The Indian story has arrived in the Western media, and America’s most influential journal is looking at it four ways. In a special section called ‘‘The Rise of India’’ in the forthcoming July/August issue of Foreign Affairs, its editors write: ‘‘Once proudly socialist and nonaligned, India is being remade as a roaring capitalist success story and emerging strategic partner of the United States.’’ Saying the country may become the swing state in the global balance of power, they use different axes to track ‘‘the sources and implications of India’s rise — and the policies necessary for it to continue’’. Put together, the four articles — by Gurcharan Das, C. Raja Mohan, Ashton B. Carter and Sumit Ganguly — present a narrative of great change, but a change that is still to be consolidated and is contingent on important reform and initiatives. Das, a former CEO of Procter & Gamble India, details India’s enhanced economic profile after the beginnings of liberalisation in 1991. India, he contends, is reaping the benefits of abandoning socialist policies and of straying from the ‘‘classic Asian strategy’’ of relying on exporting labour-intensive, low-priced manufacturing goods to the West. ‘‘India,’’ he says, ‘‘has relied on its domestic market more than exports, consumption more than investment, services more than industry, and high-tech more than low-skilled manufacturing’’. This has insulated the economy from global crises, but major reforms — especially, in labour policies and the bureaucratic interface — are required to hasten industrial growth, so necessary for the employment creation needed to reverse poverty on a grand scale. The trend right now is somewhat lopsided: “Services account for 50 per cent of India’s GDP, whereas agriculture’s share is 22 per cent, and industry’s share is only 27 per cent (versus 46 per cent in China). And within industry, India’s strength is high-tech, high-skilled manufacturing.” Raja Mohan, strategic affairs editor of The Indian Express, catches the country at the cusp of great powerhood (“India and the Balance of Power”). India’s rise, he says, captured the global imagination with the nuclear pact with the US, but it is much more broadbased than that one event implies: “After more than a half century of false starts and unrealised potential, India is now emerging as the swing state in the global balance of power. In the coming years, it will have an opportunity to shape outcomes on the most critical issues of the twenty-first century: the construction of Asian stability, the political modernisation of the greater Middle East, and the management of globalisation.” India’s grand strategy, he notes, divides the world into three concentric circles: “In the first, which encompasses the immediate neighborhood, India has sought primacy and a veto over the actions of outside powers. In the second, which encompasses the so-called extended neighborhood stretching across Asia and the Indian Ocean littoral, India has sought to balance the influence of other powers and prevent them from undercutting its interests. In the third, which includes the entire global stage, India has tried to take its place as one of the great powers, a key player in international peace and security.” Carter, professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and once assistant secretary of defence in the Clinton administration, concentrates on that nuclear pact (“America’s New Strategic Partner?”). While refuting arguments in Washington that the “India deal” would be a setback for nonproliferation, he lays out the asymmetry in the arrangement: “Whereas the deal is clear about what the United States conceded, it is vague about what India will give in return.” India gets recognition as a legitimate nuclear power. The US, however, must count its gains in terms of probable outcomes: in assisting the Americans in dealing with Iran, with Pakistan, possibly with China. In Carter’s assessment, it is a fair bargain: “Washington’s decision to trade a nuclear-recognition quid for a strategic-partnership quo was a reasonable move.” The American Congress, therefore, must clear the pact without amendment. In the last article, Ganguly, professor of political science at Indiana University in Bloomington, correlates the Kashmir issue to India’s economic and political clout (“Will Kashmir Stop India’s Rise?”). Averting the possibility of conflict with Pakistan is clearly in India’s interest. As it is, he argues, in Washington’s to play an enabling role in settling disputes between the neighbours. India has relied on its domestic market more than exports, consumption more than investment, services more than industry, and high-tech more than low-skilled manufacturing — Gurcharan Das India will have an opportunity to shape outcomes on the most critical issues of the 21st century: construction of Asian stability.management of globalisation — C Raja Mohan Averting possibility of conflict with Pakistan clearly in India’s interest. As it is in Washington’s interest to play an enabling role in settling disputes between neighbours — Sumit Ganguly
