What kind of super power will India be?

This should have been posted long ago, it has been lying around in my writings folder for over two weeks now.... 


The World Economic Forum’s India Economic Summit had some intriguing topics and good discussions. Though the event was streamed live on the web, I got to follow it only on the last day. I am excited about some of the topics on the previous days and looking forward to listening to the recordings soon.

The discussion I tuned into was “What kind of super power will India be?” It is a very interesting topic for many reasons. With a panel consisting of members from the media, NGOs, industry and the Planning Commission, it was a balanced and well-informed discussion. With India’s growing economic clout since the recession, India Inc’s confident ventures from Africa to the US and great strides in various fields, the once unheard-of usage of “India” and “super power” in the same sentence, is commonplace now. With the UNSC seat debates, G20 meet, RIC trilaterals, recently concluded CWG and Obama’s visit and his “emerged India” comments along with the newly assertive Indian PM’s comments, “super power” is indeed the new fab word.

A discussion on a similar topic a couple of years ago would have been titled “Will India emerge a super power?” So, the very title of the discussion says a lot about the lines of thought of Indians as well as the light in which the rest of the world looks at India.

Yet, the topic is slightly hazy. One of my first thoughts on coming across the topic was “What is a super power?” And the question was reflected in the discussion quite a lot.

What indeed makes a super power? Is it economic clout? Military might? Political or geographical reasons? Nik from BBC made a fantastic point when he noted Soviet Union was a military giant, but its finances were in a mess. Indeed, it was its financial position that pulled down the Soviet Union from its super power status, but it did manage to be a super power long enough without corresponding finances. And the world not being what it was, say, 50 years earlier, it is hard to define what makes up a super power. Today’s world is multi-polar as opposed to the bi-polar or uni-polar world earlier. Almost every country has leverage in one way or another. And one single country is no longer able to dictate terms to any other country as a super-power in a traditional sense should be able to. There is of course, the USA trying to having a finger in every pie, but it is proving increasing difficult, and not just with China.

And many answers came up, a prosperous nation, one that can defend itself against external aggression, one that clubs both the above-mentioned, etc.

Talking about defending oneself, in today’s world aggression doesn’t mean just territorial aggression – pressures on the trade front, external political pressures, disarmament treaties, all of these can amount to aggression. So having said that, now the task of defining a super-power becomes a little easier. A super-power, I would say, is a country that can hold its own in matters it considers important to her own welfare.

Sudha Pillai, Member, Planning Commission, said in her quiet, dignified tone that India will be a “soft” super-power. One may not at first instance like the idea of “soft”, it need not be taken to mean that India will not be assertive. It means India will indeed be assertive, without being aggressive. In fact, that is what India actions embody even now from the climate summit to the NPT. What Sudha Pillai meant to say was that India would be assertive of her rights, but not force any other country unduly.

If we were to take my explanation of super-power, then India has always been a super-power – able to hold its own in the international arena. But then consensus doesn’t prevail that we ARE a super power. Where to we lag? We are yet to meet some of our needs satisfactorily. And we have been forced to appease and flatter some countries time and again.

If we were to take the explanation in a narrow sense, every country that doesn’t let anyone else dictate terms will be a super power, and that will include rogue nations. So, a super power should be one that will be able to influence other nations substantially in matters of international interest.

This ability to influence is dwindling down slowly for the powerful nations of the day. Being a one-way process, “influence” is not much desired today. Also, the line between “influence” and “aggression” is very thin. So what would be desirable for a super power is ability to bring about cohesion – a much-needed attribute in today’s world, which is ridden with trade imbalances and where protectionism seems a tempting option. So, the dynamics of world affairs today is such that a super power would be one that can bring about cohesion in international affairs.

This is closest to a comprehensive, defining definition of “super power” I am able to come up with – A nation that can hold its own in the international arena and one that can bring about cohesion in international affairs will be the super power of tomorrow. India is inching closer to this definition, from the Climate summits to G20s, India is emerging a driving force rather than a participatory one. That said, it would suffice to say India would be a next-gen super power, “soft” or otherwise is quite irrelevant.

The question of whether the world has space for just one or more than one super power is another one :)