Dan Banik and Suhasini Haidar discuss the kind of global power India aspires to be and the potential dilemmas of its great power ambitions.
India's journey from a post-colonial nation to a global powerhouse has been nothing short of remarkable. The journey to this point has been marked by twists and turns, economic reforms, and strategic partnerships that have propelled India onto the world stage in ways that were once unimaginable. In the process, it has become an economic powerhouse, fostering innovation, trade, and partnerships that have set the world abuzz.
But India's story isn't just about impressive economic growth. It's also about the democratic values that shape its identity. Indeed, India's status as the world's largest democracy empowers it to play a pivotal role in shaping global governance and navigating the geopolitical terrain. How then has India harnessed its diverse culture, technological prowess, and military might to expand its global reach? What kind of global power does India aspire to be? And what are the potential dilemmas in India’s great power ambitions?
Suhasini Haidar is the Diplomatic Editor of The Hindu, one of India’s oldest and most respected national dailies. She was previously correspondent for CNN International’s New Delhi bureau and prime time anchor for a leading 24-hr English news channel CNN-IBN. Apart from writing for The Hindu, she hosts a weekly online show called WorldView with Suhasini Haidar. @suhasinih
Note: This episode was recorded in New Delhi in July 2023, well the BRICS summit in August that resulted in an expansion of the BRICS group of countries, and before the G20 Leaders’ Declaration that was adopted at the G20 New Delhi Leaders’ Summit held in September.
Key highlights:
Host:
Professor Dan Banik (@danbanik @GlobalDevPod)
Subscribe:
https://globaldevpod.substack.com/
Banik
Suhasini, welcome to the show. It's so nice to see you again and wonderful to see you in Delhi in person.
Haidar
Thank you, Dan. It really is a privilege to be on the show, to see my name amongst very, very illustrious practitioners of the policy as well as academics and real great thinkers of our time.
Banik
I wanted to get us started by talking a little bit about how things have changed in terms of Indian foreign policy. I was mentioning this to you just a few moments ago that when I left India, in 1991, India was seen to be very different from how India's viewed today. I remember it was very difficult to buy certain things, to travel outside, you could only get $500 in foreign exchange. And now when I come back to India it's a different world. But also, within India there is, I think now, a different kind of perception about India's place in the world. And I was looking at something that you've also written about, and I think you had a program on this that the Indian Foreign Minister recently said that one of the big, or major, outcomes of Indian foreign policy, or India's performance, the Modi government performance is on foreign policy and he said things like India's now seem to be a trusted partner, a global contributor, vaccine alliance and International Solar Alliance, it is implementing all kinds of projects in many, many countries, providing aid, stabilizing fragile economies. Sri Lanka is one case in point. So, India is doing a lot of things within India. There's this idea that it has assumed a totally different role than say 30 years ago. Is that also your impression? That India's place in the world has changed, that India has got a lot more power? And what is it that you think India should be doing more of?
Haidar
I think in a sense, Dan, you left it perhaps what was the real cusp of what was changing in India. Remember, 1991, so two major events, one was the fall of the Soviet Union and then, and of course, what followed the fall of the Berlin Wall, but also what we saw in the Gulf War, in the US. It changed India fundamentally in its outlook in several different ways, but particularly in foreign policy. The first part was India could no longer just talk about its association with the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had gone away. And I think very quickly, Indian foreign policy leadership realized that they had to look for other alternatives to diversify their, particularly, military supply chains, but also their sense of where the world was going to be. We were moving away from the Cold War and into what we came for, certainly a certain number of years a unipolar world. So, the outreach to the West, perhaps had its seeds that began there. I remember that time the Prime Minister Narasimha Rao going and addressing the US Congress, and talking about reforms, economic reforms, and it was amazing the kind of response he got there. So that was one big chunk of what was changing. The second that came from it was the economic reforms within the country that I think have changed how India is perceived. And as we all know, a country can make a lot of, you know, noise, and let out a lot of ambitions, but what really matters is how strong it is inside. And when India unleashed its internal economy, freed it up, liberalized it, that period that we've seen progress over the last 30 years, really changed India. And I think the third part, which is why I mentioned the Gulf War, was the idea that India now had to also diversify, its energy sources. And how you saw Indian diplomacy change after that, that was around the time I began as a journalist, and when we started out, Indian foreign policy meant big leaders meeting or your leader visiting, you know, going to a conference and giving some very long and boring speech. Now Indian foreign policy really means what are the deliverables. You talk about, you know what used to be really put away. The business deals that are done around the prime ministerial visit now are front and center. The energy deals are part of how you see your strategic partnership. Connectivity is part of strategic partnership. So, all of that has changed for India, I think over the course of 30 years. I do accept that in the last decade we've done a much better job of packaging ourselves, of addressing the world, and of taking advantage of the changes in the world when we're seeing us move back into a kind of much more polarized situation, whether it's US vs. China or US vs. Russia, India has been able to get the best of both worlds in a certain sense. To be a part of one world, but also be extremely attractive to the other.
Banik
Let me pick up on a couple of points you raised. One has to do with domestic power stability, economic growth, which obviously is extremely important. The second has to do with how foreign policy now increasingly, in my view, having studied India in Africa, is often connected with the growing role of Indian businesses. So, I see that Indian foreign policy, or the way in which India projects its power, not just state power, it's also the private sector power. But I have to say that one of the big things I notice, and let's say since Prime Minister Modi came to power, is that there is far more emphasis, at least on the African continent which I study, on these high-profile visits. For many years, a lot of African countries were saying that, oh, India does not seem to prioritize us. But now you have this flurry of visits by high level officials, prime ministers, presidents, etcetera. India's opening all these embassies, even in parts of Africa, which is not English speaking, French speaking, or Portuguese speaking. So, you have this perception, at least in my view, it seems that India is reaching out, perhaps more to the so-called Global South, while at the same time perhaps strengthening its relationship with the United States and others. So, India, according to some, is almost like projecting itself as a leader. Not that it was never a leader, but more of this voice of the Global South that perhaps China has also been sort of positioning itself to be this kind of a champion, right, because these are the two big economies. So, these are some of the positive things I see. But as you know, people like Martin Wolf, who I've also been interacting, with have said that while India is doing all of these good things, there is reason for being worried. Illiberalism is on the rise. A lot of my colleagues say that democracy, which is seen to be India's big selling point, soft power, is gradually eroding. Some people say India is not a democracy, that it's an electoral autocracy. So, in the West, this democratic backsliding debate has got a lot of attention. And sometimes I think that is eroding this growing perception of what India can be. And there is sometimes a lack of understanding of what India really wants. Is that how you also see things or what would you add? What would you agree or disagree with?
Haidar
Well, to your first point about the outreach to Africa, I think it is absolutely needed. And I do think that for decades there was a kind of neglect of Africa. This wasn't there at the beginning of the Indian Republic when there was a real push to kind of connect postcolonial countries together and for India to be the voice of the voiceless as you were saying. But I think over time a kind of realism and a pragmatism took over Indian foreign policy, and that has now been reversed in many directions. I think Prime Minister Modi took office in 2014 when a lot of other things were changing. China was suddenly taking a much bigger interest in India's backyard, South Asia. South Asian countries used to traditionally turn to India. As the first you know sort of player in the region. I remember a time when the Nepal blockade happened, because of a problem between New Delhi and Kathmandu in the early 1990s, the period we were talking about. And when the Nepali leadership went to Beijing, they were essentially told we can help you in the short term, but in the long term, you have to work with India. That's completely gone away. That idea that China would stay out of India's backyard, as it were, has gone away. China's challenging India not only at its line of control, actual control, the boundary between them, but in its neighbourhood and overtime in the maritime sphere as well. We saw the flurry over a Chinese ship trying to get to Sri Lanka last year that India very forcibly objected to. So, in that sense, I think India is also looking out into the world for new places to engage with or reengage with. South America, as you were saying a little earlier, has not seen as much of that focus, but I'm sure it will because India is reaching out to the Global South. One of the reasons is China, as I said, and the changes in the way China is looking at India and how India needs to push back. The second is the huge global polarization we're seeing and the kind of fragmenting of, it's not just US-Russia, really we're seeing a dollar and a non-dollar world coming to the fore. We're seeing a sanctioning world and a non-sanctioning world after. Remember when Russia invaded the Ukraine 140 members of the UN General Assembly voted to criticize what Russia had done, but less than 40 countries are part of the sanctions regime against Russia. So that tells you the world is divided in ways that don't necessarily are explained by the values and the judgments otherwise there. I think the third thing was COVID, which was a real shock to everybody's system, but India particularly, looking at more supply chains, looking at places where it can build its partnership. We come to how this kind of collides with the other impression India is placing in the world. And that is often illiberal democracy. I do believe that India is not attractive to the world simply because it's this market. Ok, today, yes, India has the highest population in the world, but it's not about the market per se, because people can make money in other countries, possibly even more easily. There are more systems in ASEAN countries, for example, to help a business grow. India can, you know, you can do things with India that you can do with other countries as