Greetings,
This week, I have five articles to share with you for the holidays.
My article on India’s looming demographic divide was syndicated in 88 newspapers around the world. India’s population is projected to overtake China’s in the next few months; from climate and urban geography to federalism and unemployment, this will have serious consequences for almost every facet of Indian life. In this piece, I evaluate a few of them and warn that the picture looks to be becoming ever grimmer.
In a cover story for Open magazine, I write In Praise of Civic Nationalism. India has survived the stresses and strains that have beset it over seven decades because it has managed to create a consensus on how to manage without consensus. In a land of vast diversity and multiple identities, we have been able to come together in allegiance to a larger, more plural sense of the nation. Now, that consensus is under threat, as majoritarian impulses threaten to erode the civic nationalism that has been the bedrock of our stability and success.
In my column for The Week, I argue: A new world order is in the making. I examine a number of concerning geopolitical trends that have become apparent over the course of 2022, from escalating tensions between the US and China to deglobalisation, and a decline in support for democratic values across the world, with a concurrent surge in the popularity of right-wing parties. The signs are not promising as we enter 2023.
In A role for India in a world wide web, published in The Hindu, I reflect on the Minister of External Affairs’ recent comments on India’s international position. The globalised world is, I argue, like the world wide web: countries have to work through multiple networks with several interests that at some times clash, at others overlap. India, with our long tradition of strategic autonomy and our strong relationships both with a wide range of individual countries as well as with multi-state alliances, is well-positioned to take on a unique kind of international leading role.
Finally, for my weekly column on words for the Khaleej Times’ WKND magazine, I wrote a follow-up to the previous edition on Tom Swiftys, puns in reported speech that use adverbs relating to the sentiment being expressed. Read on for a list of 65 examples!
1. India’s looming demographic divide; Project Syndicate; December 16, 2022.
India ends a tumultuous 2022 on a note of celebration, marking both the 75th anniversary of the country’s independence and its assumption of the G-20 Presidency amid much fanfare. But lurking around the corner in the coming year is a new landmark. Demographers estimate that 2023 will be the year that India officially overtakes China to become the most populous country in the world. UN experts estimate that will happen around April 14. That is less of a cause for celebration.
2. In Praise of Civic Nationalism; Open magazine; December 23, 2022.
The wonders of democracy have repeatedly startled the world as the voters of India have confounded all manner of pundits and pollsters to place the country in the hands of different governments led by different parties or coalitions. India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, would have been proud of this. His greatest satisfaction would have come from the knowledge that the democracy he tried so hard to instil in India had taken such deep roots, despite so many naysayers claiming that democracy would never work in a developing country.
3. A new world order is in the making; The Week; December 18, 2022.
As we near the end of the year, some geopolitical trends are becoming apparent. One is the growing tension between the US and an increasingly assertive China under President Xi Jinping. Interestingly, the highly polarised US electorate seems largely to concur with the tough policy towards Beijing, promoted by both former president Donald Trump during his time in office and now by President Joe Biden. In 2011, only 36 per cent of Americans viewed China unfavourably; this year, it is a remarkable 82 per cent. This means that the onset of visible and bristling hostility towards the other rising superpower has been welcomed and endorsed by the American public.
4. A role for India in a world wide web; The Hindu; December 20, 2022.
We are living in a world in which one defining paradigm for foreign policy is impossible. We cannot simply be non-aligned between two superpowers when one of them sits on our borders and nibbles at our territory. But nor can we afford to sacrifice our strategic autonomy in a quest for self-protection. We need to define a new role for ourselves that depends on our understanding of the way the world is.
5. 65 hilarious Tom Swiftys you need to know; WKND, Khaleej Times; December 15, 2022.
Last week, we explored “Tom Swiftys”, puns where an adverb in reported speech amusingly relates to the sentiment being expressed in a line of dialogue in books for young readers. I explained how the jokes work and urged readers to try out their own. This week, to complete the story, I’m going to offer you several more in the genre, but without explanation. Read them to see if you get the joke.
The complete text of each article is below. As always, if these are getting too much, feel free to unsubscribe below.
We will be back in 2023! Wishing you and yours the very best for Christmas and the New Year!
With warm regards,
Shashi Tharoor
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India’s looming demographic divide,
December 16, 2022,
Project Syndicate.
India ends a tumultuous 2022 on a note of celebration, marking both the 75th anniversary of the country’s independence and its assumption of the G-20 Presidency amid much fanfare. But lurking around the corner in the coming year is a new landmark. Demographers estimate that 2023 will be the year that India officially overtakes China to become the most populous country in the world. UN experts estimate that will happen around April 14.
That is less of a cause for celebration. China occupies 9,596,960 km of land area to India’s 3,287,263 square kilometres. This makes India three times as densely populated as its famously populous northern neighbour, and – despite impressive economic growth over the last three decades – less able to feed, educate and nurture its more than 1.4 billion people.
There is another problem with this demographic dividend – it is the result of grossly skewed patterns within the country. The overall total, at around 1.42 billion, will keep on growing this century, to finally stabilize around 1.65 billion in the 2060s before plunging to some 1.1 billion by the year 2100. But within India, the north continues to grow, while the south has already stabilized and some states, like Kerala and Nagaland, have begun to shed population. This means that parts of India will be experiencing baby booms while other regions grapple with ageing populations and school closures.
These predictions could be further complicated by the unpredictable consequences of climate change, which is already altering weather patterns and causing extreme events like cyclones, heatwaves, droughts and floods with alarming irregularity. Many rivers are sometimes in spate and run dry at other times. Water scarcity is already a feature of the lives of millions. Mass displacement and migration away from unviable areas to teeming cities could further skew India’s demography.
There are also political implications to population patterns. Between 1947 and 1997, India’s population grew from 350 million to 1 billion, with a population explosion particularly in the poorer, less educated, largely Hindi-speaking states of the north, whereas the South, with far better human development and education numbers, curbed population size more effectively. While northerners had an average family size of six to seven children for decades, the South dropped quickly to two children per couple.
In India’s democracy, this would normally have meant more parliamentary seats and therefore more political power to the more populous north. But, anxious not to reward poor performance in population control with increased political benefits, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1976 froze parliamentary representation at the levels of the 1971 census. When the constitutional amendment that effected that freeze was to expire 25 years later, it was renewed for another quarter century by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
As a result, some southern Members of Parliament represent about 2 million voters in their constituencies while some in the north represent as many as 2.7 to 2.9 million. Prime Minister Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, which derives overwhelming support from voters in the northern Hindi-speaking “cow belt” states, appears set to end this anomaly when the amendment lapses again in 2026.
That could create serious political issues in India, with additional parliamentary seats giving the north a two-thirds majority that would enable the ruling party to amend the constitution at will, without regard to the wishes of the southern states. The hard-won political unity of this vast sub-continent of a nation, with its multiple languages, ethnicities and religions, could then be threatened by political decisions that the less-populated states may find unpalatable or discriminatory.
Currently, much of India’s population increase comes from just two northern states, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. UP, as the latter is known, with 220 million people, would already be the fifth most populous country in the world if it were independent. Both will continue to grow for at least a decade since they are not yet near the 2.1 children per woman norm that ensures demographic stability. These states, which already have a disproportionate impact on Indian politics, will grow further in influence, even as many deplore the prevalence of religious bigotry and identity politics in the politics of those states.
Between 2001 and 2011, Bihar’s population grew by 25.4%, while Kerala’s grew at 4.9%. The 2021 census was not held because of the Covid pandemic, but the differential is estimated as likely to have grown greater in the following decade.
Ignorance about family planning and the benefits of smaller family size in the less-literate north is the principal factor behind this uneven population growth, while southern states with superior human development indicators have already transformed themselves. As women become more educated (female literacy in the north is still far below the national average), they tend to be more receptive to population-control initiatives.
But everywhere in India people face the challenge of not finding enough jobs to support themselves.
In 2021 India’s unemployment figures reached the highest levels ever recorded. Youth unemployment is especially worrying, ranging from a national average of 23% for those between 19 and 25, to 40% in Kerala and Kashmir. Female participation in the labour force, which had once increased in keeping with global trends, has now plunged, especially after Covid.
At the other end of the spectrum, the South is already witnessing a proliferation of assisted-living facilities for the old, especially those whose children have emigrated in quest of better work opportunities and are no longer around to look after their ageing parents.
The worsening north-south divide, uncontrolled urbanisation of a hitherto predominantly rural country, water shortages and resource scarcities, ageing in some areas, and mounting youth unemployment paint a grim picture at the year’s end.
Still, India’s impressive track record of growth and development against all these odds in the last three decades gives cause for some hope that its resilient people will somehow prevail against the odds.
Doomsday scenarios have been painted for India over the years, and the country is still standing and prospering. But the challenges of governance require a clear-eyed appreciation of the problems we are already facing, and which are, inevitably, only going to get worse.
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In Praise of Civic Nationalism,
December 23, 2022,
Open magazine.
Democracy, Winston Churchill famously wrote, is the worst system of government in the world, except for all the others. One of its defining characteristics is its unpredictability, since democracy reflects the wishes of large numbers of people expressed in the quiet intimacy of the polling booth. The wonders of democracy have repeatedly startled the world as the voters of India have confounded all manner of pundits and pollsters to place the country in the hands of different governments led by different parties or coalitions. India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, would have been proud of this. His greatest satisfaction would have come from the knowledge that the democracy he tried so hard to instil in India had taken such deep roots, despite so many naysayers claiming that democracy would never work in a developing country.
As a result, India has managed the process of political change and economic transformation necessary to develop our country and to forestall political and economic disaster. Much as it is tempting to do so, this cannot, in all good conscience, be accredited to some innate beneficence that one acquires along with the right to an Indian passport. Rather, I credit Indian democracy and civic nationalism, rooted in the constitutional rule of law and free elections.
Every Indian General Election is immediately the world’s largest exercise in democratic franchise—with some 900 million registered voters in 2019, that is hardly surprising. And look what happens in these elections: governments are routinely voted out of office, and voters hold politicians accountable for their development promises. And they do so within India’s extraordinary framework of diversity: for instance, as I have enjoyed pointing out with pride, in May 2004, India witnessed a General Election victory by a woman leader of Roman Catholic background and Italian heritage (Sonia Gandhi) making way for a Sikh (Manmohan Singh) to be sworn in as prime minister by a Muslim (President APJ Abdul Kalam)—in a country 80 per cent Hindu. That this India seems to have been supplanted by a chauvinist majoritarianism is a matter of regret.
India’s democracy has flourished while pursuing some of the most intractable challenges of development the world has known. Of course, fiercely contentious politics remains a significant impediment to India’s development, since reforms are pursued with hesitancy as governments keep looking constantly over their electoral shoulders. But this also ensures the acceptance of reforms when they are eventually made.
India has also been proud of being able to demonstrate, in a world riven by ethnic conflict and notions of clashing civilisations, that democracy is not only compatible with diversity, but preserves and protects it. No other country in the world, after all, embraces the extraordinary mixture of ethnic groups, the profusion of mutually incomprehensible languages, the varieties of topography and climate, the diversity of religions and cultural practices, and the range of levels of economic development that India does. Yet Indian democracy, rooted in the constitutional rule of law and free elections, has managed the processes of political change and economic transformation necessary to develop our country. This is an experience that some who are currently in power appear to forget, or devalue.
After all, India is united not by a common ethnicity, language, or religion, but by the experience of a common history within a shared geographical space, reified in a liberal Constitution, and the repeated exercise of democratic self-governance in a pluralist polity. India’s founding fathers wrote a Constitution for this dream; we in India have given passports to their ideals. Amartya Sen applauded this: “The increasing tendency towards seeing people in terms of one dominant ‘identity’ (‘this is your duty as an American’, ‘you must commit these acts as a Muslim’, or ‘as a Chinese you should give priority to this national engagement’) is not only an imposition of an external and arbitrary priority, but also the denial of an important liberty of a person who can decide on their respective loyalties to different groups (to all of which he or she belongs).”
