Any big ideas, Dr Singh?

In the third week, Singh will be at the White House for talks with President Bush for what promises to be a key marker in the evolution of Indo-US relations. Singh would like to know if the US means what it says — assist India to become a world power. The Bush administration would like to assess if India is actually ready for the mantle of great power status.

And sometime in July, India along with Japan, Germany and Brazil will introduce the framework resolution on the United Nations Security Council expansion in the General Assembly. That will bring India’s campaign for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council into a decisive stage.

There is nothing to suggest, in the public domain at least, that the establishment is rustling up some big ideas that Singh could take to Gleneagles and Washington. The reluctance to think in grand strategic terms is rooted in the inability of the system to come to terms with three broad imperatives that confront India.

The first is the shift from the notion of autonomy to balance of power. For generations of the Indian elite, “autonomy” has rightly been the defining notion of foreign policy. Underlying it was the proposition that India was too weak to influence the nature of the international system. Avoiding the constricting demands of the global order, on which it had no influence, and retaining foreign policy autonomy were the new nation’s natural objectives.

Today as its economic weight and political influence grow, India is emerging as one of the major power centres of the world. Amidst the rise of China and India and the strategic volatility of the Middle East, the centre of gravity of international politics is shifting from Europe to Asia. Global demographics reinforce this trend.

India is no longer a mere object of international relations and can shape the political outcomes amidst a tectonic shift in the global balance of power. The search for autonomy meant avoiding entanglements and responsibilities. But being a great power involves taking sides on big issues, committing resources, stabilising power balances and standing up for what a nation considers its values and interests.

But is India ready? That is the real question at Singh’s Washington meeting with Bush. The current American engagement with India is premised on the twin assumptions that India’s rise is inevitable and non-destabilising. It is up to Singh to demonstrate in Washington that he represents a confident rising power in Asia.

Second, India has been focused all these decades on preventing an “internationalisation” of its own security issues. It has very little to say on the current global security challenges and the new ways and means of addressing them. There is so much focus on joining the UNSC in India, but so little debate on the other issues at the top of the UN reform agenda. Are we ready for a supra-national UN that the Europeans seek? Are we prepared to make the UN leaner and more accountable, as the Bush Administration wants?

When and how should the UN use force? What reforms are needed in the organisation and management of UN peace-keeping and peace-building? Does the challenge of terrorism demand new military doctrines? Is national sovereignty sacrosanct or are there occasions when the international system must intervene with force? Does the world’s largest democracy favour the promotion of pluralism?

As the size and capabilities of the Indian military grow, the world will make greater demands on it. But will India look beyond its own territorial defence and an occasional peace-keeping operation and transform its military into an expeditionary force capable of contributing to international peace and stability at short notice? Prime Minister Singh must begin to articulate new Indian thinking on these issues.

The third imperative for India is to shed its inactivism in the great global debates on poverty alleviation, aid, energy and climate change. Singh will not be credible in Gleneagles by repeating India’s boiler plate formulations on these issues. A decisive intervention by Singh would demand new approaches by India that match its new economic capabilities as well its impact on global energy consumption and climate change.

On aid, poverty alleviation and other millennium development goals Singh must put across a view that balances American emphasis on structural change and the European focus on expanded aid flows. As the architect of India’s economic reforms and former chairman of the South Commission, he is better equipped than most to generate new options in the debate on global poverty. And those insights will have to be underwritten by new commitments on India’s part on debt relief for the poorest of the poor nations as well as expanded and untied aid flows, especially to Africa, from India.

On energy and environmental issues India must come up with new proposals for international cooperation in the development of clean energy technologies. On all these issues, the old Third World rhetoric will get us nowhere. What we put on the table is far more important.

It is only by assuming new responsibilities in the global arena can Singh make a success of India’s campaign for a permanent seat at the UNSC. At Gleneagles and in Washington, Singh must signal that India is no longer weighed down by self-doubt and is ready to take its seat at the high table.