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Understanding the Rise of India

2007; Routledge; Volume: 6; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14736480701493096

1557-3036

Manjeet S. Pardesi,

Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East

Abstract The author would like to thank Sumit Ganguly for his valuable suggestions and feedback. All the opinions expressed are the author's alone. The author also takes the responsibility for errors, if any. Notes 1. Hindus and Sikhs crossed over into India, while many Muslims left for Pakistan. It is estimated that some 17 million people crossed the new “boundaries.” This exodus proved to be a bloody affair of massacres, arson, rape, and looting that claimed anywhere between 200,000 and 2 million lives. See Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal, Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2004), p. 157. Also see Swarna Aiyar, “‘August Anarchy’: The Partition Massacres in Punjab, 1947,” in D. A. Low and Howard Brasted, eds., Freedom, Trauma, Continuities: Northern India and Independence (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1998). 2. For an insider's account of this daunting political task, see V. P. Menon, The Story of the Integration of the Indian States (Calcutta: Orient-Longmans, 1956). 3. See Chapter 5 titled “Language Problems” in Paul R. Brass, The Politics of India since Independence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 4. Tim Dyson, “India's Population – The Past,” in Tim Dyson, Robert Cassen, and Leela Visaria, eds., Twenty-First Century India: Population, Economy, Human Development, and the Environment (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 20, 27. 5. For an excellent overview of the evolution of democracy in India, see Judith Brown, Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). 6. Quoted in Shashi Tharoor, “E Pluribus, India: Is Indian Modernity Working?,” Foreign Affairs Vol. 77, No. 1 (January/February 1998), p. 128. 7. For a particularly trenchant view that expressed grave doubts about India's survival as a state, see Selig S. Harrison, India: The Most Dangerous Decades (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960). 8. See Francine R. Frankel, India's Political Economy 1947–2004: The Gradual Revolution, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005) for an excellent account of India's political economy since independence. 9. Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2004), p. 464. 10. For the logic behind India's policy of non-alignment, see Raju G. C. Thomas, “Nonalignment and Indian Security: Nehru's Rationale and Legacy,” Journal of Strategic Studies Vol. 2, No. 2 (September 1979), pp. 153–71. 11. Ashutosh Varshney, “Why Democracy Survives,” Journal of Democracy Vol. 9, No. 3 (July 1998), pp. 36–50. For an excellent discussion of Indian secularism, see Rajeev Bhargava, ed., Secularism and its Critics (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998). 12. Arvind Virmani, India's Economic Growth: From Socialist Rate of Growth to Bharatiya Rate of Growth (February 2004). Accessible via www.icrier.org (April 10, 2007). 13. World Bank, India Data Profile (April 2006). Accessible via http://devdata.worldbank.org (April 10, 2007). 14. “Booming India expects 9.2% growth” (BBC News), February 7, 2007). Accessible via http://news.bbc.co.uk (April 10, 2007). 15. For an analysis of the transformation in Indian foreign policy since the end of the Cold War, see C. Raja Mohan, Crossing the Rubicon: The Shaping of India's New Foreign Policy (New York: Palgrave, 2003). 16. Sumit Ganguly, “India's Pathway to Pokhran II: The Prospects and Sources of New Delhi's Nuclear Weapons Program,” International Security Vol. 23, No. 4 (Spring 1999), pp. 148–77. 17. Sumit Ganguly, “The Start of a Beautiful Friendship,” World Policy Journal Vol. 20, No. 1 (Spring 2003), pp. 25–30. 18. Sumit Ganguly and Dinshaw Mistry, “The Case for the US–India Nuclear Agreement,” World Policy Journal Vol. 28, No. 2 (Summer 2006), pp. 11–19. 