Grand Strategy | India and the ‘crumbling international order’

The focus on and questions posed to India are understandable given its rising status in the international system and its desire to emerge as a pole in a multipolar world. These questions also arise considering India’s Cold War-era third-world trade unionism, and revisionist rhetoric which privileged justice over order, are relics of the past.

But first, where do the concerns about a crumbling international order come from? They emerge from several sources: The uncertainty posed by the end of US unipolarity and the rise of several competing poles, the unravelling of the post-war institutional structure and the inability of the post-war institutions to deliver global public goods, the growing number of revisionist states seeking to upend the prevailing international order, and the fact that the post-war institutions designed in 1945 by the victors of the war simply do not reflect the material realities of today.

To be sure, from an Indian perspective, an unstable international order is not entirely undesirable. Great power concerts often lead to the mutual accommodation of great power interests with the interests of lesser power being sacrificed. Therefore, great powers seek the support of lesser powers only when there is no great power agreement or when the system is unstable, as is the case today. To that extent, the current global instability is in India’s geopolitical interest, and New Delhi is using the crisis in the international order to its advantage with great aplomb. However, if such an order either leads to a totally unexpected outcome or another order marked by even more great power competition than today, it could damage India’s ability to adopt a nuanced approach without taking clear sides in such a competition.

The international order India wants

India has historically viewed the post-war international order as unequal, discriminatory and unrepresentative. Those complaints continue to this day. But the key difference between contemporary India and the Cold War India is the country’s approach to such an order: despite its fundamental problems with the current world order, India today seeks reform, not the undoing of the order. India prefers a multipolar world, as opposed to a unipolar or bipolar one, in which it is considered a pole. It seeks a smooth transition of the international order and demands that it is accommodated into the various institutions of the current system. However, considering that such accommodation in global governance forums is not easy to come by, New Delhi seems to put its weight behind mini-laterals such as BRICS, Quad, and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, among others, or global platforms like the Global South.

In some ways, India shares its dissatisfaction with the international order with countries like China and Russia, but the similarities among them stop there. While Russia is deeply unhappy with a US-led international order and therefore seeks to undo it by aligning with like-minded powers, India would not try to upend a US-led order in so far it is accommodated into such an order. China, unlike Russia, is willing to work within the institutional boundaries of a US-led order, at least for now. It is actively putting in place the institutional, geopolitical and economic foundations to eventually create an alternative China-led international order while benefitting from a US-led world order until its alternative is ready to go.

India doesn’t want to be part of the Russian or Chinese revisionist alternatives to the US-led world order but seeks to be a bigger stakeholder in the current US-led order. It is this unique Indian view of the international order that, in my opinion, forms the political basis of the growing Indo-US relations.

Does India contribute to global governance?

When it comes to India and the world order, one of the most frequently asked questions is what India has contributed to the upkeep of the international order for after all India does little conflict mediation overseas, stays away from non-UN mandated military missions abroad, and refuses to take sides in global contestations. So “Will India do anything to upkeep the international order or contribute to global governance?” is a recurring question.

To my mind, however, this is a problematic question for several reasons. First, let’s take the example of India’s participation in issues relating to global peace and security. While it is true that India only participates in UN-mandated peacekeeping missions across the world, it’s not India’s fault if the UNSC, of which India is not a permanent member, is unable to make up its mind on a large number of issues relating to war and peace: it shows the failure of multilateral institutions, not India’s unwillingness to contribute to global governance.

Second, war and peace are not the only issues that we must use as a yardstick to judge India’s contribution to global governance. Consider the following. Even though India is not a member of key global institutional mechanisms and institutions such as UNSC and G7, and has negligible stakes in institutions such as the World Bank and IMF, it has contributed to global governance in several ways. India, for instance, has highlighted and played a proactive role in issues that matter to the global South countries such as debt restructuring, development finance, climate finance, Covid-19 vaccine patent waiver, vaccine diplomacy, and disaster relief operations in the region, among others.

For a developing but pivotal state like India, the nature of the international order matters for its economic growth, geopolitical standing, and relations with great powers. While instability can sometimes help India make its case and bargain for more stakes in the international institutional structures, New Delhi’s focus must be to nudge the international order towards orderly change and help create institutional reforms rather than revolutionary upheaval.

Happymon Jacob teaches India’s foreign policy at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, and is the founder of the Council for Strategic and Defence Research, a New Delhi-based think tank. The views expressed are personal