The 225th GRIPS Forum “INDIA IN THE WORLD TODAY”

January 22 (MON), 2024
Speaker: Ambassador Nirupama Rao, Former Indian Foreign Secretary
Title: INDIA IN THE WORLD TODAY
Abstract:
Historical experience shapes India’s view of the world. This is of course layered by geopolitical considerations, and the country’s growing aspiration to be a leading global power. India believes in upholding a multipolar world order, in contrast to one dominated by one single hegemon or a single superpower. Its global approach is conditioned by strategic autonomy, and behavior that engages with multiple power points and regional blocs in order to promote and protect its national interest. Military alliances have been strictly abjured so far, as also entanglement in power rivalries. In the conduct of the country’s foreign policy, neighborhood is ‘first’ and foremost. Relations with India’s neighbors have followed a path that is both complex and yet cooperative, seeking more economic integration, secure borders, better connectivity, and above all, regional stability. India has troubled relations however, with two neighbors, Pakistan and China and these cast their long shadows on regional policy and are sources of turbulence that threaten Indian interests. With Pakistan the focus has been on counter-terrorism, and the latter emphasis has expanded into a global advocacy and concerted effort in regional and global forums to build unrelenting support to combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.
Beyond the neighborhood, India has sought and built strong, mutually beneficial relations with its sister democracies like the United States and Japan. These relationships form the bedrock of India’s Indo-Pacific policy today as the region witnesses the rise of China’s military and economic strengths and capabilities in the region, including its attempts to violate territorial borders on land and sea in the Indo-Pacific. Simultaneously, India seeks global governance reform and the reform of multilateral institutions set in a post-WWII global order created in 1945, which it sees as unrepresentative of the interests of the Global South and the aspirations and the rising expectations of the billions who reside there. Today we see how the habitual rivalries and differences between the big powers, and the imposition of the diktats of such power, whether military or economic, on the lives of the peoples of the developing world have only compounded human suffering and the deflection of global priorities and goals away from the aims of equitable and sustainable development and addressing the fall-out of climate change.