19. Stephen P. Cohen, India: Emerging Power (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2001). Also see Baldev Raj Nayar and T. V. Paul, India in the World Order: Searching for Major-Power Status (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 20. For an analysis of the problems that India faces in its path to great power status, see Sumit Ganguly and Manjeet S. Pardesi, “India Rising: What is New Delhi to do Now?,” World Policy Journal Vol. 24, No. 1 (Spring 2007), pp. 9–18. 21. Dominic Wilson and Roopa Purushothaman, “Dreaming with BRICs: The Path to 2050,” Global Economics Paper No. 99, October 1, 2003. 22. Tushar Poddar and Eva Yi, “India's Rising Growth Potential,” Global Economics Paper No. 152, January 22, 2007. 23. Mapping the Global Future (Report of the National Intelligence Council's 2020 Project), (December 2004). Accessible via www.dni.gov/nic (February 16, 2007). 24. India: Knowledge Superpower (Special Report, New Scientist) (February 2005). Accessible via www.newscientist.com (April 10, 2007). In this series of reports, the New Scientist refers to India as the “silicon subcontinent” due to the success of its burgeoning information technology industry. 25. Edward Luce, In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India (London: Little, Brown Book Group, 2006), p. 23. 26. Mira Kamdar, Planet India: How the Fastest-Growing Democracy is Transforming America and the World (New York: Scribner, 2007), p. 3. 27. Nehru, The Discovery of India, p. 51. 28. For an excellent account of the historical blending of “Indian” and “Islamic” cultures in the subcontinent, see Catherine B. Asher and Cynthia Talbot, India before Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 29. See D. A. Low, “Pakistan and India: Political Legacies from the Colonial Past,” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies Vol. XXV, No. 2 (August 2002), pp. 257–72. Also see Stephen Cohen, The Indian Army: Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation, 2nd ed. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001). 30. Amartya Sen, “Tagore and His India,” The New York Review of Books Vol. 44, No. 11 (June 26, 1997). 31. Manmohan Singh, “The Insular Outlook of Some Leaders Surprises Me,” India Today, April 9, 2007. 32. Nehru, The Discovery of India, pp. 222–3. 33. The only major instance of the aggressive use of force outside the subcontinent was by the Chola rulers of southern India in 1025 AD when they led a naval expedition against the kingdom of Sri Vijaya in Southeast Asia. When Sri Vijaya threatened the Chola maritime trade with China that passed through the Straits of Malacca, the Cholas responded militarily. The Cholas were successful in gaining control of the strategic points along the Straits. However, no Chola/Indian colonies were established in the process. See Romila Thapar, Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300 (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2002), pp. 363–9. 34. The term “Indianization” was coined by the historian George Cœdès. See George Cœdès, The Indianized States of Southeast Asia, edited by Walter F. Vella, and translated from French by Susan Brown Cowing (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1971). For a brief description of the spread of India's culture to Southeast Asia, see Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund, A History of India, 4th ed. (New York: Routledge, 2004), pp. 153–61. 35. For a comprehensive account of the linguistic impact of Sanskrit in Southeast Asia, see Nicholas Ostler, Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World (New York: Harper Perennial, 2006), pp. 199–207. 36. Tansen Sen, “In Search of Longevity and Good Karma: Chinese Diplomatic Missions to Middle India in the Seventh Century,” Journal of World History, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2001), p. 23. 37. William H. McNeill, The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991), p. xxvi. Also see John Kieschnick, The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003). 38. Amartya Sen, “Passage to China,” The New York Review of Books Vol. 51, No. 19 (December 2, 2004). 39. Nils-Bertil Wallin, How Zero was Discovered? (November 19, 2002). Accessible via http://yaleglobal.yale.edu (April 13, 2007). 40. Lynda Shaffer, “Southernization,” Journal of World History Vol. 5, No. 1 (1994), pp. 1–21. 