Regional powers / Comment
India: between "being" and "becoming"
12/04/2007 By Kanishk Tharoor
This essay provides an overview of the foreign policy aspirations and struggles of the world's largest democracy.
Its main ambitions lie on the international stage, where it seeks to be a major international player and a pillar of the "multipolar" world in the 21st century. To gain credibility on a regional level, India will have to reassert its political muscle locally. It needs to delicately negotiate the involvement of China – a partner and competitor – in South Asia.
Despite its troubled history of intervention in Sri Lanka, India must play a greater role in working towards the end of the country's civil war. It must also work to convince members of SAARC, like Pakistan and Bangladesh, that the road to development and security lies through New Delhi.
Even if India successfully consolidates its influence in South Asia, external players like the EU should not approach India simply as a regional power or as the sum of its neighbours.
India aspires to be part of a new world order. Its gain could be Europe's loss.
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Publishing groups
IBSA: India, Brazil, South AfricaKeywords
Development India Regional powers South AsiaRelated publications
Bio author: Kanishk Tharoor
