The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World

by S. Jaishankar

Conducting international relations, while being agnostic about the character of societies, has its limitations.

The era of benign globalization that facilitated the dramatic rise of China has come to an end.

Mastering mind games and playing hardball are also musts in a more visceral world.

One important lesson is demonstrating global relevance as the surest way of earning the world’s respect.

Geopolitics and balance of power are the underpinning of international relations.

This is a time for us to engage America, manage China, cultivate Europe, reassure Russia, bring Japan into play, draw neighbours in, extend the neighbourhood and expand traditional constituencies of support.

In such a dynamic situation, creating a stable balance in Asia is India’s foremost priority. It is only a multipolar Asia that can lead to a multipolar world.

Our past will always be an influence, but no longer a determinant of our future. Forging ahead will mean taking risks and refraining from passing off timidity as strategy or indecision as wisdom.

But the end goal even, perhaps especially, in a volatile world is clear. Many friends, few foes, great goodwill, more influence.

Modern history has telling examples of powerful nations who have failed just on this account. Wilhelmine Germany, for example, saw its poor diplomacy undermine what was a favourable power balance. Such skills are not just the requirement of the weak or the upwardly mobile. It is also the need of the powerful to retain constituencies of support and discourage collective reaction. Learning from errors is an associated skill so that mistakes are not repeated. One of the great ironies of the Mahabharata is that the same Yudhishtira who loses his kingdom in a game of dice becomes sufficiently skilled as to make it his employment later under King Virata.

Where the Pandavas consistently scored over their cousins was the ability to shape and control the narrative. Their ethical positioning was at the heart of a superior branding. Through acts of valour, nobility and generosity, they generally came out as the better side. Admittedly, they were victims on many occasions, but their ability to play victim was no less. Their very upbringing in the forest gives them a head start with public opinion. The attempt to kill them in the house of lac shows them as an injured party. Accepting an unfair partition of the kingdom fortifies that image. Successfully executing a start-up kingdom in Indraprastha adds to their lustre. The abominable treatment of their wife Draupadi gives them a casus belli that is never allowed to be dampened. The masterstroke was to make an offer of reasonable settlement and accepting just five towns on the eve of the war, so that peer opinion shifts in their favour.

The Indian Ocean ‘world’ did once have an essential unity that was based on maritime trade rhythms. We also know that it was indeed a self-sustaining zone, albeit with natural and flexible boundaries, that set it apart from others proximate. The association of maritime trade with cultural influence was both graphic and pervasive across the ocean. As a result, traditions, practices, faiths and commerce created a virtual connectivity that overcame distance. The romance of history, however, had to give way to the realities of international relations as the arrival of the Europeans fragmented the ocean and its littoral.