As I have repeatedly tried to show in several of my books, the idea of India is of one land embracing many—and many with multiple identities. It is the idea that a nation may endure differences of caste, creed, colour, culture, conviction, cuisine, costume, and custom, and still rally around a democratic consensus. That consensus is about the simple principle that in a democracy you do not really need to agree all the time—except on the ground rules of how you will disagree. The reason India has survived all the stresses and strains that have beset it for over seven decades, and that led so many to predict its imminent disintegration, is that it maintained consensus on how to manage without consensus. That consensus now seems to be in question, as the India that was comfortable with the idea of multiple identities and multiple loyalties, all coming together in allegiance to a larger, more plural sense of the nation, is now being forced to yield to a narrower India privileging Hindi-speaking Hindus.
The Indian voter has long since resolved the ‘bread vs freedom’ debate so beloved of intellectuals: the question of whether democracy can literally ‘deliver the goods’ in a country of poverty and scarcity, or whether its inbuilt inefficiencies only impede rapid growth. Some still ask—as they were prone to when three governments fell between 1996 and 1998—if the instability of political contention (and of makeshift coalitions) is a luxury a developing country cannot afford, and whether, as today’s young concentrate on making their bread, they should consider political freedom a dispensable distraction. Some argue back that not only is democracy not incompatible with economic growth and progress, it is the only guarantee that growth and progress will be stable and self-sustaining. But they do so with diminishing conviction, in the face of the relentless assault of Moditva.
This is where lies the great battle for Indian nationhood, and for the survival and success of India’s civic nationalism. I used to aver that no one identity can ever triumph in India: both the country’s chronic pluralism and the logic of the electoral marketplace had made this impossible. In leading a coalition government of 23 parties, and then in losing office, the first iteration, under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, of the Hindutva-inclined Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government learned that any party with aspirations to rule India must reach out to other groups, other interests, other minorities. After all, there are too many diversities in our land for any one version of reality to be imposed on all of us. The second iteration—the Modi government—has twice been elected with an absolute majority, and does not need the support of others. It is seeking, emboldened by its current levels of support, to remake India’s nationalism altogether.
Democracy is a process and not just an event; it is the product of the exchange of hopes and promises, commitments and compromises which underpins the sacred compact between governments and the governed. Democracy is also about how to lose, and that is something Indians have repeatedly learned, as multiple changes of government have confirmed. But democracy flourishes within a specific defined framework of nationhood, and that is where India is beset by the uncertain fear that the framework itself is being rattled.
The constitution of India established the shared norms on which self-government rests, in particular the statutory equality of every citizen, irrespective of religion, region, or language. India’s civic nationalism is both created by and reflected in its provisions. The Constitution granted representation not to an Indian’s predetermined identity (religion or caste) but to each individual’s expression of agency. The governments it commands are supposed to be committed to the welfare of the country’s weakest citizens. Though poverty, social discrimination and caste tyranny still persist, the Constitution offers the victims protection and redress. Amid the myriad problems of India, it is constitutional democracy that has given Indians of every imaginable caste, creed, culture, and cause the chance to break free of their lot and to fulfil their aspirations. This possibility rests on a core assumption of civic nationalism: the development and strengthening of free institutions that ensure pluralism, protect diversity, and guarantee the integrity of the state.
Civic nationalism, as I argued in The Battle of Belonging, is vital for India’s future. While there is no easy way to cope with the country’s extraordinary diversity, democracy is the only technique that can work to ensure all sections of our variegated society the possibility of their place in the sun. Elections and civic institutions are the instrument for ensuring this. What is encouraging for the future of democracy is that India is unusual in its reach; in India, electoral democracy is not an elite preoccupation, but matters most strongly to ordinary people. Whereas in the US a majority of the poor do not vote—in Harlem, in 10 presidential elections before 2008 (when a credible Black candidate, Barack Obama, ran), the turnout was below 23 per cent—in India, the poor exercise their franchise in great numbers. It is not the privileged or even the middle class who spend four hours queuing in the hot sun to cast their vote, but the poor, because they know their votes make a difference.
