India's credibility as a substantial power has revived and it can deal with its external environment with renewed strategic heft. The prime minister himself has contributed significantly to this change in mood and outlook by conveying a sense of strong leadership and clear direction. The coming year will be critical in determining whether these altered perceptions will be translated into substantive change. Failure to deliver real change may push India off the international radar screen once again even while disappointed expectations within the country may lead to domestic turmoil.
No one expects that substantive change will come in the shape of big bang reforms. However, the changes must be significant enough to justify continued optimism about India's prospects. The display of strong leadership must be matched by systemic changes. For example, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is an admirable initiative, but will run out of momentum if structural changes do not follow. We need better and more efficient waste-management systems; we need municipalities that deliver public services and impose penalties for littering. A large number of toilets are being built both through public funding as also part of the corporate social responsibility projects of public sector undertakings. In the absence of quality control and proper arrangements for maintenance they are likely to become symbols of tokenism. It was recently reported that about 25 per cent of toilets built in the initial rush are already non-functional.
The energy domain has witnessed substantive change. Diesel has been de-controlled and the direct benefit scheme, through Aadhaar and inclusive banking, are important steps. They are being applied to LPG supplies and hopefully, may be extended to kerosene.
However, energy governance continues to be fragmented with multiple agencies pursuing their own narrow interests in their respective silos. This prevents the country from formulating and implementing an internally consistent and comprehensive energy strategy encompassing different fuel sources and their inter se pricing. While ensuring adequate energy supplies to drive a renewed growth push particularly in manufacturing, some thought has to be given to the longer-term challenge of sustaining accelerated growth.
Our economic structure continues to mimic the energy-intensive and wasteful patterns of production and consumption spawned by an industrialised West that experienced growth in an era of energy and resource abundance. In an increasingly energy- and resource-constrained world we cannot aspire to the lifestyles and consumption patterns of the West. Even a fraction of the car ownership density of the West would demand fuel and land for highways and parking that is way beyond reach. The citizen's right to mobility must be delivered through efficient and affordable public transport, not through enabling car or even two-wheeler ownership. The policy implications of this are obvious. We must discourage private vehicle ownership through progressively higher taxation and use the funds to invest in public transport.
Agriculture is another sector that is crying out for fundamental reforms. The Green Revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s was based on the use of hybrid cereal seeds, with the intensive use of inputs like water, chemical fertilisers and pesticides. The focus was on crop yields, not the farmer's viability. This strategy helped to generate high crop yields and enabled food security over the next few decades. Unfortunately, this strategy has now run out of steam. Prolonged use of chemical fertilisers has diminished the natural fertility of soil, while increasing requirement of water has led to the alarming drop in groundwater levels across the country. The use of toxic pesticides has not only led to contaminated food chains, but also caused adverse health effects on farmers and their families who rarely wear protective gear while spraying these pesticides. The time has come to shift towards more water-frugal agricultural practices and to rely on crop rotation and organic pesticides to ensure high yields. The focus must shift from raising crop yields to making the farmer economically viable. This may require a judicious combination of animal husbandry, horticulture and other farm-related income generating activities that give the farmer both a more predictable income as well as insurance against the failure of one or another crop. These new practices have been tried and tested in Andhra Pradesh and some other states and have yielded excellent results. They need to be upscaled.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already made his mark on the foreign policy front. His instincts are sound and the initiatives he has taken so far bear the stamp of a leader with an eye for perceiving and confidently grasping an opportunity that presents itself. The invitation to South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) heads of state and government at his swearing-in ceremony, the visits to India's hitherto neglected neighbours and the latest invitation to United States President Barack Obama as chief guest for the next Republic Day are all sophisticated moves of an accomplished tactician. But these moves need to be fitted into a larger strategic vision about the future of India. How does the rapidly transforming international landscape shape India's external environment and is India able, in some way, to alter that landscape to its own advantage? How must India deal with the collateral fallout from the Ukraine crisis that has locked Russia and China into a more enduring strategic embrace than we are comfortable with? Will India be reconciled to the growing power asymmetry with China, or is it determined to shrink if not eliminate that asymmetry? If the latter, what does that mean for choices we make at home, and what we do in relationships with both friends and adversaries? What does the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in the neighbouring Gulf region mean for a secular India, and what do we do to ensure that the virus of sectarianism does not infect our own vulnerable population? These are challenges that demand clear-headed reflection and longer-term responses. Tactical deftness must serve a compelling vision of the kind of country India wishes to become in 10, 20 or 30 years from now, and what kind of society it wishes to bequeath to succeeding generations. These are the issues that await an answer in the new year.
The writer, a former foreign secretary, is currently chairman of the National Security Advisory Board and RIS, as well as a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi