Gandhian praxis for global institutions

This scholarly book by Ambassador Yogendra Kumar provides an intellectual discourse on trends in international relations in the post-Cold War era. Drawn from his vast experience as a diplomat spanning more than three decades in various countries, the author provides insights into the contemporary geopolitical uncertainties, taking us behind the current turmoil in each region of the world. Concerned about the inadequacies of multilateral institutions to tackle these persisting challenges, he explores whether the Gandhian praxis that lays emphasis on inclusive democracy can offer alternative solutions for humanity at large.

In essence, then, the author offers a non-western perspective of geopolitical trends. He asserts that the West’s inability to carve out a new world order in the decades since the end of the Cold War has been its big failure. The consensual approaches built to preserve the uni-polarity of the United States eroded the state sovereignty based on the Westphalian system. The collapse of the Soviet Union, with uneven consequences across regions, only accentuated the power asymmetry in favour of the US. The rise of China, the author observes, signified the tectonic shift in the geopolitical and geo-economic centre of gravity to Asia-Pacific, where the US-China strategic contestation is expected to endure for many years. China’s diligent creation of institutions — such as Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, New Development Bank, Belt and Road Initiative — is essentially a strategy to position itself in the lead in the changing geopolitical circumstances.

The author finds South Asia a disturbing neighbourhood, where India has to reckon with neighbours’ internal problems conflating its own with lingering problems. Although, India’s stability and its burgeoning market is a pull factor for countries across the world, big and small, to engage, it is still not enough to play a balancing role. India’s espousal of a multi-polar world, advocating adjustments in the existing global institutions, is ostensibly to seek a stronger role for itself as a legitimate representative of developing countries. The key to enhancing India’s credibility as a global player is to gear up to offer solutions to the problems in its own backyard as much as to the challenges impacting our world. 

The book brings to focus the adverse impact of the accelerating pace of technology on globalisation, which is now receiving a pushback in the form of de-globalisation. Robotics, 3D printing, AI, crypto currency, and so on are all likely to be disruptive and enhance vulnerabilities across regions. The unfolding strategic competition between the US and China, masked by trade wars is actually driven by the objective of capturing technological supremacy. 

The author observes that the emergence of numerous pluri-lateral and regional groups on the global stage in the post-Cold War, although a clear reflection of deeper contradictions within the multilateral institutions, was largely ineffectual in tackling transnational challenges. Failure to tackle these persisting challenges enhances fragility and vulnerabilities, and seriously undermines the legitimacy of the state to effectively deal with crises especially mass migration, terrorism, climate change, pandemics and so on that invariably transcend national boundaries. It leads to challenge-multiplier situations where non-state actors become active within states and across regions to further destabilise regional peace and security. According to the author, political transitions and aspirations of the 21st century pose sobering challenges to humanity that are beyond national capacities. He presents a bold and refreshing suggestion, as an alternative, into the Gandhian praxis that steered the political transformation of India leading to its independence in 1947. It lays emphasis on enabling inclusive political transitions through resilience of political institutions, quality of governance, nationalism, all of which are universally acknowledged prerequisites for smooth power transition. The same parallel is drawn with the political legacy of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who added virtues of “forgiveness and righteousness”, taken from the Prophet’s preaching, lending the Gandhian praxis inner strength.

The assumption in the current Western discourse that non-Western societies are somehow incapable of becoming modern democracies ignores the consensus-building tradition of the Gandhian praxis that seeks to create grassroots democracy through accommodation and adjustment to the contemporary situations. The author underlines the importance of India propagating a political philosophy of action that is steeped in Gandhian ideas, given that it is directly affected by the current regional and global challenges. He strongly feels that this philosophy should form a key part of India’s diplomatic agenda in tune with India’s benign rise on the global stage.

The reviewer is a  foreign service officer currently working in the ministry of external affairs