well. Why does India stand out for the world? Because it is an experiment, and a unique experiment, of a country that is so large, with such a large population, with so many types of religions, so many types of regions, so many types of languages, so much internal diversity, if you like, that remains a democracy, but not just a democracy, it remains an inclusive pluralistic democracy. If India stops being that, if it stops being a democracy, or it stops being pluralistic or it stops being inclusive, does it have the same cachet, or does it just become, you know, China with perhaps a little more heat? And that is really the essential question behind why the world looks to India. It's not just the whole world, but even India's neighbourhood, that has always seen India as this kind of shining star, because of its democracy. If that democracy begins to whittle away, there will be concerns around the world. And I think it's for this reason, I don't think it's because you know, some in India of course think there's a Grand Western conspiracy against India, the same West that we are making better friends with, and there are others who believe that there is a double standard in the West, you know, the kind of standards India has held up to are different from what the US's relationship with the Saudi Arabia or other countries, including China, has been over these decades. But I really accept that higher standard, I think India does hold to that higher standard and I certainly hope it continues to.
Banik
You have perhaps heard some of my conversations with people like Frank Fukuyama and Joseph Nye, and many of them highlight the fact that what separates India say from China is active and critical civil society, social movements, that you have the power to change things if you don't like it. And that makes the Indian model much more attractive to the West than the Chinese model because China does not have an active civil society. That is, it has civil society, but it is not independent of the state. So, I think you're absolutely right about the power, the attraction, the cultural attraction, which is a part of the soft power definition is certainly India's advantage. But there's also something else that you mentioned I think is important to highlight and that is something what you know your Foreign Minister Jaishankar wrote, in his book, that it's perhaps about time that one forgets these old alliances and thinks what is best for India being more pragmatic. So, if you can get cheap oil from somewhere, why should you say no to that? It is more about this idea that India's problems and our problems are not given the same kind of importance in the West. I think that mentality, at least that attitude, seems to be seeping much more in. Which brings me to where I think the West has been a bit puzzled by Indian foreign policy, and that is the invasion of Ukraine. The West would have liked if India was much more critical, had taken the western side. But India did not. And so, it was this feeling that India and China are siding and there's a new alliance being formed. And yet India is also part of the Quad, it's just so confusing. Can you help my listeners better understand the Indian position on the Russian invasion of Ukraine?
Haidar
I do think that a lot of what India's position on the on February the 24th, 2022, was decided by some of its history. After all, there is a relationship with Russia and the Soviet Union before that, that cannot just be wished away. India is dependent for not just defense hardware, but spare parts for even its exports, military exports, like the BrahMos missile, stands for the Brahmaputra-Moskva. It is actually a very, very strong relationship. The second part, of course, is that Russia produces the only nuclear power in India, made by non-Indians. No other country yet has nuclear power plants in India. Russia has been, traditionally, India's support at the UN Security Council. So, if you want a permanent veto that will make sure that your interests are looked after, whether it was on Kashmir or any of the other issues, that was Russia for India. And I think there was this very strong relationship between Prime Minister Modi and President Putin that cannot be denied. The men had, you know, these one-on-one meetings instead of the annual summit where we would see grand delegations meeting. We'd actually just see the two men take off for six hours at a time at dinner in Delhi, go to Sochi and all the rest. So, I think there was this kind of very personal relationship. There's no question India was surprised and shocked by what Russia did in Ukraine. And I think they've made it clear by their silences sometimes in not approving of what has happened. But I'm amongst those in India who feel that India could have, despite this entire dependency, could have been critical of what is wrong. It is very clear to everybody that when one country is bombing the other and there are civilians dying that there's something wrong with that. There is a choice, and that choice was not exercised by Mr. Putin, that choice of restraint. I do think that at the UN Security Council, where India actually was for an entire year before it came away, it's a temporary member, there were UN Security resolutions on, for example, humanitarian corridors that was put forth by France and Mexico, or on the nuclear safety issue, where India could have actually gotten off its abstentions and voted for. Because after all, if India holds its strategic autonomy dear, it's not very autonomous if you can never vote against Russia.
Banik
So why do you think they did not do that?
Haidar
I think it was very clear from the start that the government of the day, the Modi government had decided they were not going to be pushed on this count. And it didn't matter that I think nine different foreign ministers came through India in the next month practically pleading with India to change its stand, because that only solidified the idea that India was not going to move. They were not going to be pressured into moving their stand. I think the second part was that while the West did talk about secondary sanctions, they never actually made good on them. So, there was no pull factor either, there was no push, there was no pull. And I think the third part was the oil. At the end of the day, today, India is admitting what a year ago Mr. Jaishankar did not admit. A year ago, the Foreign Minister was very clear that we take very little of our oil from Russia. At that point it was 1 to 2%, today it's a 40% of India's oil comes in from Russia. And I think there was a very clear decision that while the rest of the world was going to flounder when it came to oil prices that India was not going to face the same kind of instability. But I do think that there is a larger understanding on the foreign policy sphere, and you, possibly, have seen this during your time in India, that many do believe that Mr. Putin was pushed to the wall by the West. That the consistent inclusions within NATO were in fact against older policies and older commitments made to Russia that NATO would not come to Russia's doorstep. And after 2008, when they announced at a NATO summit that Georgia and Ukraine were in the waiting room, as it were, to join NATO, it was clear that Russia was going to push back. I'm paraphrasing for you what is a general understanding amongst foreign policy practitioners here, that somehow Putin was pushed against the wall, and the West and Ukraine could have chosen not to do that. Some have suggested that had Ukraine said it would join the European Union but not NATO, it could have been averted. I'm of the opinion that as soon as February 24th happened, the rules changed. As soon as Russia decided to invade a country to bomb civilians, the rules did change. But in India’s, I think, foreign policy elite, it did not.
Banik
My Stanford colleagues, particularly a good friend of mine, Katheryn Stoner, wrote a book about it, and she's a Russia expert and she works with Michael McFaul, who is the former American Ambassador to Russia. And many people actually, including Kathryn, argued that this idea that Putin was forced into this, has been debunked, because it was more the fact that Putin was perhaps afraid of democracy coming closer to his borders than that NATO membership was increasing. So, it was the fear of democracy, the argument goes, rather than NATO expansion. But one thing I wanted to ask you has to do with how I see something that was passé, BRICS, has now become somewhat more relevant. I mean, over the years, you know, people weren't really talking about BRICS. And this alliance that I've always wondered about, India and China is one thing, we can talk more about it, but South Africa has also been very supportive of Putin, which again makes it very difficult for the West to address some of these issues with South Africa. And then you have Brazil, which some would say is an outlier, just like Russia. Now it seems that the war in Ukraine has brought the BRICS perhaps more together, that there's a unified position which makes it more of an important platform. I think there are many others who want to join. Apparently, there's a long list. So, do you see this war as actually changing the global alliance patterns? Are we seeing something emerging despite the huge differences between India and China. On certain other things, there seems to be agreement across many of these emerging countries. So, are we seeing a resurrection of BRICS and other platforms, like you know South-South cooperation, Non-Aligned Movement, what are your thoughts there?