As Chief Justice Chandrachud put it in his Justice Desai Memorial Lecture in 2020, “The making of our nation is a continuous process of deliberation and belongs to every individual.” The experiment begun in the middle of the 20th century by India’s founding fathers has worked. Though there have been major threats to the nation from separatist movements, caste conflicts, and regional rivalries, electoral democracy has helped defuse them. When violent movements arise, they are often defused through accommodation in the democratic process, so that in state after state, secessionism is defeated by absorption into civic nationalism. Separatism in places as far afield as Tamil Nadu in the south and Mizoram in the Northeast has been defused in one of the great unsung achievements of Indian democracy: yesterday’s secessionists have, in many cases, become today’s chief ministers. (And thanks to the vagaries of democratic politics, tomorrow’s opposition leaders.)
It’s still true that in many parts of India, when you cast your vote, you vote your caste. But that too has brought about profound alterations in the country, as the lower castes have taken advantage of the ballot to seize electoral power. The explosive potential of caste division has been channelled through the ballot box. Most strikingly, the power of electoral numbers has given high office to the lowest of India’s low. Who could have imagined, for 3,000 years, that a Dalit woman would rule as chief minister of India’s most populous state? Yet Mayawati has done that three times in Uttar Pradesh (UP), on the basis of her electoral appeal. And even the ascent of a self-declared ‘chaiwallah’ to the position of prime minister is a testament to the triumph of Indian democracy.
This year we celebrated the 75th anniversary of India’s Independence. In the 50th summer of India’s Independence, KR Narayanan, a Malayali Dalit—a man who was born in a thatched hut with no toilet and no running water, whose university refused to award him his degree at the same ceremony as his upper-caste classmates—was elected president of India. He led an India whose injustices and inequalities he had keenly felt as a member of an underprivileged community; yet an India that offered—through its brave if flawed experiment in constitutional democracy, secularism, affirmative governmental action, and change through the ballot box—the prospect of overcoming these injustices. Five years later, he was succeeded by a Tamil Muslim, a fisherman’s son who sold newspapers in the street as a boy, and who happened to be the father of India’s missile programme. For five years till this summer, the highest office in the land was again occupied by a member of the Dalit community, Ram Nath Kovind, who rose to the top from humble beginnings in UP, and whose wife was photographed at her sewing machine, stitching masks for the poor to ward off the coronavirus. Today, Rashtrapati Bhavan hosts an Adivasi woman, a member of the original inhabitants of our ancient land. If the presidency symbolises the Indian state, it is still a symbol of India’s diversity, and its egalitarian democracy.
Our liberal, inclusive, and just Constitution, based unambiguously on the principles of civic nationalism, has been the bedrock of our society, a guiding document that historically secured the inalienable rights of all Indians. It has not only consolidated and distilled the best of our democratic values, ideas for which our forefathers gave their lives at the height of our nationalist struggle, but has served to liberate the collective aspirations of our people. In the remarkable work of the Constituent Assembly, the Constitution served as a reminder that our country was always greater than the sum of our differences and that our diversity of thought, expression, and ideology was, and can be, our greatest strength. The Constitution allowed each Indian to create their individual political identity and thus collectively to fashion the nation’s destiny. But, as Ambedkar warned, a Constitution is only as good as those who work it. That is where, sadly, India seems today to be falling short.
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A new world order is in the making,
December 18, 2022,
The Week.
As we near the end of the year, some geopolitical trends are becoming apparent. One is the increasing tension between the US and an increasingly assertive China, under the recently-re-elected President Xi Jinping. Interestingly, the highly polarised US electorate seems largely to concur with the tough policy towards Beijing promoted by both former President Trump during his time in office and now by President Biden. Attitudes towards China have worsened among the US public. In 2011, only 36% of Americans viewed China unfavourably, with 51% having a favourable view. This year, the polls show a dramatic change: a remarkable 82% of Americans think unfavourably about China. This means that the onset of visible and bristling hostility towards the other rising superpower has been welcomed and endorsed by the American public.
