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India's future is firmly with the West
By Tufail Ahmad
Posted: Feb 8, 2007
As a rising India celebrates its 58th Republic Day on 26th January 2007, it is pertinent to examine what
values it shares with the West. There are two key factors to examine in its rapid transformation as a
power of international consequence: first, how the West should understand India, its ambition and its
outlook on world affairs; and second, how Indians should conceive their role in the international arena.
Let’s take the second point first. India has the world’s second largest population at 1.12 billion;
importantly also, the Indian diaspora outside South Asia is the second largest estimated at twenty-five
million (after the Chinese) and is increasingly influential in business and professions. The way India
grows over the next few decades and comprehends its relationship with the West will depend on how
Indians think about the West.
However, most Indians have grown up with a negative conception of the West, seeing it as a
geographic unit and colonial in intent. This view results justifiably from the experience of the British Raj;
however it continues to be reinforced in contemporary times by the Indian Left, which looks towards
Beijing, Moscow and everywhere else but London, Brussels and Washington. This is where the Indian
leadership has its task cut out: to educate Indian masses and policy makers about the realities of what
constitutes the West.
Contrary to popular conception among the Indian people, the West is neither a geographic concept nor
colonial in its outlook. The West may have originated from Europe, but increasingly it also includes
countries as far in the east and as diverse as Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. India
too is increasingly part of the West, as it shares the same values that these nations broadly share
between them: an elected government, multi-party elections, individual liberty, free press, rule of law,
independent judiciary, free enterprise and the like. These are the key values that are the defining
characteristics of the West. There is no reason why Indians must not consider themselves as part of
the West too.
Contemporary India - characterised by a vibrant parliamentary democracy, multi-party elections,
individual liberty, rule of law and free press - is not what it used to be: divided by brutalities of caste,
Hindu orthodoxy, the custom of Sati or widow burning, domination of priests, almighty kings and
nawabs, or dependent miserably on agriculture. It has turned out exactly the way Mahatma Gandhi and
Jawaharlal Nehru, a pupil of Harrow School, designed it to be through a political process in which
Indians rejected most of themselves and adopted what came from the West. The founders of the
Indian republic rejected most of what the Indian society had been for centuries and allowed for
institutions of schooling, politics and governance to be adopted from Britain.
The founders were, as Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, noted in his 2005 speech at the
University of Oxford, ‘greatly influenced by the ideas associated with the age of Enlightenment in
Europe’. About six decades ago, Britain was the anchor of the West. Now, this honour belongs to the
United States. In the currents of India’s rising, every Indian must remember that the United States and
contemporary India are products of European Enlightenment, something that would not have been
possible without the British coming to India. Take out English language, rule of law and information
technology, what would be left of India?
Despite the fact that contemporary India is fundamentally typical of the West, there exists a streak in the
newfound Indian ambition that New Delhi should take an independent course in foreign policy, which
translates into not allying with the West but taking sides with any country that could offer a symbolic
illusion of moral upper ground or a little market. This line of thinking is a residue of the Cold War,
reinforced by the Left intelligentsia in media and universities, and needs to be abandoned fast. Indians
must realise that much of the growth we are seeing in the Indian economy is a consequence of the
landmark role played by America and Britain - especially by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher,
and the bolstering of Western defence budgets - that led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Few Indians
comprehend this but it was the collapse of the Berlin Wall that unshackled and unleashed the Indian
mind. It liberated policy-makers in New Delhi for the first time since Independence from a stale
intellectual framework; they could now think freely and channel the growth of India.
The Indian leadership needs to recognise that in the growth of world powers, often it was a single
industry that played critical role. Textiles in the case of Britain and rail industry in the case of United
States were drivers of growth. India’s current growth is driven by services sector, more specifically
information technology. India has its biggest opportunity in the Western nations, with services sector
constituting two thirds of these economies. Aligning with the West in the international arena should be
a natural course for India, both in terms of values and opportunities. This will provide an opportunity for
Indian businesses to tap the market in the West and India can play a meaningful role in the
international arena.
