INDIA – Superpower? What’s the point?

-Subodh Lal*

(What with the Indo-US nuclear deal being in such sharp international focus, India’s quest for “superstardom” is again a much discussed topic. There are some for whom being a nuclear power is not so much about energy as it is about power. Not that they betray it, but parties such as BJP, worshippers of the ’shakti’ cult, may well be wondering why does politics make them oppose a deal that they would have been proud to make?)

That India would be a superpower soon was, perhaps, first voiced during BJP’s (for the record, NDA’s) rule at the Centre (1998-2004), quite in keeping with their belief in Shakti cult. Starting with the nuclear explosion within days of coming to power and, later, through the Gujarat pogrom there was an accent on assertive manifestations of strength – of numbers, military might, and majority. It began being said that India could leverage its vast population to a position of advantage, rather than fear for any consequences resulting from over population. (Here again, the bogey of Muslims multiplying at a rate that will reduce Hindus to a minority was the subtext.) Trishuls were openly distributed in states where BJP was strong: Rajasthan, Gujarat, Orissa. While the outgoing Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Ashok Gehlot (Congress) brought Trishul under the Arms Act, 1959, the new Chief Minister, Vasundhara Raje (BJP) removed it from that list almost immediately after coming to power in 2004. A cry to match “Islam Khatray Mein Hai” (Islam is in danger) had to be coined, quite in keeping with how fascists everywhere try to unite the gullible and obtain their support. It was so with Hitler, it is so with the hard core Hindutva brigade. Not until the innocent citizenry is made paranoid or a fear of being “swamped” is created in their hearts, can fascists get popular support. Is the quest for dominance at global level – becoming a super power- only an extension of the Shakti-Trishul syndrome?

India’s (or, should we say, “ some Indians’ ”?) quest for superpowerdom evokes a mixed reaction. At one level every Indian would feel elated that the country could, in near future, earn the right to occupy a chair at the high table where, at the moment, it is perceived to be a mere pretender. At another level the hankering is really sickening.

Let me venture to understand what exactly super power status means and, in the process, try to analyse why the US is deemed to be a super power and China very nearly one. Researchers say, the factors to reckon are six: geographic, demographic, political, economic/financial, military, and cultural. The vastness of a country that aspires to be dominant is a crucial factor. Both US and China (and, earlier, the Soviet Union) bear that out. The image that comes to mind is that of a giant towering over puny individuals. However mere geographic expanse does not earn the sobriquet ‘super’, and that is why Iceland with its large area– in spite of being number one on the human development index (HDI) list -can not ever aspire to it. US (number 12 on HDI) with a population that is the fourth highest among the countries and, of course, China (being the most populous gets a walk over, in spite of rank 81 in HDI) can ‘justifiably (?) lay claim to being superpowers. While landmass and population may be reckoned as crucial factors, it is, indeed, the other four factors that ultimately bring in the super power title. These factors are: political clout(according the ability to influence international opinion, almost dictate terms to UN or to ‘weaker’ nations or assuming the right to ‘police’ the world), economic/financial muscle(so as to have the purchasing power that will drive world markets or exercise strengths that money gives – technology being one of them), military might(to the extent of possessing arsenals equipped to decimate the planet) and cultural influence(whereby trends –e.g. consumerism- can be decisively impacted). Weighed on these criteria, the US is, without doubt, the most ‘powerful’ country in the world. But, power apart, the US, as a society, has so many other strengths that support its international pre-eminence. It is a society that cherishes its freedoms, encourages enquiry, and has organisational systems that guarantee –or very nearly so- justice and fair play. However, as a society, America is still trying to rise above the various biases that segments of its population harbour. What is more worrisome, however, is the fact that intoxicated by its super power status, the US has, over the years, gone on with violating, at an international level, several of those salutary values that they guard at home. They have invaded other –even far away- countries, supported dictators rather than democratic processes, looked after their own interests rather than global ones even to the detriment of certain other nations. The fact is that no American administration can, probably, work whole-heartedly for international peace, humanitarian causes, and democracy, without jeopardising, in some degree, its own narrow objectives. Dean Ann-Marie Slaughter of Princeton University’s prestigious Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs has identified, in her work The Idea That Is America, the key principles that are central to America’s identity: liberty, democracy, equality, justice, tolerance, humility, and faith. She argues, too, that there has been serious erosion of these principles. No wonder then that on the international stage America often emerges as being intolerant, arrogant, and subversive of faiths other than their own. And that probably explains why the US is also one of the most hated countries while it still occupies the high throne.

Super powers, in their current avatar, are bound to have their own peculiar set of problems and issues. It is in the very nature of their being that super powers are hated. America is hated is not just because it is arrogant; it is also because in order to keep its hegemony it must make a few enemies on the way. America may be friends with the Pakistani rulers or some others in the Islamic world, but only at the cost of earning the wrath of Muslims everywhere. Americans are seen as puppeteers, manipulators and blasphemous. Super powers, in spite of all that they do and can do for the rest of the world, still end up being demonised and distrusted. And these negativities run both ways. A super power must also build up its own reasonable story (such as suspected possession of weapons of mass destruction by a rogue country) so as to be able to defend its actions in world bodies (not that the super power would much care for them) and domestic constituency. It is only by whipping up extreme hatred for the enemy of the enemy that the US could support, at various stages, Osama bin Laden or Augusto Pinochet, just as China could Pol Pot or Kim Il-sung or now the Myanmar junta.