A second geopolitical trend that cannot be escaped, and which I had drawn attention to in this space last year, is the accelerating pace of deglobalisation. There is no doubt that the perception of growing economic inequality in Western countries has intensified, seriously adding to the unpopularity of what until recently had been the conventional wisdom, that globalisation was both unavoidable and welcome. The world economy had thrived since globalisation began in 1980 on an open system of free trade. That had already been shaken by the financial crash of 2008-09 and the American trade war with China. The pandemic has exacerbated these challenges, with estimates suggesting that nearly a third of global trade fell in 2020, though a gradual recovery trajectory was starting to emerge before the setbacks caused by the Ukraine war. Meanwhile, the pressure to “decouple” from China was increasing in the last two years, even as the sanctions on Russia have severely restricted trade, investment and financial flows into and out of that country.
In a recent survey conducted by the research firm Edelman, a majority of respondents across 28 leading economies agreed that “globalisation is taking us in the wrong direction”. In a 2019 survey, the same firm found that only 18% of respondents across developed economies affirmed that “the system is working for me”, with 34% being unsure and 48% declaring that the globalised “system” is failing them. As sovereignties are reasserted across the world, and treaties and trade agreements increasingly questioned, multilateralism, the once taken-for-granted mantra of international co-operation, could be the next casualty.
In parallel, support for democracy has weakened, even in America and especially among the young. Political scientists Yascha Mounk and Roberto Stefan Foa reported in 2017 that whereas 75% of Americans born in the 1930s agreed it is “essential to live in a democracy”, the figure was just 28% among millennials. Similar trends can be observed in many other countries.
Political leaders were quick to seize the opportunity to tap into both kinds of backlash against globalization. Populist leaders like Donald Trump, who rose to the presidency of the United States on slogans of “America First” and “Make America Great Again”, and a host of others – from Jair Bolsanoro of Brazil and Recep Taiyyib Erdogan in Turkey to Viktor Orban of Hungary and Narendra Modi of India — successfully persuaded their voters that they were more authentic embodiments of their nations than the allegedly rootless secular cosmopolitans they sought to displace. Others have been rising, from the Alternativ fur Deutschland in Germany and the Freedom Party in Austria to the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands and Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour in France, none of whom have won national elections but who came close enough to shift the national discourse. Of course, it is true that Trump and Bolsanoro have since suffered electoral setbacks, but most recently, Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s most right-wing leader since Mussolini, and Israel’s Benjamin Natanyahu have come to power heading extremely right-wing governments. It is useful to realise that, in a survey last year, Italy had the world’s second-highest dissatisfaction rates with democracy (after Greece). But together such parties and leaders, combining nationalist fervour with a determined articulation of popular prejudices, have restored nationalism to its place as the default model of national self-definition.
The auguries are not promising as the world contemplates the New Year.
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A role for India in a world wide web,
December 20, 2022,
The Hindu.
A recent statement by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar that India can play a “stabilising” and “bridging” role, at a time when the world no longer offers an “optimistic picture”, is intriguing. He stated that India can contribute towards the “de-risking of the global economy” and in political terms, “in some way, help depolarise the world”.
He said, “I think those are really expectations that a lot of other countries, especially countries of the global south have of us. Obviously, we will try and do what we can, and we remain in touch with all the bottom countries of the world.” He added, “Countries wanted to talk to us, because there is a belief that we are in touch with key players [and] we can influence them, we can shape the thinking, we can contribute, we are prepared, sometimes to say things which many others cannot see, or have reached out to countries and leaders in a way may not be possible for everybody to do so.”
Mr. Jaishankar’s is an ambitious formulation expressed, wisely, in cautious terms. In 2012, when I wrote my book, Pax Indica: India and the World in the 21st Century, many immediately misconstrued the title phrase to mean world domination, as in the familiar “Pax Romana” or “Pax Britannica”. What I meant, however, was the critical role I believed India has to play in what has become a cooperative networked system in our multi-polar world. The idea of “Pax Indica”, to me, is not about India as a future “world leader” or even as “the next superpower”, a status assorted commentators claimed that it was heading irresistibly towards. Instead “Pax Indica”, in my conception, was about India’s role in shaping the emerging global “network” which would define international relations and world politics in the 21st century. I believe that the era of any country claiming or seeking to be a “world leader” is definitely over — and I hope Beijing is listening.
