The Unfinished Quest examines India's rise as a global swing power

Why India's democratic system, despite its flaws, is attractive for trade, investment, and economic partnerships

The Unfinished Quest

Author: T V Paul

Publisher: Westland

Pages: 280

Price: Rs 699

  Historically, aspirational countries had always aimed at elevating themselves to great power status through war, but that is not an option anymore in the 21st century, according to T V Paul, who in The Unfinished Quest charts India’s checkered path towards higher regional and global status.

 

Dr Paul is a distinguished James McGill Professor whose body of scholarly work focuses on the need to understand peaceful change as an urgent necessity. His book sheds important light on India’s significance as the “swing power” that can mitigate China’s aggressive rise in the Indo-Pacific region. To this end, he espouses the use of both soft power and hard power resources.

 

Joseph Nye Jr coined soft power as one’s ability to get what one wants through attraction rather than coercion. The book elaborates on India’s soft power strengths, stating that its cultural and civilisational depth lend it a favourable reception — for example, yoga, Bollywood, spirituality, inclusiveness, tolerance — but its caste system and religious divisiveness are its countervailing factors. The economic growth rate is said to be a major marker of hard power and the complementing hard tools are indigenous military strength, nuclear potential, space applications and technological advances, while poverty, inequality and corruption are its downsides.

 

There were supposedly two pivotal moments for India post-World War II when the status hierarchy was institutionalised, and on both occasions, India is said to have missed the boat, the author contends. The first was in 1945 when India was still a British colony and the second was in 1968 when India opposed the unequal Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). However, the true perceptual shift about India is said to have happened since its economic liberalisation in 1991, a trigger for India’s acceptance as a rising power.

 

The book informs us of the importance of dependency relationships for status hierarchy, and the lack of it causing status depreciation. It draws attention to how India’s insufficient economic integration with the South Asian countries — evident in trade comprising less than 5 per cent of its global trade and low investment levels—has created a vacuum that China has effectively filled.  Such a lapse, the author underscores, could be deleterious to regional hegemonic status as smaller states in the region get manoeuvring space to play one against the other.

 

The coverage of the India-Pakistan rivalry in the backdrop of the Cold War seems like an analogous game of chess, with India’s status often checkmated by the big powers. The US strategy to prop up Pakistan to counter Russia, particularly during the tenures of President Reagan and President Carter, is said to have emboldened Pakistan to develop nuclear capability to neutralise India. The simplistic assessment that the Kashmir conflict is being partially driven by status and identity concerns exposes the author’s feeble understanding of the painful Partition with all its serious security implications for India.

 

The book explains how India has astutely leveraged international status symbols, such as its G20 presidency, membership in regional forums like the Quad and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity, and strong bilateral relations, to advance its interests and enhance its global profile. Its ongoing strategic partnership with Russia gives it a bridge- builder role. In Africa, too, India could do a lot more, given the strong presence of its diaspora, and champion the interests of the Global South with concrete advances and collective actions in collaboration with the West.  However, the author’s assertion that the West needs India to counter an assertive China in the Indo-Pacific region appears to contradict his reasoning that the US-China rivalry can diminish India’s status.

 

The book dwells on India’s weaknesses and what needs to be done to play a leadership role globally.  The author believes that bridging material gaps should be a top priority, from which flows the need to address staggering inequalities, especially income, gender, regional, and rural. His advocacy supports inclusive development policies that can translate into parallel improvements in domestic living standards and the creation of world-class infrastructure through a reoriented, futuristic bureaucracy. However, his constructive criticism fails to take into account India’s decadal progress during which about 250 million people were lifted out of multidimensional poverty, as recognised by the UN. India’s progress was a silver lining  in the otherwise gloomy scenario surrounding the Sustainable Development Goals. Further, he reinforces the importance of promoting multicultural, multiethnic, and secular credentials to earn respect for Hindu values. The necessity of liberal education is  key to changing attitudes, he observes.

 

India’s democratic system, despite its flaws, is attractive for trade, investment and economic partnerships. The author supposes that more democracy, not less, is the way forward for India’s peaceful ascent to a high-status nation, challenging the dominant narrative that war is the way to great power status. If India gets its act right through leadership foresight and collective resolve, Dr Paul believes, India will hold a vital place in the world order. 

The reviewer is a serving foreign service officer