Haidar
Well, I certainly think on the economic sphere, that's where BRICS has done well. BRICS is like a small microcosm of the G24, the developing world. Which is why, actually, a lot of the countries that have applied to join BRICS are from the G20, like UAE and Saudi Arabia, that are not part of the G7. If you look at the G20 and you say, there's the G7, then there's the G2, which is really Russia and China, there's a whole G11 out there that aren't necessarily on one side or the other. Some are European countries and clearly are on one side, but in general there is a large chunk of the world out there that is not comfortable with the polarization. You might say that it's about a fight between democracy and autocracy or authoritarianism. Others may say that it is about the fight between an invasion that is clearly a violation of international rule of law and order, and these are all principles. For most of the world, though, what they actually saw or what they actually felt, the part of the war they felt, was the polarization and the sanctions that followed. In other words, that as soon as the sanctions were put into place, what became very clear is that there were going to be two economies. Either you dealt with Russia, or you didn't deal with Russia. Either you dealt in non-dollar currencies, or you didn't deal with them. There was another part to it which I think a lot of the world was uncomfortable with, and that was to watch the liberal world order move away from a lot of its tenets. I mean, when you have a situation like Germany, a very liberal country, telling the Philharmonic Orchestra’s conductor that they had to repudiate Putin or else they couldn't work, or a ballet company in Canada had to shut down because of this. So, what they saw was that a lot of the Western sort of talk about the liberal order and democracy and all the rest of that was pliable. And the feeling that this could be us tomorrow, if the West decides that they want to take on another country. There was a general feeling amongst a lot of the emerging world order, if you like the EWO, there's the NWO, the GW, that this was a time not to be pushed into taking sides. In other words, they weren't necessarily siding with Russia, but they weren't siding with the Western construct of these things either. So that's where BRICS comes in. And, of course, we'll know much more in August when the South Africa Summit happens. And again, there's a little bit of uncertainty about whether that summit will be, in fact, in person, but where BRICS come in is threefold. One in providing the emerging world, if you like, a different platform, and much of this emerging world, I have to say, has now got many, many, many deals with China on connectivity, on trade and all the rest of that and investments. The second is on, at least talking about, the idea of a non-dollar world, which is always exciting if you're regularly bashing the West for its hegemony, and you know the World Bank. After all, BRICS has been able to bring about the NDB, the New Development Bank. There are now multilateral development banks that are not the World Bank and the IMF anymore. So that's really the second place. And we saw a little bit of this when Mr. Lula flew to Beijing and really made the point that we have to, you know, sort of fight this dollar-led world. And I think the third place is when it comes to the developing world, or the Global South, as you put it, with their voice in terms of sustainable development goals, in climate change, in health, in all these issues where the developing world really needs investment. Where it really needs to, they feel, be cut some slack and they're not getting it. I say this because India is also the President of the G20. Right now, the G20 Communique that it has always put out every year has been held up because of the Ukraine question. How are you going to portray the Ukraine war? And the G7 is adamant on some language. China has said there should be no geopolitical language in this, this is a development and economic forum. Russia has said, if you're going to talk about our wars, then let's talk about some of the other wars that have happened. So, it is really at an impasse. And there are many in the developing world that feel that, is Ukraine the only priority? Are we going to hold up our talk about climate change, mitigation, about sustainable development goals, education, health and all the rest at a time when you know these are really important? Are we going to just hold up world consensus at an important forum? Because after all, in its entire history, the G20 has never not been able to put a Communique together. Yet so far none of the meetings that India has had under its Presidency have actually had a joint Communique. So that makes a difference. And what if the examples of where a lot of this angst, if you like, from the Global South and the developing world is coming, is for example, on something like vaccines, you mentioned that earlier, India and South Africa went for a fairly ambitious proposal trips waiver at the WTO, if in the middle of a pandemic, when you can see the entire world being affected, and the world being shut down, countries cannot agree to, you know, giving a waiver on medicines that could be life-saving. The question is then, is the developed world ever going to give the developing world a fair shake at developing its citizens?
Banik
I've been traveling extensively in Africa, and I've spent almost six weeks in India now. I see a different kind of an idea of what the world wants in these parts of the world than, say, in Norway and in the US. It has to do partly with the COVID pandemic experience. You mentioned double standards from the West. I think that is often highlighted that when push came to shove, everybody wanted vaccines for themselves and we gave all the rubbish vaccines, at least what we thought were third class vaccines, away. Just close to the expiry date. And I think that is where both China and India, I think, gained a lot of positive reputation, by being willing to share what it had, even though some of these vaccines, at least a Chinese one, wasn't seen to be very efficient. So, I think that goodwill that was spread by sharing what little one had with the rest of the world, I think is coming to benefit these countries. But I wanted to ask you about because we are in Delhi at the moment. Now India, of course, is, as I see it in your writings in your column, in many of the other journalists who cover foreign policy, they seem to suggest that India is getting closer and closer to the United States. And the recent visit by Mr. Modi to the US got a lot of attention. This was, I think, the second time he addressed both houses of Congress. He had the state dinner and India was given the warmest welcome ever. So that is one thing, how India and India's growing warmth and closeness with the US is going to potentially impact on its historically long relationship with Russia. And on the other side, India, as I was trying to mention earlier, is of course very close to China on certain positions, let's say, on climate change, on phasing down coal rather than phasing out coal, in solar alliance or energy transformations, whatever. And on the other hand, there is this huge rivalry and tension, border tensions, and often skirmishes that take place between Indian and Chinese troops. So how does India, sort of navigate this very difficult political terrain? Its relationship with the United States and its relationship with China? And I'm asking this particularly because recently I saw how China has, and I've been studying the Belt and Road, China has expanded the Belt and Road in all parts of the world increasingly also in Europe, and Latin America. But the one place, and one country, that keeps resisting signing anything to do with the Belt and Road is India. India, I read in the papers today, has also said no to huge investments from Chinese automakers, electric cars. What is happening and how will India balance its relationship between the United States and China?