In any case, the very idea of “world leadership” is a curiously archaic notion; the very phrase is redolent of Kipling ballads and James Bondian adventures. What makes a country a world leader? Is it population, in which case India is on course to top the charts, overtaking China as the world’s most populous country next year? Is it military strength (there, India has the world’s fourth-strongest army) or nuclear capacity (India’s status having been made clear in 1998, and then formally recognised in the India-U.S. nuclear deal some years later)? Is it economic development? There, India has made extraordinary strides in recent years; it is already the world’s third largest economy in PPP (purchasing-power parity) terms and continues to climb, though too many of our people continue to live destitute, amidst despair and disrepair. Or could it be a combination of all these, allied to something altogether more difficult to define — “soft power”? As Joseph Nye has argued in regard to the U.S., does not the power of attraction mean much more today than the force of arms or economic muscle in wielding influence in the world?
Much of the conventional analyses of any country’s stature in the world relies on the all-too-familiar economic and hard-power assumptions. But as India demonstrates daily, we are famously a land of paradoxes, and among those paradoxes is that so many speak about India as a great power of the 21st century when we are not yet able to feed, educate and employ all our people. So it is not economic growth, military strength or population numbers that I would underscore when I think of our nation’s potential role in the world of the 21st century. Rather, it is a transformation of the terms of global exchange and the way countries adapt to the new international, interlinked landscape that will shape their future role and direction. Far from evolving into a “world leader”, India, for instance, should become an active participant in a world that is no longer defined by parameters such as “superpowers” or “great powers” exercising “world leadership”.
The old binaries of the Cold War era are no longer relevant. At the same time, the distinction between domestic and international is less and less meaningful in today’s world. Foreign policy is no longer just foreign: when we think of foreign policy, we must also think of its domestic implications. The ultimate purpose of any country’s foreign policy is to promote the security and well-being of its own citizens. We want a world that gives us the conditions of peace and security that will permit us to grow and flourish, safe from foreign depredations but open to external opportunities.
We are living in a world in which one defining paradigm for foreign policy is impossible. We cannot simply be non-aligned between two superpowers when one of them sits on our borders and nibbles at our territory. But nor can we afford to sacrifice our strategic autonomy in a quest for self-protection. We need to define a new role for ourselves that depends on our understanding of the way the world is.
My metaphor for today’s globalised world is that of the World Wide Web. In this increasingly networked world, we are going to have to work through multiple networks, which will sometimes overlap with each other with common memberships, and sometimes be distinct. But they all serve our interests in different ways and for different purposes. Our External Affairs Minister meets annually with his Russian and Chinese counterparts in the trilateral RIC; he adds Brazil and South Africa in BRICS; subtracts both Russia and China in IBSA, for South-South co-operation; and retains China but excludes Russia in BASIC, for environmental negotiations. (And this is not merely because India’s name begins with that most useful element in any acronym, a vowel!)
This kind of world-wide-web style networking reflects other paradoxes of our world. India belongs both to the non-aligned movement, which reflects its experience of colonialism, and the community of democracies, which reflects its 75 years of experience as a democracy alongside many of the countries it rails against in the non-aligned movement. India is a leading light of the global “trade union” of developing countries, the G-77 (Group of 77), which has some 120 countries, and also of the global macro-economic “management”, the G-20 (Group of 20 developed and developing countries whose presidency India has just assumed). India plays an influential role both in the United Nations, a universal organisation that has 193 member states, and in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) that has only its seven neighbours. We have the great ability to be in all these great institutional networks, pursuing different objectives with different partners, and in each finding a valid purpose that suits us. This is why I have long suggested that India has moved beyond non-alignment to what I called multi-alignment, though I must admit the phrase did not catch on when I first used it in 2009. (Now Mr. Jaishankar happily cites it, and was gracious enough to credit me for it when he first used it at the Raisina Dialogue.)