41. Schaffer, “Southernization.” The Indian developments that Schaffer includes in her analysis are the development of mathematics, the production and marketing of spices, the pioneering of new trade routes, the cultivation, processing, and marketing of crops such as sugar and cotton, and the development of related technologies. Schaffer consciously excludes Indian developments in metallurgy, medicine, and literature from her analysis. 42. Schaffer, “Southernization,” p. 21. 43. Angus Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics (Paris: OECD, 2003), p. 261 (Table 8b). 44. John F. Richards, “Early Modern India and World History,” Journal of World History Vol. 8, No. 2 (1997), p. 206. 45. Angus Maddison, The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective (Paris: OECD, 2001), p. 109. 46. For a comprehensive overview, see C. A. Bayly, “State and Economy in India over Seven Hundred Years,” The Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 38, No. 4 (November 1985), pp.583–96. Also see Amiya Bagchi, “De-industrialization in India in the Nineteenth Century: Some Theoretical Implications,” Journal of Development Studies Vol. 12 (1976), pp. 135–64. 47. See Clyde Prestowitz, “The Great Reverse – Part I,” Yaleglobal, September 2, 2004, and Anna Greenspan, “The Great Reverse – Part III”, Yaleglobal, September 8, 2004. 48. PM's address at the Indira Gandhi Conference: “India: The Next Decade”, November 19, 2004. Accessible via http://pmindia.nic.in (April 14, 2007). Also see Address by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh in acceptance of Honorary Degree from Oxford University, July 8, 2005. Accessible via http://pmindia.nic.in (April 14, 2007). 49. PM's speech at India Today Conclave, February 25, 2005. Accessible via http://pmindia.nic.in (April 13, 2007). 50. Luce, In Spite of the Gods, p. 36. 51. Luce, In Spite of the Gods, p. 56. 52. Luce, In Spite of the Gods, p. 26. 53. Luce, In Spite of the Gods, pp. 56–7. 54. World Bank, World Development Indicators 2006 (April 2006). Accessible via http://devdata.worldbank.org (Table 2.7) (April 14, 2007). 55. For an excellent analysis of the social and economic rise of India's lower castes through democratization, see Christophe Jaffrelot, India's Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Lower Castes in North India (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002). 56. For a comprehensive discussion of Hindu nationalism, see Christophe Jaffrelot,, The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). 57. For an excellent analysis of the threat that Hindu nationalism poses to India's multi-religious polity, see Sumit Ganguly, “The Crisis of Indian Secularism,” Journal of Democracy Vol. 14, No. 4 (October 2003), pp. 11–25. 58. Robert L. Hardgrave Jr. and Stanley A. Kochanek, India: Government and Politics in a Developing Nation, 7th ed. (Boston, MA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2007), pp. 340–42. 59. Luce, In Spite of the Gods, p. 181. 60. Luce, In Spite of the Gods, p. 238. 61. Embassy of India, Washington, DC, India's Foreign Relations, 1998–99, n.d. Accessible via www.indianembassy.org (April 14, 2007). 62. Luce, In Spite of the Gods, p. 240. 63. Luce, In Spite of the Gods, p. 245. For a comprehensive overview of the Kashmir dispute and India-Pakistan relations, see Sumit Ganguly, Conflict Unending: India–Pakistan Tensions since 1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002). 64. Luce, In Spite of the Gods, p. 244. 65. Luce, In Spite of the Gods, p. 263. 66. “India–China trade to touch US$20 billion by end of 2006,” Hindustan Times, September 25, 2006. 67. See Francine R. Frankel and Harry Harding, eds., The India–China Relationship: What the United States Needs to Know (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004). Also see John W. Garver, Protracted Contest: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Twentieth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001). 68. Background Briefing by Administration Officials on US–South Asia Relations (Office of the Spokesperson, US Department of State) (2005). Accessible via www.state.gov (April 14, 2007). 