India’s international influence is growing
and it’s now at a geopolitical crossroads. India right now is in a
geopolitical sweet spot, it is being courted by
countries all over the world. The question isn’t whether India will
rise as a great power, it will, based on the current statistics.
But the question is when? With a GDP of more than $3 trillion, India
is the world’s largest democracy and has the 5th largest economy in the world, behind
Germany, Japan, China and the United States. Notably, the country
has a growing influence in the Global South, which is mainly made up of
countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, says Karthik Nachiappan, who researches Indian foreign
policy at the National University of Singapore. That will increasingly clash
against India’s own growing partnership and relationship
with the West, especially with the United States, with Europe,
which require different things from India. Ever since Russia’s invasion
of Ukraine, India has been mostly tight-lipped in condemning Russia over
the act. Instead, India has boosted its imports of heavily discounted Russian oil since the war
began. This has ruffled the feathers of western powers such as
the U.S. and the E.U. During the Cold War, one of India’s most
steadfast partners was the Soviet Union. This was during a period when India did not
have very close relations with the West, especially the United States.
The Soviet Union gave political support for India, it gave material support.
It gave different kinds of security support, through Russian arms and ammunition.
Almost 70% of the Indian military’s resources and arms are
made by Russia. Even though bilateral trade between Russia
and India hit a record $45 billion, the U.S. is by a long way New Delhi’s biggest
trading partner. That year, trade between the U.S. and India
exceeded $190 billion. And yet India has not married its trading
relationships with military alliances. The U.S.-India relationship is one for the
future, whereas the India-Russia relationship economically is one of the past. And so, what
the U.S. has been trying to do is move even further forward into the future by expanding deepening
its economic and trading relationship with India, to make it realise that siding with Russia
over these kinds of issues and conflicts is not in its
long-term interest. As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drags on, Indian
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for
peace and cooperation. This is not
an era of war. But it is one of
dialogue and diplomacy. India is performing a delicate balancing act
between protecting its own interests while maintaining ties with its trading partners.
But as the world becomes more polarized, can India maintain its
stance of non-alignment, or will it be forced
to pick sides? India’s position of non-alignment dates back
to its independence in 1947. Then, the world was drifting into two blocs - the western bloc
led by the United States and its NATO allies, while the eastern bloc was led by the Soviet
Union. Developing countries were under pressure to side with either of the two during that
period of political and military tension, known as
the Cold War. Refusing to get caught between two major
powers, the Non-Aligned Movement was first assembled in 1956, before India’s
first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, along with leaders of Yugoslavia, Egypt, Ghana
and Indonesia, had their first official summit in 1961. Its aim was to give a voice of autonomy for
developing countries in international affairs. Non-alignment has been a primary strategy that has
covered Indian foreign policy through the decades. It has given the Indian government over the
years a tool, to not entangle itself into issues or affairs that would harm its national
interests, primarily economic development. Upon decolonisation, India
was a very poor country. If they were going to focus wholly
on development, then they had to be geopolitically distant from different
kinds of hot issues that were breaking up. How is it different from neutrality? The difference between neutrality and non-alignment is
that neutrality is more relevant during times of war, it's when a country or a state categorically says
that it will not support a particular war and it will remain indifferent. It’s generally a legal
concept and it’s enshrined in international law. Non-alignment is not purely applicable during
times of war. It’s a foreign policy strategy that also extends during other kinds of
crises, whether it’s an economic crisis, whether it has something to do
with sanctions, for example. Don McLain Gill, a geopolitical analyst at De
La Salle University, says that India has an independent approach
to its foreign policy. It is beyond neutrality and looking into ways
where India will be able to contribute responsibly and at the same time look
after its own interests. India is a member of numerous regional
and multilateral institutions. The country's a member
of security centred blocs Shanghai Cooperation Organization,
alongside China and Russia and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue,
alongside the U nited States, which has longstanding contentious
relations with both China and Russia. India is also a founding
member of BRICS, a coalition made up of emerging economies
that includes both Russia and China. At the recent 15th BRICS summit, the bloc
has more than doubled its membership to include Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in 2024. China wants to turn BRICS
into an anti-West alliance. It wants to derive more support from
key members in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, against
American interests worldwide. India does not want to see or does not hope
to see BRICS to be turned into an anti-West coalition. So, by staying in, and by supporting the
expansion could work against that internally. It could work to
ensure that the BRICS and the kinds of issues that it deals with
over the next few years does not get too confrontational
with the West. How can we explain India’s foreign
policy decisions to be a member of all these different bodies that are not
necessarily aligned with each other? Over the last 10-20 years, non-alignment
has incrementally transformed into a policy of multi-alignment, where India
is open to different kinds of groupings, coalitions, alliances, arrangements, bilateral
partnerships with countries that it did not have good relations with, as long as it advances the
national interest, which is economic transformation. India plays an influential role in
international financial bodies such as the World Trade Organization, the International
Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank. Over the last decade,
India has had limited involvement in free trade deals, including
pulling out of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), considered to be the world’s
largest trade agreement. However, in the last few years, the country has ramped up its free trade
agreements (FTAs) with countries including Japan, South Korea and the
United Arab Emirates. It also has FTAs within
its geographic neighbourhood, such as with the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, and directly with countries
such as Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. We are looking into India’s participation
in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, which is also seen as multilateral game changer, as they
like to say, to be able to redirect supply chains away from China, to hopefully lessen the dependence
of developing countries towards China. Even as Modi seeks to
transform India’s economy, the country has a long tradition of protectionism.
Most recently, it banned food exports like rice, wheat and sugar. While the move was to cool
domestic prices, it exacerbated a global food crisis smarting from
the war in Ukraine. India has to always balance between the strategic
considerations which are compelling it to be more open economically, security-wise, with
the political economy constraints – the different kinds of industries
and firms within India that do not want to compete
with other foreign firms. India is not against such arrangements, but
it has to be equitable to the point that it also reflects India’s concerns, given of course,
that it is responsible for 1.4 billion people. It’s not going to be neat or
pretty and there’s going to be a lot of zigzagging back and forth
between protectionism and openness. But I think the broader trend is
toward more free trade over time. Besides prioritizing trade, another factor
that influences India’s foreign policy is its neighbour up north: China.
While bilateral trade crossed $100 billion in 2022, India’s relationship with China has worsened
over the last decade due to border disputes. India has a massive security problem on both
its eastern and western border with China. And it is looking for ways to balance what it sees
as a very powerful Chinese threat. And one way to do that is by working closely with other
partners who also have their own Chinese strategic problem like the United States, like the European
Union, like a few countries in Southeast Asia. India presents itself as an alternative buffer, a
strategic buffer that Southeast Asian states can rely on without worrying that they
will have to choose sides. Southeast Asian countries
want more of India, but they don’t want so much so as to offend China.
So that balance is an important one to maintain. But will India's growing
economic clout mean that it will remain non-aligned
in the years to come? More growth over time will also mean that India
will be able to convert some of its prosperity into military influence so to deal with the different
kinds of security threats that it’s facing now. India has witnessed
several challenges that are quite relatable to the challenges of
other developing countries. And the fact that India has been able to slowly surpass
them in a sustainable way is something that is seen as a positive benchmark for
countries to sort of emulate in the long run.
