere counts India as a key partner in its vision or policy regarding Indo-Pacific. Despite the closer shift towards the west, India’s commitment towards Global South hasn’t got diluted even one bit. But its character has changed for better.
In the early decades after independence, India’s ideological choice of non-alignment alienated it from its own self-interest. Many countries in the neighbourhood such as Singapore and Indonesia deviated from the non-aligned mindset to pursue tangible goals of economic development and military security, but India got stuck in a rut. A similar misjudgement was made under Indira Gandhi administration as well when India went on the path of economic activism on the behalf of developing countries such as in the form of G77, but its own development goals fell short of getting achieved. In comparison, China comes across as the better Asian power that not only managed to hoodwink West into supporting its own rise, but it also engaged with the developing world from a business-minded perspective only.
In a break from the past, today India’s outreach to the global south is from a position of capability and not ideology. Thanks to its economic growth in the last few years, India’s status as the fifth largest economy in the world and a soon-to-be third largest economy by the turn of this decade, India has launched multiple initiatives to support the economic development of its partners in the developing world. A good example is the African continent where not only the Indian foreign aid but also trade deals and investment are on an upswing. By 2030, total Indian investment in the region will reach $150 billion. India is willing to share its new-found expertise in multiple domains with countries in the global south which includes its digital public infrastructure resources such as the UPI, Aadhaar and Digital Locker.
Similarly, development partnership with India has benefitted more than 65 countries in the form of 306 Lines of Credit extended for various purposes. India-backed infrastructure which can help these countries in realising their development goals unlike the still-born or debt-trapping projects of Belt and Road initiative has started to bloom in many countries. The best part about India’s outreach to the global south today is that it is not coming from an ideological perspective of opposing the West and hence ruining India’s gains from the countries in the northern hemisphere. Instead, India is making the most of its partnership with the West while at the same time voicing the concerns of the global south.
The author is a PhD from the Department of International Relations, South Asian University. She writes on India’s foreign policy. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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