Democracy and Geopolitics in India
Insights from a Symposium on the Future of the Sub-continent
The Council on Foreign Relations put together an interesting symposium featuring experts discussing the future of India and how its economics, politics, and foreign relations are shaping its role in the international system. The symposium featured three forums where panelists shared their views. Below is an overview of each session and insights I took from each of them.
You can watch it for yourself here.
Session One: India’s Economic Rise
The first session explored India’s economic growth and the various macroeconomic trends that have led what is now the world’s largest nation to have a prominent role on the world stage.
One of the global trends India could benefit from is the push to decouple from China. This opens India to a large amount of investment from the United States without necessarily entering a reciprocal commitment. It is a strong candidate for a China-plus-one partner to diversify investment into the world’s largest labor market. India has worked to create an ideal environment for foreign direct investment, including liberalizing rules on foreign investment and investing in infrastructure.
China’s labor market is now less competitive, and geopolitical pressures are driving away more investment. However, India has failed to capitalize on a lot of this outflow and is even showing signs of embracing a more protectionist approach. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s populist turn is leading to worries about the undermining of institutions and the rule of law. India’s economic policy is being increasingly politicized.
First, the infrastructure work by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has given it huge leeway on economic policy. This is where domestic political concerns and foreign investor concerns align. Now that it’s bought political support with these infrastructural improvements, we are seeing them move away from these pro-growth policies. Ultimately, the government’s economic agenda is being dictated by a short-term political agenda and only happens in some instances to encourage investment.
Particularly, there is a focus on bringing in manufacturing investment, where it can leverage its most important resource: its labor market. There is still a long way to go, as Chinese manufacturing exports exceed India’s by a factor of 5. India has done a fantastic job developing the infrastructure to make this happen under Modi. However, there has been a lack of focus on other aspects of the modern manufacturing sector, such as access to new technology and research and development. All these things require more permanent trade ties, something India lacks.
There is a failure of the government to align policy comprehensively outside of picking and choosing small projects or policy moves to provide a marginal political benefit. India’s reluctance to enter into any permanent agreements, and a general internally focused populism means a failure to create international partnerships to foster large amounts of investment and trade. China’s policy is much more comprehensive, and thus we see the diverging trajectories.
Session Two: India’s Democracy
The second section explored domestic politics in India, particularly the health of its democracy. Perceived democratic backsliding is a major concern to many foreign observers, but Indians themselves do not necessarily see it this way.
It was fascinating to hear the Indian perspective regarding America. One of the panelists stated categorically that the United States only embraces human rights and democracy as tools of geo-political power and dispenses with them when it conflicts with our interests. Looking at our history and alliances with authoritarians, I can see where this impression comes from, and it makes American observers look hypocritical when criticizing India on this basis.
A strong distinction was made in the discussion between electoral democracy, which occurs at the ballot box, and “liberal” democracy, which occurs between elections and revolves around the rights and protections of minority groups. India does not have an issue with electoral democracy, and the ruling BJP is poised to lose elections in some states this year. If India was truly taking an authoritarian turn, we would expect the ruling party to be making moves to minimize or reverse election losses. But this is not the case. So, when we talk about democratic backsliding in India, we should look particularly at the liberal aspect of democracy.
Even here, these concerns might be overblown. The most important for civil society are the freedoms of speech, expression, and association, and the protection of minority rights. In the United States, this roughly translates to our First and Fourteenth Amendments. In India, the rights are generally not questioned, but there are entrenched aspects of British colonial governance that proscribe limits on those that do not exist in the United States. For example, there are still laws on the books against criticizing the government, and the Prime Minister has sought to enforce these in some limited instances, particularly in the case of a BBC documentary critical of his government.
Unlike the American Constitution, the Indian Constitution emphasizes the duties of a citizen in addition to rights, and the current government does this as well. India still has a strong electoral democracy, but Modi’s party defines minority rights more narrowly even more than traditionally done in India. India is a very old country with thousands of languages and ethnic groups. Up until the British colonization, it was ruled by what was regarded as a foreign Muslim dynasty (the Mughals).
The BJP is at heart a Hindu nationalist party in a state founded as the Hindu partition of British India. In their version of history, Muslims are outsiders who don’t fulfill their duties to the Indian state, and thus should not have rights to the same extent. This conception of rights is different than the Western tradition, but we might have to be satisfied with this. There is potential resentment from too much finger-wagging by Western democracies that are perceived as being fundamentally hypocritical in their use of human rights in statecraft.
Ultimately, in India, it is the political right that has the momentum, with its focus on traditional politicking and creative translation of the mandate of voters into concrete policy. The left and centrist factions in India are not nearly as organized.
Session Three: Indian Foreign Policy
The final session explored India’s increasingly important role on the global stage as the world’s largest country by population, and member of the G20 and Quad multilateral partnerships. India will need to carefully manage its self-appointed role as a mediator between the Global South and the great powers.
India does not have permanent alliances, only relationships and strategic partnerships that it leverages in certain instances. For example, it is still a customer of Russian oil. The price cap on Russian oil makes it cheaper for foreign buyers who are not part of the sanctions regime. Buying this oil has been very helpful for India’s economy. In this instance, it’s flouting the will of the United States and Europe to pursue its interests. On the other hand, cheap natural resources help India grow its economy, giving it more money to spend on its defense capabilities.
This makes India a better partner for the United States to counter China. The growing importance of the Quad multi-lateral partnership between India, America, Australia, and Japan means the U.S. feels it must soften its stance on Russia concerning its relationship with India. For this reason, it is also imperative for the time being that India maintain cooperative ties with Russia due to its reliance on Russian military equipment.
Essentially, India is playing the United States and Russia off each other to pursue its regional geopolitical and economic interests. Given India’s military dependence on Russia, their reticence on the Ukraine issue is understandable. But this means America should make every effort to decouple India from the supply chains of hostile powers and increase cooperation with Western defense industries.
This behavior reflects a pattern of India’s participation in the international system. It was non-aligned in the Cold War and pursued limited partnerships on specific issues, rather than forming permanent alliances. This has given India a reputation of being an unreliable partner on large-scale issues that require more robust relationships that are not purely transactional. The Ukraine war is one example.
A purely transactional approach to foreign relations works in a stable geopolitical framework such as in the bipolar Cold War order and the post-Cold War, American-led unipolar order. The war in Ukraine represents a major disruption of this stability and is part of the growing pains of a more chaotic multi-polar order. Despite its self-appointed status as a representative of the so-called “Global South” it is still a rising great power that has claimed a place in the G20. ON major issues involving the shaping of the world order, it must choose a position or risk alienating itself from everyone.
How can India continue to ask for US support to defend against China if it will not stand firm with the United States on certain issues? India feels like it’s in a sweet spot where, regardless of its domestic politics and self-interested behavior, the US will support it because of the need to balance China. This might not be a naive view, as many American thinkers view the US as more valuable to India than the reverse; India is just not used to having this leveraged.
Today, India has an increasingly hostile relationship with China. This is caused by escalating tensions on their shared border, greater regional competition, and China’s growing military assertiveness in East Asia. Despite this, India is treated as a very junior partner in its relationship with China and must rely on the United States and the Quad to balance this.
There are demographic trends in India’s favor. It’s already the most populous country, though still developing, and it does not have the lopsided demographics that will cause China to shrink in population and economic might over this century. As India grows from a non-aligned regional power to a global power, there will be growing pains associated with these issues.