This brings us to the first original question: how should the West think about India? India is unique
among the several countries created by Britain - for example, the United States, Canada, Australia and
New Zealand. It was the British contribution that all these nations as well as India turned out to be
good societies. Modern civilisation, indeed India’s railways, roads, bridges, telegraph, English
language, independent judiciary, rule of law, parliamentary democracy, civil service, network of secular
schools and so on, owe their origins to Britain. Yet, it is the United States more than Britain that has
moved closer to benefit from India’s rising.
This is largely because of the role played by the Indian diaspora in the United States. America has
about 2.5 million people of Indian origin, roughly twice the size of Indian diaspora in Britain. From the
early 1960s through to the 1980s, when talented Indians began migrating to America, there were fierce
accusations of brain drain. However, by the turn of the century, this brain drain has turned out, as noted
by American academics, to be brain circulation, as seen in non-resident Indians building business
links back home. India’s rise in information technology was driven from the West in which a critical role
was played by the Indian diaspora. In the United Kingdom, this diaspora has still to replicate that role
in the years ahead as Indian companies enter British and other European markets and British
businesses tap opportunities in India.
The wider European Union also has much in common with India. Both India and Europe comprise of
diverse nationalities: twenty-seven countries with different languages and governments constitute the
European Union, while India has twenty-eight states and many federally run units each with a different
language and government. In Europe and in India, English forms the common link language;
importantly, societies and governments in both the European Union and India derive consensus from
differences - a key organising principle of modern societies which French sociologist Emile Durkheim
reminded us of as distinguishing from similarities that informed archaic societies. If you travel through
the length and breadth of India, the milestones, a distinct Roman contribution, at every kilometre of the
road you travel remind of not only of how close you are from your destination, but also their lineage
back to Europe. India and Europe, along with the United States, constitute the bulk of the democratic
world. In the early years of the twenty-first century, business leaders in Europe and India are the first to
be forging links. Other than business, Europe and India have some outstanding opportunities for
closer political co-operation: space programmes, United Nations reforms, world trade talks, climate
change and green technologies, energy, knowledge sector development, commitment to fundamental
freedoms; additionally India has enormous goodwill in the Middle East where it has the experience of
working together with European Union Member States such as, importantly, in Lebanon.
India is doubly unique in that it is civilisationally different and yet it has come to resemble the West. The
emergence of democracy as the destroyer of Hindu rigidities such as caste is the most important
contribution of the European Enlightenment. However its spirituality, as evident in its predominantly
Hindu civilisation, means that it is inward looking, unwilling to assume an international role. This
inward spirituality means, for example, that India has been a success in software but is lagging behind
in hardware. The Indian spirituality also means that Indians lack a conception of power and the
attendant role for India at world stage. India has contributed to international peacekeeping and recently
nominated writer and civil servant Shashi Tharoor for the post of United Nations Secretary General.
However, it is not clear why India wanted that post; the substance of its intention to play a
consequential role in the international arena was missing. India turned down a request from the
United Nations to train Iraqi police. It has not shown willingness to shouldering responsibilities in
Afghanistan where it has the necessary goodwill, a greater stake and its biggest opportunity, for the
first time, to work with the NATO mission. The Indian policy-maker needs a new framework for India’s
role in world affairs, especially in situations in which international institutions such as the United
Nations are failing to prove effective.
Whether a rising India can develop the conception of power it needs to operate globally and abandon
its traditional temptation to stand up to the world (read the West) by aligning with non-democratic
regimes depends on the active willingness of the West, especially the United States and the European
Union, to assist India in emerging as a major Western power. India, a rising democratic power, is a
natural Western ally, but will need encouragement from the West to channel its aspirations, potential
and growth. Indians recognised that they are a rising power when the West delivered that message to
them. It is this process of communication that needs to be re-designed - through links in businesses,
the universities and the diaspora - to strengthen India’s transformation.
### ### ###
The writer is an Associate of the American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C. This article was written
for The Henry Jackson Society, Cambridge, UK.