69. For an excellent, comprehensive debate on this issue, see Zbigniew Brzezinski and John J. Mearsheimer, “Clash of the Titans,” Foreign Policy No. 146 (January/February 2005), pp. 46–50. 70. Quoted in Sunil Khilnani, “Nehru's Faith: India's Contribution to Liberalism,” The New Republic, May 24, 2004. 71. For a brief discussion of this important issue, see Ganguly and Pardesi, “India Rising.” 72. Kamdar, Planet India, p. 3. 73. Kamdar, Planet India, p. 5. 74. Kamdar, Planet India, p. 7. 75. Pranab Dhal Samanta, “India, China, will talk border again, in the Nilgiris,” Indian Express, April 14, 2007. Accessible via www.indianexpress.com. 76. Kamdar, Planet India, p. 17. 77. See United Nations, Country @ a glance, n.d. Accessible via http://cyberschoolbus.un.org (April 14, 2007). 78. Kamdar, Planet India, pp. 90 and 281. The quote is from p. 281. 79. Asoka sent numerous embassies and Buddhist missionaries to the outside world (which included the Hellenes). For an excellent account of the meaning of and the politics behind India's national flag, see Srirupa Roy, “‘A Symbol of Freedom’: The Indian Flag and the Transformations of Nationalism, 1906–2002,” The Journal of Asian Studies Vol. 65, No. 3 (August 2006), pp. 495–527. The citation may be found on page 511. 80. Kamdar, Planet India, p. 113. 81. Kamdar, Planet India, p. 113. 82. Aya Okada, Does Globalization Improve Employment and Quality of Jobs in India?: A Case from the Automobile Industry (A Research Project Funded by the Alfred P Sloan Foundation) (October 1998). Accessible via http://ipc-lis.mit.edu (April 25, 2007), p. xi (fn. 13). 83. Kamdar, Planet India, p. 150. 84. Kamdar, Planet India, p. 267. 85. Katharine Adeney and Lawrence Sáez, eds., Coalition Politics and Hindu Nationalism (London: Routledge, 2005), p. 12 (n. 1). 86. Kamdar, Planet India, pp. 13–15. 87. Kamdar, Planet India, p. 4. 88. For a short but comprehensive description of the Renaissance, see Peter Watson, Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud (New York: Harper Perennial, 2006), pp. 388–95. 89. For a critical analysis of the “saffronization” or “Hinduization” of India's education policy under the BJP (that included a reinterpretation and distortion of India's history), see Marie Lall, “Indian Education Policy under the NDA Government,” in Adeney and Sáez, eds., Coalition Politics and Hindu Nationalism, pp. 153–70. 90. For a comprehensive discussion of the history of the Enlightenment in Europe, see Watson, Ideas, pp. 505–7, 527–8, 532–3, 575–9. 91. G. C. Shekhar, “Cricket Ganesha: Pleasing the Lord to bat for India”, Hindustan Times, March 23, 2007. 92. G. S. Radhakrishna, “Space science in lord's hands,” The Telegraph online, May 5, 2005. Accessible via www.telegraphindia.com (April 14, 2007). 93. See Chapter 7 titled “Indian Traditions and the Western Imagination,” in Amartya Sen, The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity (London: Allen Lane, 2005), pp. 139–60. 94. On this issue, see Peter van der Veer, Imperial Encounters: Religion and Modernity in India and Britain (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001). 95. Sundar Sarukkai, Indian Philosophy and the Philosophy of Science (New Delhi: PHISPC/Motilal Banarsidass, 2005). 96. Kamdar, Planet India, p. 23. 97. Luce, In Spite of the Gods, p. 299. 98. Quoted by Esther Pan in Council on Foreign Relations, India, China, and the United States: A Delicate Balance, February 27, 2006. Accessible via www.cfr.org (April 14, 2007). 99. Ashis Nandy and Ramin Jahanbegloo, Talking India: Conversations with Ashis Nandy (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 90. 100. PM's speech at India Today Conclave. 101. US Department of State, US–India Global Democracy Initiative, July 18, 2005. Accessible via www.state.gov (April 14, 2007). 102. See Raja Mohan, “India and Proliferation Security,” The Hindu, October 6, 2003; and P. S. Suryanaryana, “Proliferation Security Initiative: New Delhi discussing reservations with Washington,” The Hindu, May 22, 2005. 103. Kanti Bajpai, “India: Modified Structuralism,” in Asian Security Practice: Material and Ideational Influences (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), pp. 157–97. 104. Mohan, Crossing the Rubicon, pp. 195–9. 105. Luce, In Spite of the Gods, p. 360.