The world from Raisina (A changed global political system)

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 The world from Raisina (A changed global political system)

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• Annual Raisina Dialogue: It is a good event bringing together policymakers from across the world. In 2020, two questions were paramount – state of the Indian economy, and restoration of normalcy in J&K (and rest of the country, in light of CAA).
• Rising India narrative: This story was built during 1991 to 2011 period, based on a rapidly growing economy and a realistic foreign policy of India. Multiple Prime Ministers projected India as the plural, secular democracy as compared to the authoritarian Chinese.
• Economy was the lever: Higher growth gave India the leverage to deal with big powers, and a poor performance has equally taken it away. Couple that with the new Trumpian approach of hyper-nationalism, and we have a depressing scenario.
• What about 2020: President Trump will focus only on re-election, and may not resolve all pending bilateral trade issues. US raises a new demand on India when an old one is fulfilled. US is against India on the WTO platform. Its middle eastern policy has always been costly for India. 
• India-China policy: Happily, the past 20 years have seen consistency and continuity. But there is a grave risk – the gap between raw power of the two is widening, and China will simply ignore Indian concerns. So India has to build its strength if it hopes to take on China.
• Russia: It is focused largely on Eurasian politics, and energy. It has gotten close to China and Pakistan.
• Pakistan policy: India's Pak policy has run its course. It did what it could, and there is nothing new in it now. Rest of the world is happily engaging with Pakistan, despite Indian efforts to blacklist it in the FATF. The Kashmir clampdown and anti-CAA protests are harming India's cause against Pak badly.
• Middle powers: Hence, India now needs to engage with many middle powers of the world - Germany, France, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Vietnam and S. Korea. India can try to build a new middle powers coalition of the world.
• Focus on domestic stability: India economy is slowing down in a big way. Domestic polity is in turmoil. It is crucial that the govt. brings stability to it.
• Disruption: Some suggest that India can try "disrupting" foreign policy, but the sad truth is that India is not powerful enough to try that. It will be too risky!
• Domestic politics: Just because a new philosophy now rules over India, does not change anything in terms of hard power of India. US is a different animal, given its nearly limitless power. India should be very cautious.
• Summary : 2020 is a different year for foreign policy of India, and to assess it properly and build a coalition of middle powers would be a sensible strategy.

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