By Tufail Ahmad
Posted: Feb 8, 2007
As a rising India celebrates its 58th Republic Day on 26th January 2007, it is pertinent to examine what
values it shares with the West. There are two key factors to examine in its rapid transformation as a
power of international consequence: first, how the West should understand India, its ambition and its
outlook on world affairs; and second, how Indians should conceive their role in the international arena.
Let’s take the second point first. India has the world’s second largest population at 1.12 billion;
importantly also, the Indian diaspora outside South Asia is the second largest estimated at twenty-five
million (after the Chinese) and is increasingly influential in business and professions. The way India
grows over the next few decades and comprehends its relationship with the West will depend on how
Indians think about the West.
However, most Indians have grown up with a negative conception of the West, seeing it as a
geographic unit and colonial in intent. This view results justifiably from the experience of the British Raj;
however it continues to be reinforced in contemporary times by the Indian Left, which looks towards
Beijing, Moscow and everywhere else but London, Brussels and Washington. This is where the Indian
leadership has its task cut out: to educate Indian masses and policy makers about the realities of what
constitutes the West.
Contrary to popular conception among the Indian people, the West is neither a geographic concept nor
colonial in its outlook. The West may have originated from Europe, but increasingly it also includes
countries as far in the east and as diverse as Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. India
too is increasingly part of the West, as it shares the same values that these nations broadly share
between them: an elected government, multi-party elections, individual liberty, free press, rule of law,
independent judiciary, free enterprise and the like. These are the key values that are the defining
characteristics of the West. There is no reason why Indians must not consider themselves as part of
the West too.
Contemporary India - characterised by a vibrant parliamentary democracy, multi-party elections,
individual liberty, rule of law and free press - is not what it used to be: divided by brutalities of caste,
Hindu orthodoxy, the custom of Sati or widow burning, domination of priests, almighty kings and
nawabs, or dependent miserably on agriculture. It has turned out exactly the way Mahatma Gandhi and
Jawaharlal Nehru, a pupil of Harrow School, designed it to be through a political process in which
Indians rejected most of themselves and adopted what came from the West. The founders of the
Indian republic rejected most of what the Indian society had been for centuries and allowed for
institutions of schooling, politics and governance to be adopted from Britain.
The founders were, as Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, noted in his 2005 speech at the
University of Oxford, ‘greatly influenced by the ideas associated with the age of Enlightenment in
Europe’. About six decades ago, Britain was the anchor of the West. Now, this honour belongs to the
United States. In the currents of India’s rising, every Indian must remember that the United States and
contemporary India are products of European Enlightenment, something that would not have been
possible without the British coming to India. Take out English language, rule of law and information
technology, what would be left of India?
Despite the fact that contemporary India is fundamentally typical of the West, there exists a streak in the
newfound Indian ambition that New Delhi should take an independent course in foreign policy, which
translates into not allying with the West but taking sides with any country that could offer a symbolic
illusion of moral upper ground or a little market. This line of thinking is a residue of the Cold War,
reinforced by the Left intelligentsia in media and universities, and needs to be abandoned fast. Indians
must realise that much of the growth we are seeing in the Indian economy is a consequence of the
landmark role played by America and Britain - especially by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher,
and the bolstering of Western defence budgets - that led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Few Indians
comprehend this but it was the collapse of the Berlin Wall that unshackled and unleashed the Indian
mind. It liberated policy-makers in New Delhi for the first time since Independence from a stale
intellectual framework; they could now think freely and channel the growth of India.
The Indian leadership needs to recognise that in the growth of world powers, often it was a single
industry that played critical role. Textiles in the case of Britain and rail industry in the case of United
States were drivers of growth. India’s current growth is driven by services sector, more specifically
information technology. India has its biggest opportunity in the Western nations, with services sector
constituting two thirds of these economies. Aligning with the West in the international arena should be
a natural course for India, both in terms of values and opportunities. This will provide an opportunity for
Indian businesses to tap the market in the West and India can play a meaningful role in the
international arena.
