India is a rising power – Essay

The post-Cold War period, India is seen as a rising power for two important reasons.

First, its hard power capabilities, while lagging behind those of the major powers, are appreciably higher than those of the other regional powers such as Brazil, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, Nigeria and Egypt.

The Indian middle class of 300 million is much larger the population of Indonesia (287 million) and Brazil (168 million), the two largest regional powers. None of these regional powers hold aggregate raw military capabilities compared to India.

In the economic sphere, India has the largest economy, except that of Brazil, though in per capita dollar terms, all regional powers, with the exception of Nigeria and Pakistan, rank above India. Secondly, India is changing rapidly and is strengthening its position in almost all indicators of hard power capabilities, though the level of improvement varies from one area to another.

The early 1990s, faced with liquidity crisis, India opened up its market and integrated with the world economy. Since then, its average annual growth rate has been over 6 percent. And as its expanding market has become an attractive site for foreign investors and exporters, India has acquired a great degree of self confidence in emerging as a major economic player, at least in niche areas such as information technology, biotechnology and related area. India has already begun to see its large and expanding market as the foundation for encouraging regional economic cooperation in the subcontinent and beyond.

In the 1990s, in an effort to foster closer economic relationship within the South Asia region, India has replaced the concept of reciprocity in economic operation with its neighbours with ‘more than reciprocity’. India’s aspirations extended beyond the South Asia region, and it became an active promoter in 1997 of the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation. It also became a full dialogue partner of the ASEAN regional Forum.

While these moves are primarily economic in orientation, they are likely to have strategic implications in the long run. In the military domain, India’s power projection capabilities beyond the region are rapidly increasing as a result the consistent support lent by different governments to the Integrated Missile Development Programme, which was launched in the early 1980s. This programme has resulted in the development of a range of ballistic missiles, including the Agni I missile with a range of 1500 km in the 1990s.

The programme has plans to develop longer range version of the Agni missile as well as an intercontinental ballistic missile. With these, India’s military reach is set to increase to cover the Far East, West Asia, and Central Asia as well as Australia. India has already successfully produced a long range, cruise missiles in a co-production arrangement with Russia.

By far the most significant development that enhanced India’s position in the global power structure is its decision to go nuclear in May 1998. India’s defiance of major powers in its decision to conducted underground nuclear tests and emerge as a nuclear weapon state followed from its efforts to overcome the challenges in the strategic arena- the collapse of the Soviet Union and with it the special Indo-Soviet relationship, the intensified efforts of the major powers to strengthen the non-proliferation regime to retain their monopoly over nuclear weapons and foreclose India exercising the nuclear option, and the US negligence of the Chinese transfer of nuclear and missile equipment and technology to Pakistan.

The major powers, rightly perceived in the nuclear tests, along with India’s declaration that it now stood as a nuclear weapon state, a challenger to their hegemony.

The first reaction of the major powers was to condemn the nuclear tests. Several of them sought to isolate India politically and to punish it economically through sanctions, suspension of economic aid, and denial of toans from international financial institutions. Confident that its economy had the resilience to withstand economic pressures, India remained unrelenting.

Soon differences surfaced among the major power as to how to deal with India. Russia and France left no doubt, by word and deed, of their different approach through opposition to sanctions and political ostracism.

Under these circumstances, the US initiated or strategic dialogue with India. The result was a tacit and partial accommodation on the part of the US to India as a de facto nuclear weapon state, even as the US formally remained committed to its ultimate aim of nuclear non-proliferation. Other major powers, barring China, have initiated strategic dialogue with India.

China is most adversely affected by India’s rise to a nuclear weapons power, as it could end China’s unhindered hegemony over Asia. It was most critical of the Indian tests and irritated by the US dialogue with India, but it too has come round to establishing normal relations with India and even engaged in a security dialogue with it. Thus, within two years of the tests, there was a sea change in the treatment of India by major powers.

The nuclear tests have increased India’s political and diplomatic bargaining power with the other major powers, as evident in the strategic dialogue that it has begun to engage in with all the major powers. India is now also taken seriously, even if not universally, as a candidate for the major power status.

Having repositioned itself from being a middle power in the international system to become a candidate major power, India has been working towards achieving permanent membership for itself in the restructured Security Council of the United Nations.

For quite some time now, there has been a demand to restructure the UN Security Council to reflect the changes in the global power structure. In this context, the acquisition of permanent membership in the Security Council will dramatically improve the Indian power position in the global power structure.

As we noted earlier, institutions have been a source of soft power capabilities. Established powers have often used institutions to legitimise their position. Rising powers such as China have also been increasingly using institutions in order of the power ambitions. India already exercises institutional power intermittently through its leadership in G-77, G-20 and the non-aligned group. Its contribution to the UN peacekeeping operations also provides India with some institutional influence.