Prelims: Current events of international importance, Ukraine-Russia war, covid-19, debt diplomacy, common enemy doctrine, decentralization etc
Mains GS Paper II: Bilateral, regional and global grouping and agreements involving India or affecting India’s interests.
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
- Vladimir Lenin: ‘There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.’
INSIGHTS ON THE ISSUE
Context
Multilateralism:
- It refers to a set of governing arrangements of fundamental rules, principles, and institutions among nations.
- The United Nations (UN) is an example of a multilateral international institution which aims at making a sustainable and inclusive multilateral global order.
Role of multilateral global order:
Events during 2022:
- COVID-19 pandemic:
- It was dealt by collective vaccination efforts of science, business and governments across the world.
- Russia-Ukraine conflict: Impact:
- Retaliatory economic sanctions
- weaponization of trade dependencies
- inflation and recession
- gas shortage in winter
Steps by USA:
- Trade restrictions against its enemies
- promoting trading blocs among its allies
- incentivising domestic production through large financial assistance.
Steps by China:
- Military aggression by China against India.
- Realignment of the world order through:
- Strategic use of debt diplomacy
- Economic power
- Common enemy’ doctrine
Why Social harmony a necessary condition?
- Economic power: It is a necessary condition for India’s rise as an economic power.
- Factories will not differentiate amongst people of multiple identities working together.
- Ability is all that matters.
- There is a danger of one stray communal incident erupting into large-scale violence and unrest.
What steps India needs to take?
- Time to re-imagine India’s overall strategy: re-evaluate our normative policy framework in this backdrop of an irrational world.
- Holistic military, diplomatic, social and economic strategy and not be afraid to challenge conventional wisdom.
- Modernize and augment our defense capabilities with state-of-the-art weaponry and not be held hostage to antiquated military purchase norms and processes.
- India needs a bolder geo-economic strategy to gain preferential access to unique technologies and capital from other nations in return for domestic market access.
- India’s politics will need to craft a new social contract with citizens, as the traditional tools of welfare and governance turn weak.
- The gap between the haves and have-nots widens further.
- India’s economic road map will have to factor in environmental concerns, move away from the monopolies model of private enterprise
- Carve a new inclusive, labor market focused economic development path of production, and not chase financialisation-driven GDP growth
- Stronger institutions are a necessary condition for greater decentralization: Reforming public institutions with more powers, autonomy, resources and accountability is essential.
Way Forward
- Trusted free trade among nations has turned into distrustful ‘foe trade’, leading to formation of ‘friend trade’ groups and the glorification of ‘economic nationalism’.
- India stands to gain from the established trade order: India cannot afford to get squeezed in the emerging bipolar world of western and Russia-China trading blocs.
- Reshaping of world: The Chinese threat is neither just a border dispute with India nor an isolated bilateral conflict. It marks a fundamental reshaping of global forces.
- Knee-jerk reactions such as trade restrictions and economic sanctions against China by western powers are blunt measures that will backfire.
- The counter to a Sino-centric world order is an economically powerful India.
- Bharat Jodo yatra: It is an effort to heal communal wounds and strengthen the nation’s social fabric to help surmount the geopolitical and economic challenges facing the nation and the world.
- Rational pursuits of peace and prosperity are not the sole or even primary motivator for all nations and leaders.
- We must contest this ‘no more shared rational pursuits’ premise for the emerging new world order.
- The established foreign policy doctrine of non-alignment may now conflict with India’s growing need for trade and market access in the new economic world order, and may need to be re-envisioned.
- India’s political governance model calls for greater decentralization and federalism reforms to cater to widening divergence among States.
- Collective efforts of all leaders across the political spectrum to come together and craft a new vision, for which the onus rests with the Prime Minister.
QUESTION FOR PRACTICE
Q. The long sustained image of India as a leader of the oppressed and marginalized nations has disappeared on account of its new found role in the emerging global order.’ Elaborate(UPSC 2019) (200 WORDS, 10 MARKS)
