It's "The Great Game, 21st Century Edition."
Posted on 01/29/2023 6:02:34 AM PST by FarCenter
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It can be said that the Western perception of India as a member of its bloc is flawed in two respects.
First, India has expanded its strategic ties with Western democracies through the Quad and cooperation with Europe to counter China's naval drive to surround India with its military and commercial networks called the "string of pearls." But when it comes to countering China's attempts to increase its influence in such countries as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Myanmar, India's strategic relations with the West do not offer much help.
"India's diplomacy is aimed at countering China by using its ties with another authoritarian power, Russia, [as a deterrent]," said Hiroshi Sugaya, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Indian Economic Studies, a Tokyo think tank.
Second, the Western nations have mistakenly judged India to be as democratic as they are. The Modi government, acting on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's Hindu nationalist agenda, has taken a series of steps to suppress religious minorities in the country. In August 2019, it revoked the constitutional autonomy of the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir to tighten its grip over the region. It has also given citizenship to illegal Hindu and other immigrants from Muslim-majority Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, while trying to exclude Muslims from its national register of citizens. Muslims in India face much the same predicament as Islamic people in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
Under Modi, "India is on the verge of losing its status as a democracy due to the severely shrinking of space for the media, civil society and opposition," according to the 2020 'Democracy Report' by the Sweden-based V-Dem Institute. In 2021, India was downgraded from an "electoral democracy" to an "electoral autocracy."
In fact, India has been pursuing a unique diplomacy, one of "strategic autonomy." Its recent responses to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and other issues must have driven home to Western democracies that the South Asian nation's strategic interests and values do not necessarily align with theirs.
In a way, the Voice of the Global South Summit was reminiscent of the 1955 Bandung Conference, a meeting of Asian and African nations held in Indonesia. However, unlike the Bandung gathering, which was organized through cooperation between then-Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and then-Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai -- the first prime ministers of the two countries, the Global South was organized by India alone. The fact that over 120 countries took part in the recent event signals India's growing demographic and political power.
"India's rise will inevitably be compared to that of China, if only because that country has immediately preceded it," Jaishankar wrote in his book, echoing New Delhi's strong pride and rivalry with Beijing.
In the case of China's rise, major Western powers mistakenly assumed that the emerging power would eventually move toward democracy once it was integrated with the global economy and the politically conscious middle class grew.
Unlike China, India has been proud of being "the world's largest democracy," but its actions in recent years seem to suggest that it is drifting away from democracy as its power grows. If the 21st Century turns out to be India's era, rather than China's, the world would find itself dealing with a superpower that is no less troublesome.
Is that a bad thing..??
It's "The Great Game, 21st Century Edition."
And that's bad for the US.....why?
In the case of China’s rise, major Western powers mistakenly assumed that the emerging power would eventually move toward democracy once it was integrated with the global economy and the politically conscious middle class grew.
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Yeah, “democracy” has really been serving us well here in the The West lately. /s
All I know is competition in college in India was tough. I got my bachelor’s degree there. There were no multiple choice quizzes. The final exam was based on whole years curriculu, so that was a lot of stuff to prepare for, and if one had not worked very hard to prepare, you woul score well
Then I came to USA for masters degree in mechanical engineering. There was no exam covering entire years worth of curriculum. Instead there were frequent quizzes during the semester, based on material covered for may be only a month or so. That was easier to prepare for. Another difference was some of my courses required creative thinking. That was different than system in India. In 1961, I worked on developing mathematical algorithms for automatic steering of an automobile. That was a lot of creative work instead of cramming formulas in my head.
Surprised to read such an exaggerated anti-India opinion coming from Japan, but it is what it is.
“Under Biden, the USA is on the verge of losing its status as a democracy due to the severely shrinking of space for the media, civil society and opposition” Fixed it.
“Muslims in India face much the same predicament as Islamic people in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.” Really? Can’t they migrate to Pakistan or Bangladesh if they don’t like being part of a religious minority in India? I’m guessing that life in India is better.
China India Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Pakistan Russia Tajikistan Uzbekistan
Iran and Belarus are "acceding members".
Dialogue partners
Armenia Azerbaijan Cambodia Egypt Nepal Qatar Saudi Arabia Sri Lanka Turkey
Makinder's ship has sailed. Eurasia (or more accurately Asiaeur) is no longer interested in being ruled by the European penninsula.
*All I know is competition in college in India was tough. I got my bachelor’s degree there.
Then I came to USA for masters degree in mechanical engineering.*
Entropy12-You have done quite well. We need more like you.
So tell me-do the Hindus and Sikhs get along? Do they have much in common when they arrive here?
Upper caste Indians are some of the most racist people that I have ever met and they look down on Americans as much as they do the Dalit “untouchables.” India has desperately poor people because the filth running India are happy to have the desperately poor as servants, slaves, and scapegoats. The upper class Indian H-1B hordes bring that disease to America. India is not our friend.
We will be crushed by telemarketers
This seems like traditional Indian foreign policy. The Indian philosopher Kautilya (375-283 BC) wrote that a country’s next-door neighbor is its natural enemy while the one on the opposite side of its neighbor is its natural ally. Therefore, according to this thought, Red China is India’s natural enemy while Russia is its natural ally.
“They breed like rabbits”...W. Churchill...
Blowing up the Nordstream pipeline was bad in the sense that we should never have allowed it to be completed in the first place.
I have been telling you....... the future is east of Suez
We could spell trouble for India if we started sending all of their non-Native American Indians living here back home to their own country.
Alexander Dugin has revived and updated Mackinder’s thought in Russia. In his writings, popular in Russia, he calls for, among other things, consolidating Russian control of the Heartland, a German-Russian alliance, which could include returning Kaliningrad to Germany, and excluding Britain from Europe.
> It has also given citizenship to illegal Hindu and other immigrants from Muslim-majority Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, while trying to exclude Muslims from its national register of citizens.
Sounds like they’re a lot smarter than we are, or else they’ve learned from watching our suicidal mistake.
India has developed Nuke weapons and big rockets that work. Millions still crap in the streets.....
A superpower with a 3rd world economy usin out dated Soviet equipment. After Iraq, we know that worked.
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