Haidar
Well, for a long time I have felt that India is in a sweet spot because it is able to balance these two. However, since I think 2015/2016, what we have seen is the US coming to terms with the fact that it is no longer going to be able to just carry on with China as a rising power without any kind of pushback. In the last maybe eight or nine years what you have seen is actually the US deciding that China is a threat to US interests, and the growth of the Indo-Pacific, the regeneration of the Quad for example in 2017 was all a part of that. And India was able in the same year to join the Quad, but to also join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization with Russia and China and the Central Asians, India was able to go for BRICS, which is of course a 20-year-old grouping, but it was also able to be a part of the IPEF, which is the US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Forum. And India was able to do this because it made it very clear that it was not going to take sides. China is making it very difficult now for India on that score as well. And even though the government, so far, you know the Prime Minister has not so far actually said on the record that China has transgressed Indian territory, but it's fairly well-known that since 2020, Chinese troops have been pushing along India's side of the line of actual control, have amassed troops on its side, have taken over parts of no man's land where we believe they actually have dug trenches and put soldiers in. It has clearly made it instead of a line of actual control which was under discussion between India and China, has clearly made it into a front for India today. So, India has to decide how to go forward with this. Remember, unlike the US, India does not have the luxury of geography. In India's geography, if you look to the land, there's China on one side, there's Pakistan on the other. The other countries, if you look further, are Afghanistan, Iran, the Central Asian countries, and then Russia. All of them seem to be doing more and more work deals, connectivity and all the rest with China. So, for India, in this position, geographically, it becomes all the more reason to manage a certain kind of balance and not let it get out of hand as it were. What's the real contradiction is that while the government is talking about, you know, keeping its troops at the boundary with China, and there are no meetings between India and China, except on the boundary question, we've seen other things working just fine, exports and imports, India's deficit with China has actually grown, the trade has grown multiple times between the two countries as well. And this is a contradiction India is coming to terms with. When you say, ‘how is India going to behave in the US versus China field?’, I think it's actually Ashley Telus who wrote this piece in I think foreign affairs a few months ago where he made the point that don't take the wrong idea from what India is doing with the US, or Prime Minister Modi's visit to the US or the great amount of deals that the two signed, don't assume that this means India will either support the West on Russia or will join any kind of alliance because India does not do alliances. But he also made a very interesting point that don't assume that if China were to invade Taiwan tomorrow, that if India would in some way be part of the alliance against China. They may give listening posts and provide logistical support, but India may not take on China because of its own relationship and its own concerns about China. So, I think that's where we are right now. The question is how long can India remain in that sweet spot? How long can it continue to walk that tightrope, keeping both sides happy? I wrote a piece to say the new mantra seems to be all alignment. Which is I can do everything I can please all the people all the time, but we all know that does not happen in the long run. When either the West or the Russia-China combine begin to say no more a la carte options, you take this buffet, or you take that buffet, that's when India is going to have to make the choice. But so far it hasn't been made to make the choice yet.
Banik
This brings me to G20, we discussed this very briefly earlier in the conversation. So, you know I've been here for six weeks, and I've been visiting all of these Indian cities, attending some of these meetings and also on holiday. Ever since I landed in Delhi in June, I've been seeing G20 very prominently displayed everywhere, and almost everyone, of course, has noticed it, but not everybody understands what this means. I was speaking to some people in Udaipur, in Mumbai, but also in Delhi in Kolkata, and they were saying that this shows how important India has become in the world, that India has the Presidency. And I try to say that this is on a rotational basis, but they did not seem to understand that. So, I found that quite fascinating that the way in which G20 has been perhaps sold within India is in a way projecting, at least the intention may be to project that India's power and position in the world has changed. But one area where I think, and going back to my earlier point how India is projecting or using this G20 Presidency to project care for the rest of the world, particularly Africa, is by supporting the idea of having the African Union as the 21st member. Is that something that you think India will be able to get through before it relinquishes the Presidency? Is that possible? And in, I think was it, September, October, you're going to have this, this meeting. What do you think will come out of this? Because from what you just said, India is balancing that tightrope and yet it wants to show that it was able to achieve some results. So, if the Communique, the final result, isn't something solid, if there's no agreement, what do you think that will say about India's position? Is this the first step to India having to actually make those difficult choices?
