Manjeet S. Pardesi

Is India a Great Power? Understanding Great Power Status in Contemporary International Relations

Abstract The traditional approaches to great power status - the intuitive criteria, an emphasis on warfare, and system-/global-level capabilities - have serious limitations. These approaches have ignored the implications of the expansion of the European states-system into a global one along with the simultaneous regionalization of world politics. Therefore, a threefold criterion for great power status is proposed - the presence of security-related and economic interests outside of a states home region, the requisite capabilities, and the demand for this status and its acceptance by other great powers and the regional states. India has emerged as a great power because it meets these criteria in Southeast Asia. Indias transformation from a South Asian power into one capable of shaping the regional order in Asia is of theoretical significance.

Secularism, Democracy, and Hindu Nationalism in India

Abstract This paper systematically analyzes the origins and emergence of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Indian politics, and its impact on secularism, domestic politics, and foreign policy. We contend that it was the institutional context of Indian politics in the 1980s, and not Hindu nationalist political ideology per se, that facilitated the emergence of the BJP. Indias democratic institutions, particularly coalition politics, have moderated the BJPs radical policy goals. As such, the BJP does not pose a threat to the functioning of the Indian democracy. However, with its long-term goal to redefine Indian nationhood, and its dependence on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) cadre for electoral success, the partys militant and violent agenda against minorities, especially Muslims, remains intact. The BJPs single major success has been the communalization of Indian politics by changing the discourse on secularism. In spite of its nationalist and aggressive rhetoric, there was no substantive change in Indias foreign and security policies under the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (1999–2004). More broadly, this paper demonstrates that religion and democracy have always been in a dialectic in the Indian context. After all, Indias nominally secular Congress party has used religious symbolism for electoral gains. As such, the equilibrium between religion and democracy needs to be constantly negotiated in India.

India's Tortuous Road to Defence-Industrial Self-Reliance

…Rapid indigenisation is the cornerstone of our policy of self-reliance India MoD Annual Report 1978–9

Asia's Diplomacy of Violence: China–US Coercion and Regional Order

Military coercion has already changed the Asia-Pacific region.

Region, System, and Order: The Mughal Empire in Islamicate Asia

ABSTRACT This article introduces early modern Islamicate Asia (∼1500–1750) as an international system. Three theoretical insights emerge from an analysis of the international relations of the Mughal Empire, the systems largest polity/economy. First, hierarchies are not necessarily peaceful because the systems structural attributes—polarity, the presence/absence of regions, and the pattern of interunit relations—remain important causal factors. Second, asymmetric material capabilities do not imply unequal relationships because the initiation of state-making policies that others emulate enhances the structural power of the initiator. Finally, systemic stability is reinforced when the interaction of trade, finance, and military power affirm the systems economic and security orders. These findings have implications for the expansion of Europe, for the study of world history, and for the emerging world order.

China's Nuclear Forces and Their Significance to India

The Indian nuclear program is a response to a perceived politico-strategic threat from China as opposed to a military-operational one that New Delhi began after perceiving an “ultimatum” from China in 1965. Consequently, India is in the process of acquiring an assured second-strike capability vis-à-vis China to meet the requirements of general deterrence. While India has always been concerned about the Sino-Pakistani nuclear/missile nexus, China has become wary of the growing military ties between the United States and India in recent years, especially because of the military implications of the US-India civil nuclear deal. Given the growing conventional military gap between the two states, India is not lowering its nuclear threshold to meet the Chinese conventional challenge. Instead, India is upgrading its conventional military strategy from dissuasion to deterrence against China. While the overall Sino-Indian nuclear relationship is stable, it will be challenged as China acquires advanced conventional weapons that blur the distinction between conventional and nuclear conflict.

Order in South Asia and the Indian Ocean Region: Indian Hegemony or Indian Primacy?

India is unlikely to establish a hegemonic order in South Asia/Indian Ocean because of Pakistani intransigence (and its strategic links with China and the United States), and because the simultaneous rise of China and India is creating a larger Asia that is blurring the boundaries between South Asia/Indian Ocean and East Asia. As such, a rising India will attempt to establish a regional order based on Indian primacy in the strategic affairs of South Asia/Indian Ocean. Nevertheless, this will be a dynamic process with uncertain success as India’s ability to do so will be influenced by the US-China-India triangular relationship. At the same time, it will increase the salience of India’s East Asian neighbors in Indian foreign policy.

Evolution of India–Japan Ties: Prospects and Limitations

In this chapter, the author regards the future trajectory of the India–Japan strategic partnership with “cautious optimism.” Employing a levels-of-analysis approach, Pardesi traces the factors that are responsible for the “remarkable transformation” in this bilateral relationship since the end of the Cold War. The rise of China and the rapprochement between the United States and India have driven the two countries together while, at the domestic level, India’s growing economy has led both New Delhi and Tokyo to view each other with great mutual interest. Key decision-makers on both sides, including Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have influenced the positive trajectory of bilateral relations. This chapter also pinpoints critical factors shaping the nature of cooperation between the two countries today—economics, the nuclear issue, China’s behaviour, and the salience of the United States—and explores avenues for further cooperation. Pardesi suggests India and Japan work together to enhance connectivity between India and Southeast Asia, contribute to stability in Afghanistan and coordinate their approaches in regional multilateral institutions as well as UN peacekeeping operations.

Mughal hegemony and the emergence of South Asia as a “region” for regional order-building:

The region known as South Asia today emerged as the locus for order-building only in the early modern period (~1500–1750) as a “region” of Islamicate Asia. I demonstrate this through a cognitive-strategic process based on the interactions between polities and resources within and outside of South Asia. While the practices associated with the primary institutions of warfare, great power management, diplomacy, and political economy did not meaningfully differentiate South Asia from Eurasia in the pre-Mughal millennium, the deep rules associated with them marked South Asia off from Islamicate Asia after the rise of the Mughals. The practices of these four primary institutions were co-constituted with Mughal hegemony. Unlike recent scholarship, I show that the regional level existed before the emergence of a global-scale international system. My analysis has two major theoretical implications. First, I clarify the distinction between hegemonic and imperial orders, and argue that coercive hegemony must be understood as a primary institution of an international/regional society. Since all hegemonies are not alike, I explain why some hegemonic orders are based on coercion while others mix coercion with legitimacy/acquiescence by elucidating the structural differences between Mughal and Ming/Qing hegemonies. Second, I advance the debate on balance of power versus hegemony by providing a historically grounded explanation that demonstrates why the injection of extra-regional resources into early modern South Asia produced hegemony while fostering systemic balancing behavior in Europe (post-1500). My findings raise questions related to regionalization (order-building) without regionalism (shared identities/threat perceptions), while showing that region (trans)formation effects order.

The Initiation of the Sino-Indian rivalry

ABSTRACT Sino-Indian interactions after the mid-19th century had a causal influence on Chinese and Indian elite perceptions. Modern China encountered modern India as an agent of British imperialism. China perceived India as an “imperial” power in the late 1940s by resorting to the availability heuristic while doubting India’s intentions in Tibet/Southeast Asia. By contrast, India viewed China as a fellow victim of colonialism that had sought India’s help during World War II. Consequently, India perceived China as a “partner” in postwar/postcolonial Asia. This interpretation was based on confirmation bias after 1947, despite contradictory Chinese signals. India’s image of China changed only after the 1950–51 invasion/annexation of Tibet. India then ascribed the image of an “expansionist/hegemonic” power to China based on historical analogy. Nevertheless, they carefully calibrated their strategies towards each other in consonance with these images until the 1959 Lhasa Uprising, thereby preventing their relationship from descending into militarized hostilities.