Being a super power brings in its train several responsibilities, not the least of them being withstanding constant scrutiny with real or feigned equanimity. While enjoying their pre-eminence, the Americans have to accept blame for so much that is not all right with them. Their arrogance has undeniably led to being insular which, in turn, has resulted in exposing chinks in their armour. They panicked when 9/11 happened; where was their much vaunted resilience? Following the incident, the US administration and its security agencies went into a paranoia overdrive. Ethnic profiling followed. For the first time the US came to know at first hand how countries like India were suffering the way they were at the hands of terrorists. Again, when devastated by Hurricane Katrina, the Americans were unequal to the task of handling the tragedy. They are seen as an ecologically destructive force, and one doubts whether they feel embarrassed about it. Again, they have been found fumbling while dealing with Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay exposures, as if it was not bad enough to be perpetrators of cruelty in these two places. One would infer that not just because of nature’s vagaries, but also because of their own follies -of policies and attitude- the most powerful nations may sometimes find themselves most helpless, powerless.
Given the background above, what kind of a super power is India aiming to be? A super power that can arouse shock and awe? A super power with rank 128 in HDI and a nuclear bomb in its arsenal? A super power with such stark disparities at home and moralistic platitudes abroad? A super power with problems the magnitude of which no other country can match? A super power that can not prevent farmers’ suicides? It is time India discussed, dispassionately, whether becoming a super power, in the sense that it is currently and widely understood, is really worth it.

That India has strengths is no longer a matter of debate. The industrial profile that has emerged over the last sixty years is remarkable for its ingenuity and knowledge base. The institutions –academic, social, constitutional, political- that India has built are models for so many emerging nations. And the fact of having survived as a vibrant democracy is really a wonder. Considering that almost no other country in the post-colonial era commencing mid-1940’s survived without spells of instability, dictatorship, martial law or civil war, must make every India proud of what the country achieved. A free media, riding on a generally high level of confidence in educated circles, has ensured constant scrutiny of the rulers’ acts of omission and commission, an independent judiciary and emerging systems like Right to Information act as watchdogs. Books after books are now being written about India, its emergence, its projected bright future.

The India that has turned the corner is only one side of the picture. There is the other, and the bigger, side of the picture that genuinely threatens to reduce all our gains and strengths to nought. There are vast areas of darkness beyond the city lights. Naxalism, inequities, chauvinistic & divisive forces, environmental time bombs on short fuse, pathological dishonesty fanned by rampant corruption, terrorism of various shades – here, again, the list can be at best illustrative and not exhaustive. There will never be end to all problems in any country, and thank God for it. It is challenges that build the character of a country. The real problem, however, lies in the magnitude and the types of issues that a society might face, and that is where the problems of India (and China) lie. Concentrating on India for the present, the country needs to first shed its entirely misplaced arrogance about itself before granting greatness to itself. Great it indeed is, but not in the same sense as America is, with all its follies. India can be justifiably proud of great traditions and inherited value systems but when the same pride degenerates to a level of arrogance which, in turn, leads to obscurantism, a twisted iconography, and call for insularity, there is reason to worry. The great disconnect in the Indian dilemma is that on the one hand, the believers in Shakti would have the country and the world believe that everything originally Indian is supreme, on the other hand it aspires to superpowerdom in a way that really negates its own value systems. Apart from the Directive Principles of State Policy enshrined in the Indian Constitution, the Indian society has nurtured a value system which inevitably includes compassion and humility. It is sad to see that a nation rightfully claiming to be in the vanguard of one of the oldest civilizations, should betray such immaturity in figuring out what course to adopt. It can certainly not be a road that passes through the arms bazaar. It can not be a way that looks at fear being key to dominance. It can not be a country promoting blatant consumerism. It can not author a policy that pleads for evaluation of loyalty based on communal lines. It can not be a nation that ignores its villages to light up its cities. It can not hanker after a model totally at variance with its genius and ethos while trying to conform to definitions of power and glory coined in far away lands. Going by popular impression, India’s current hope of becoming a super power is predicated on building economic and military might, while humility as a value is ignored. No country can truly rise till it consciously creates what Slaughter calls “a critical patriotism that is honest about our failings and insists on holding our government and ourselves to the values we proclaim as a nation,” Translated into Indian context, the nation can not possibly be living in negation of the principles it is sworn to, constitutionally and traditionally.

Let India NOT become a superpower, if that means conforming to an erroneous definition. Its destiny is its own and not that of the US. It needs to be an ethical society that will be truly Gandhian where ‘tears from the poorest Indian’s eye will be wiped’; it will be a composite, all inclusive society; it will be green; none of its citizens will be evaluated on the basis of their religion; its sick will not go uncared for; its children will not be denied an education; it will have no Pol Pots and no Abu Ghraibs, and so on can go on what my critics might call a naïve wish list. Will India rise up and be able to change the definition of superstardom?

_____________________________________________________________ *The author is Executive Director, School of Convergence, and can be reached through email at subodhlal1@gmail.com.