Haidar
Well, in a sense, the G20 has always been planned as this grand show. Let's remember, India was actually supposed to host this G20 in 2021. Prime Minister Modi very purposely swapped with Italy and then a year later swapped with Indonesia so that he could hold the G20 and it is commonly understood that this was to be the last big show before the elections. Of course, as part of the G20 budget, you're able to do what you were talking about, which is to light up the entire country with posters, with hoardings, with pictures that say India's movement has come in a sense and it doesn't matter as you said that the fact is if you're a country within the G20 within 20 years you will get your turn. At some point. India's is at the fag end in fact. But I do think there's something important in there when you talk about India's pitch to Africa. This is for the first time that the troika of the G20, which means G20 hosts of the past, present and future, are all developing economies rather than having one developed economy in there. It is Indonesia then India, then Brazil, and in fact, after that South Africa that are going to hold the G20 Presidency. And India wants to make that point, that what our Presidency will be remembered for is for the voice of the developing world in this grouping and a louder voice of the developing world. Some may say it's just obfuscation and a way of getting away from the fact that you can't have a joint Communique unless the G7 and the G2 agree on it. But I think, for example, with the African Union, it was seen at the beginning as a sort of low hanging fruit. After all, nobody will question that the African Union deserves a membership. If the European Union deserves a membership, then so does the African Union. How can you justify having every global governance forum just overrun by one continent and, with no offence to that continent, and one global power. So, if the US and Europe and Canada and all of them have the G7 with them, they overwhelmingly run the UN Security Council. They have the top of so many other multilateral organizations like World Bank and IMF, then here in the G20 is a place to say, well, this is where the developing world has its voice heard. So, in that sense, what India is saying is not unpopular. In fact, we spoke to the Sherpa for the G20, who's trying to put together some kind of a Communique that might actually fly, and his point was that there is overwhelming support for this idea. I do think that there will be a pushback because, after all, if the African Union should be a member, then why not ASEAN? Why not CLAC from South America? If you are now talking about making G20 more representational, then take a look at the 20 largest economies or most important economies in the world, does Netherlands not deserve to be in there with the size of its economy, or Switzerland or Spain? Who is a permanent invitee but not a member? And another question is going to be that if with just the Ukraine war you have such an impasse coming, imagine if you bring in the 58 countries more from the African Union, how much more difficult it's going to be to bring consensus, where we're seeing more and more the two sides being pulled apart. And it's not just on Ukraine, it's on things like climate change, it's on things like data protection and privacy. There are so many issues where the developed world is now up against the developing world, that the G20 is a forum is going to be a real sort of tightrope walk for India to forge through. So, it's not just about the Communique, it's also about the attendance at the G20 that India has to really think through. And then as you pointed out, what is India's Presidency going to be remembered for? And I think that's where they want to make sure that the other initiatives that India has brought about on millets, for example, on agriculture and environmental lifestyle, on climate change issues, those are going to be the sticking points, gender-led empowerment, for example, those are places where India wants to make a point. But I'll be honest, I think everyone is aware that if you are going to be the first country where the G20 fails to put out a leaders’ declaration, then that is going to stick. And I think they're trying to do all they can to ensure that that outcome does not happen because it is very clear it's not just what you were saying would this be the moment India would have to choose. Question would be what is the sustainability of the G20 after this?