This brings us to the first original question: how should the West think about India? India is unique
among the several countries created by Britain - for example, the United States, Canada, Australia and
New Zealand. It was the British contribution that all these nations as well as India turned out to be
good societies. Modern civilisation, indeed India’s railways, roads, bridges, telegraph, English
language, independent judiciary, rule of law, parliamentary democracy, civil service, network of secular
schools and so on, owe their origins to Britain. Yet, it is the United States more than Britain that has
moved closer to benefit from India’s rising.
This is largely because of the role played by the Indian diaspora in the United States. America has
about 2.5 million people of Indian origin, roughly twice the size of Indian diaspora in Britain. From the
early 1960s through to the 1980s, when talented Indians began migrating to America, there were fierce
accusations of brain drain. However, by the turn of the century, this brain drain has turned out, as noted
by American academics, to be brain circulation, as seen in non-resident Indians building business
links back home. India’s rise in information technology was driven from the West in which a critical role
was played by the Indian diaspora. In the United Kingdom, this diaspora has still to replicate that role
in the years ahead as Indian companies enter British and other European markets and British
businesses tap opportunities in India.
The wider European Union also has much in common with India. Both India and Europe comprise of
diverse nationalities: twenty-seven countries with different languages and governments constitute the
European Union, while India has twenty-eight states and many federally run units each with a different
language and government. In Europe and in India, English forms the common link language;
importantly, societies and governments in both the European Union and India derive consensus from
differences - a key organising principle of modern societies which French sociologist Emile Durkheim
reminded us of as distinguishing from similarities that informed archaic societies. If you travel through
the length and breadth of India, the milestones, a distinct Roman contribution, at every kilometre of the
road you travel remind of not only of how close you are from your destination, but also their lineage
back to Europe. India and Europe, along with the United States, constitute the bulk of the democratic
world. In the early years of the twenty-first century, business leaders in Europe and India are the first to
be forging links. Other than business, Europe and India have some outstanding opportunities for
closer political co-operation: space programmes, United Nations reforms, world trade talks, climate
change and green technologies, energy, knowledge sector development, commitment to fundamental
freedoms; additionally India has enormous goodwill in the Middle East where it has the experience of
working together with European Union Member States such as, importantly, in Lebanon.
India is doubly unique in that it is civilisationally different and yet it has come to resemble the West. The
emergence of democracy as the destroyer of Hindu rigidities such as caste is the most important
contribution of the European Enlightenment. However its spirituality, as evident in its predominantly
Hindu civilisation, means that it is inward looking, unwilling to assume an international role. This
inward spirituality means, for example, that India has been a success in software but is lagging behind
in hardware. The Indian spirituality also means that Indians lack a conception of power and the
attendant role for India at world stage. India has contributed to international peacekeeping and recently
nominated writer and civil servant Shashi Tharoor for the post of United Nations Secretary General.
However, it is not clear why India wanted that post; the substance of its intention to play a
consequential role in the international arena was missing. India turned down a request from the
United Nations to train Iraqi police. It has not shown willingness to shouldering responsibilities in
Afghanistan where it has the necessary goodwill, a greater stake and its biggest opportunity, for the
first time, to work with the NATO mission. The Indian policy-maker needs a new framework for India’s
role in world affairs, especially in situations in which international institutions such as the United
Nations are failing to prove effective.
Whether a rising India can develop the conception of power it needs to operate globally and abandon
its traditional temptation to stand up to the world (read the West) by aligning with non-democratic
regimes depends on the active willingness of the West, especially the United States and the European
Union, to assist India in emerging as a major Western power. India, a rising democratic power, is a
natural Western ally, but will need encouragement from the West to channel its aspirations, potential
and growth. Indians recognised that they are a rising power when the West delivered that message to
them. It is this process of communication that needs to be re-designed - through links in businesses,
the universities and the diaspora - to strengthen India’s transformation.
### ### ###
The writer is an Associate of the American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C. This article was written
for The Henry Jackson Society, Cambridge, UK.
| (c) 2005-09 New Criterion Foundation, London |