Neighbourhood or the World? Manish Tewari’s New Book Asks Tough Questions on India’s Way Forward
Manish Tewari says New Delhi must reassess its global role and neighbourhood strategy
Hyderabad: India has its task cut out in a fast-changing world, whether in terms of its immediate neighbourhood or its position in the larger global order, according to Manish Tewari, former Union minister and Congress MP.
These issues were the focus of a conversation between Tewari and Sanjaya Baru, former media adviser at the PMO and a policy analyst and political commentator, at an event at The Quorum here on Wednesday.
Tewari, author of A World Adrift: A Parliamentarian’s Perspective on the Global Power Dynamics, was responding to a question from Baru on whether India needs to consider not just the rise of China but also the apparent decline of the United States as it shapes its foreign relations. He said what needs to be understood with respect to China is the power differential between it and India.
“There is a reason why China doesn’t want to settle with India. From the Chinese perspective, there can only be one player in Asia. In the last two decades, China has been biding its time, settled border issues with 15 of its 17 neighbours, and if China settles these issues with Bhutan, then India will be the only country with a border dispute,” he said.
“If things are to change between India and China, a huge leap of faith from both sides is required. Whether the time has come to reconcile with the power differential with China is something that will be difficult for any political dispensation to come to terms with,” he said, adding that the question was whether India was willing to accept a role that was a notch or two below China in the Asian and global context.
“If statecraft is based on realism, then we have to build capacity, bide our time, and tread carefully, feeling the stones under our feet, as Deng Xiaoping used to say,” Tewari added.
With respect to the United States, Tewari said ties with the US remained a challenge, but things might change after the mid-term elections there. However, he cautioned that even if a Democrat became the next US President, it would be difficult to return to the way things were in the past.
Closer to home, Tewari said India needed to seriously introspect as to why, despite following a ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy, its immediate neighbours no longer appeared to reciprocate. “This is something we have to ask ourselves: Why have we lost the neighbourhood? Is it because our neighbourhood is bowing to China? Is it because of its economic heft and investments that we are finding our closest partners and allies changing their behaviour, or does it have something to do with our own behaviour?” he asked.
These were questions India needed to ask itself, he said, adding that if India believed it occupied an eminent position in the region, then clearly, that approach did not appear to be working.