Banik
We don't want to make this group too large because it'll be difficult to reach consensus, and yet there is this feeling that Africa is always excluded from many of these high table discussions and that's why Jeffrey Sachs, when I spoke two years ago on this show, and he was making the point two years ago that the African Union should be the 21st member so I'm very pleased that India has actually adopted or has taken up this cause. And personally, I hope that the African Union is included precisely because Africa is often underrepresented. We're getting towards the end of the conversation, and I wanted to ask you your thoughts, your sort of take on India's aspirations as this, not just emerging, this emerged global power. What lies ahead you think, apart from having to make a choice about which side of the alliance, perhaps one has to join? And there are so many contradictions as we've discussed. One area that I've been studying is India's role in the pharmaceutical sector. India has been seen to be the pharmacy of the world, and yet it is very dependent on China for active pharmaceutical ingredients, the APIs. So, you see all of these contradictions that you could have political disagreement with other countries, but economically it is fine, you know it continues. It's not like people are trying to be self-sufficient, globalization is still there, we are dependent on stuff. I think Chinese goods are sold like phones here in India, Chinese phones are extremely popular. All of this makes for a very interesting future. How do you see this playing out from New Delhi's perspective? What does it wish to achieve? For many years it was getting a seat at the UN Security Council. Is that still an important foreign policy objective? What else? Is it economics plus politics, plus soft power, plus being leader of the Global South, South-South cooperation? Is that what it wishes to achieve going forward?
Haidar
It's interesting that you were asking that question because I'm not sure that too many people have actually answered the question yet. In their minds, there's no question that, yes, India does want a larger piece of the global pie, have a better seat at the global table. But what does that really entail, is the question. As you said, it's been articulated, as a permanent seat at the UN Security Council, something that really has been elusive so far and I'm not sure that even now the UN reform process is headed in that direction. However, India has been able to get its soft power across, so you know they have the global nonviolence day that that has commemorated Mahatma Gandhi's birthday at the UN since, I think, 2008 and now they have World Yoga Day, which Prime Minister Modi took part in at the UN Plaza this year. So, there is an imprint of India that is growing. I think on some of the harder issues, you know, for example, India's place in some of the other multilateral organizations or even the membership of something like the Nuclear Suppliers Group has been not only elusive, it has been thwarted by China. So right at the beginning, I think the Indian situation with China will have to be sorted out. It is not possible for you to continue a kind of standoff of the kind we've seen since 2020 without this going somewhere. Will this end in resolution, will it end in India finally deciding enough is enough and you know having some kind of heated war at the boundary? Or is it going to mean India does take that leap and decide to become a part of a much closer, even if they don't call it an alliance, but military coalition in the maritime sphere? Those are questions that are still open and need to be answered. I think the second part of India's rise at the top has to be its own domestic economy. Until the ease of doing business is actually seen on the ground and you actually have companies wanting to put money into manufacturing, and not the kind of investment we're seeing right now, which is more or less dependent on the markets, India does need a certain amount of investment in order to grow and in order to grow with a sustainable agenda as well. And reduce poverty. Unless that economy is really set at a much larger ambition, I think that's going to be the second question of where India's leadership is going. The third is going to be what kind of leader India wants to be. It's all very well to say I have a heart for the global South, or I'm willing to help others, but if you are not yourself, an example of that, if you are not seen as a kind country to your own citizens, and here I do worry about the kind of illiberalism that we see today in New Delhi. And we see it coming from the government, whether it is the crackdown on NGOs, or the crackdown on journalists who have been arrested and without bail for years, or on civil society groups, those are concerning. The kind of hate speech that even the ruling party takes part in when it comes to minorities of any kind, the kind of policies that the government adopts to interreligious disputes of any kind, those seem to be moving in a much more majoritarian direction. And if this was any other country, you might say, well, you know, there are such a majority, maybe that's the direction the country should go, but India has always been the exception, as we discussed earlier. And if it is to remain that kind of inclusive pluralistic democracy and not just some version of you know China, which has one leader, one party, one ethnicity, more or less dominating others, or become like a Saudi Arabia or a more theocratic society. If India is to remain what it is, an open pluralistic democracy, then a lot of these pointers will have to be addressed. They don't have to be addressed necessarily in some kind of an international intervention, because as you can see, we get pricklier and pricklier, every time there's criticism from outside. But I do think there has to be a sustained understanding that not everything is relative. Indian democracy stands for something because it has a global flavor, that it is understood around the world. China calls itself a democracy too, by the way, Russia does as well. So, the reason why Indian democracy is recognized in the world is because it holds itself to a universal standard. And I think that has to be held on to, that has to remain.
Banik
It was great fun to chat with you today and to see you again. Thank you so much for coming on my show.
Haidar
Thank you, Dan. It was really a pleasure to have this conversation and to get into so many different issues at some depth.