The false promise of ‘World Guru’ India
The false promise of ‘World Guru’ India
WRITTEN BY MANALI KUMAR
3 June 2020
The global COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated the fragmentation of the prevailing international order and reinforced the weakening of multilateral institutions, which have failed to broker cooperative responses to the global pandemic. While the extent to which the contemporary international order has really been ‘liberal’ is a matter of debate, it has involved a general commitment to democratic neoliberalism, free trade, and multilateral cooperation. In the absence of a global hegemon capable of enforcing rules, the new order will require negotiation among several major powers. As Trump and Xi battle over who can be the bigger bully, what kind of leadership can we expect from ‘World Guru’ India under Modi?
A right-wing nationalist in humanist garb
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has tried to position himself as a ‘transformational’ leader. During his first term in office, he set about re-inventing India’s foreign policy by presenting the country as a ‘Vishwa Guru’ (world leader). Now in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, he has declared that globalization has failed to help solve problems such as climate change and terrorism and has called for a re-invention of the global order itself.
A master of wordcraft, Mr. Modi has tried to promote two seemingly new ideas in recent weeks: ‘aatmanirbharta’ (self-reliance) before domestic audiences, and ‘human-centric globalization’ before external audiences. While Mr. Modi has not yet detailed the latter, it apparently involves putting “human beings at the centre of our vision of global prosperity and cooperation” and promoting the “collective wellbeing of humankind” and “shared interests of humanity” through multilateral forums. However, these ostensibly humanist international goals are betrayed by his right-wing ‘swayamsevak’ and ‘aatmanirbharta’ domestic agenda.
India’s economy was already in a downward spiral long before the lockdown troubles. The domestic economy has desperately needed reform and stimulation for years, but the Modi administration’s policies have failed to deliver time and again.
Self-reliance was the centerpiece of Mr. Modi’s third Covid-19 related address to the nation on 12 May, in which he announced a 20 lakh crore ($265 bn) package to help mitigate some of the economic fallout of the nationwide lockdown. Framing the principal lesson to be learned from the pandemic as the debate between “economy-centric” versus “human-centric” globalization, he stated that the only way forward is by building a “self-reliant India”. Mr. Modi also outlined the five-pillars of building a self-sufficient India: an economy based on “quantum jumps” (an Indian Great Leap Forward?) rather than incremental change; infrastructure; a technology-based system; the country’s demography; and, increased domestic demand to fuel the country’s supply chains.
However, none of this economic recovery agenda involves putting people first. The emphasis is on ramping up manufacturing to compete in the global economy. Narendra Modi explicitly stated that moving ahead, “India should play a big role in the global supply chain” and that self-reliance would “prepare the country for a tough competition in the global supply chain”. This new concept of ‘self-reliance’ is nothing more than a re-branding of the ‘India First’ and ‘Make in India’ campaigns from his first term in office, which emphasized the goals of importing less and exporting more. This is fully in-line with the Hindu nationalist belief that rapid development can be pursued by protecting the domestic economy from external pressures.
Modi is hardly the first Indian leader to call for ‘self-reliance’. This notion has a long tradition in India tracing back to the Gandhian spirit of ‘swadeshi’ that emphasized using locally produced goods. Previous prime ministers of independent India, including Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru and especially Mrs. Indira Gandhi, emphasized the importance of ‘self-reliance’ for both, economic development and guaranteeing national security. This ambition of self-reliance for long underpinned arguments against opening up the Indian economy to the global market.
India’s economy was already in a downward spiral long before the lockdown troubles. The domestic economy has desperately needed reform and stimulation for years, but the Modi administration’s policies have failed to deliver time and again. Many experts have already argued that the central government’s recovery package is inadequate. Indeed, it does nothing to help millions of Indians who have lost their incomes – there are no cash handouts or paycheck protection programs. How will the package help stimulate demand?
And then there is the callousness of the Modi government’s handling of the national response to the pandemic. As images of thousands of migrants rendered unemployed and struggling to find a way back to their hometowns flooded social media, Modi took to TV screens and called upon the people to step up. Instead of acknowledging policy blindspots and mobilizing his government to intervene in the humanitarian crisis, he called upon the citizens to “take as much care of poor families as you can and especially try to fulfill their food requirements”. Mr. Modi’s version of self-reliance seems to involve leaving the public to its own devices, making it hard to take his calls for putting human beings first seriously.
Leadership requires more than rhetoric
In his words, Prime Minister Modi has criticized protectionism, championed rule-based free trade at international forums such as the World Economic Forum in 2018, and extolled the value of multilateral cooperation at the United Nations General Assembly in 2019. But his government has consistently adopted protectionist trade policies. Indeed, India has some of the highest tariffs among the world’s large and emerging economies. His government also walked away from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) after 29 rounds of negotiations held over six years. While India’s participation at multilateral forums from G20 to NAM signal its openness to international dialogue and cooperation, it is routinely undercut by the ruling party’s narrow nationalistic and anti-globalist ideology.
Modi’s ‘every man for himself’ approach at home is mirrored by the growing ‘every state for itself’ trend in the international sphere. Unfettered free trade has exacerbated global and national inequalities and contributed to the rise of right-wing nationalism and anti-liberalism in democracies across the world. This trend is only being magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic. In response to the disruption of global supply chains, more countries are moving to increase domestic manufacturing and looking inward. With protectionism apparently on the rise, global trade will become more difficult and tariff wars are likely to become more common. International cooperation will be all the more difficult, especially on transnational challenges. This does not bode well for India, who’s exports have already suffered due to protectionism.
Narendra Modi may have re-articulated customary elements of Indian foreign policy using his trademarked Sanskrit idioms to align them with his Hindu nationalist ideology. But he has neither wrought a fundamental shift in India’s approach nor offered any profoundly novel ideas. Worse, Mr. Modi has repeatedly shown us that his administration is about PR, not performance. As a politician, he excels at rhetoric, but he is not a policymaker. Faced with his administration’s weakness at home, projecting the image of a ‘tough-talking’ and a uniquely intellectual leader at the international level, gives his supporters something to feel proud about. This skillset works in the domestic context, where private news channels enthusiastically amplify his rhetoric, helping him get the votes he needs to get elected to office. But there are no elections or PR popularity contests to decide who will show the way in the global order. Good leadership requires more than mantras and attracting followers on the international stage will require demonstrating the ability to deliver results. To put it crudely, for the foreseeable future the success of any model will depend on its ability to keep death rates and unemployment numbers down. Prime Minister Modi would do well to dig-in and get his hands dirty with some good old-fashioned governance.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Manali Kumar is a Non-Resident Postdoctoral Researcher with the Institute of Political Science (IPW) at the University of St. Gallen (HSG) in Switzerland. Her research focuses on prudence in statecraft, and India's national identity and roles as a rising power. Follow Manali on Twitter for more insights about Indian politics and foreign policy. Image credit: GovernmentZA/Flickr.