Today, India, and indeed most countries, can take our sovereignty for granted; we know no one would dare threaten it. Our strategic autonomy is a fact of life and no longer something that has to be fought for. We are now in a position to graduate from a focus limited to our own sovereign autonomy to exercising a vision of responsibility on the world stage, from a post-colonial concern with self-protection to a new role participating in the making of global rules and even playing a role in imposing them. This seems to be what Mr. Jaishankar was suggesting in his recent remarks, and the evolution of this role is well worth watching.
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65 hilarious Tom Swiftys you need to know,
December 15, 2022,
WKND, Khaleej Times.
Last week, we explored “Tom Swiftys”, puns where an adverb in reported speech amusingly relates to the sentiment being expressed in a line of dialogue in books for young readers. I explained how the jokes work and urged readers to try out their own. This week, to complete the story, I’m going to offer you several more in the genre, but without explanation. Read them to see if you get the joke.
First, a selection of simple Tom Swiftys: “Watch out for that broken glass!” Tom exclaimed sharply. “I need a pencil sharpener,” Tom demanded bluntly. “This pencil tip is sharp,” she observed pointedly. “Let’s go watch the cricket match,” he said gamely. “I like modern painting,” said Tom abstractly. “I don’t like going to museums,” she responded artlessly. “I never shed tears,” he observed dryly. “It’s not fair!” said Tom darkly. “The vegetables are overcooked!” she steamed. “The phone reception here is excellent,” he said clearly. “I’ve gained ten kilos,” Tom confessed heavily.
Next, some that are a little cleverer: “I really don’t like being a gardener,” Tom said witheringly. “I’m the butcher,” Tom claimed cuttingly. “That’s not how you draw a circle,” she criticised him roundly. “Don’t you dare shoot that rubberband at me!” she snapped. “Oops! There goes my hat!” said Tom off the top of his head. “This must be an aerobics class,” Tom worked out. “I only have diamonds, clubs and spades,” said Tom heartlessly. “Don’t add too much water,” said Tom with great concentration. “I’d like a number between seven and nine,” asked Tom considerately. “My favourite number is two,” Tom said evenly. “I hate mathematics,” he added.
In the same vein: “She pulled the wool over my eyes,” Tom admitted sheepishly. “I can’t think of anything to write,” Tom confessed blankly. “This is a masterpiece,” remarked Tom flawlessly. “You are going to fail my class,” warned the teacher degradingly. “The doctor amputated both my legs at the ankles,” mourned Tom defeatedly. “What happened to the carpet on the steps?” asked Tom with a blank stare.
Then, some that require a little knowledge on your part to appreciate. “I have read 93 of Wodehouse’s 95 books,” Tom recounted. “My favourite author is Hemingway,” she replied earnestly. “I have no flowers,” Tom said lackadaisically. “This tooth extraction could take forever,” commented Tom with infinite wisdom. “Don’t swing your fist near me,” said Tom, awestruck. “I work as a freelancer”, said Tom casually. “I think I’ll use a different font,” said Tom boldly. “I manufacture tabletops for shops,” she said counterproductively. “Name a unit of electric current,” said Tom amply. “I’m on welfare,” she confessed dolefully. “That doesn’t add up,” said Tom nonplussed.
Sometimes the multiple meanings of a word-sound lend themselves to several Tom Swiftys: “This boat leaks,” said Tom balefully. (Bailing water out of a boat). “I’ll get you out of prison in no time,” said Tom balefully. (Getting bail from a judge). “There’s no more room in the hay barn,” said Tom balefully. (Bales of hay). But these double-meanings are even better: “Let’s get married,” proposed Tom engagingly. “Where’s the cheese?” asked Tom gratingly. “I’ll try to dig up a couple of names,” said Tom gravely. “It’s my maid’s day off,” said Tom helplessly. “I keep banging against the furniture,” she complained bashfully. “I knew the gun wasn’t loaded,” Tom said blankly. “ There’s someone at the front door,” Tom chimed in.
Let’s end with a miscellaneous collection combining several of these types: “This lemon tastes bad,” Tom said sourly. “I don’t like Campari,” she said bitterly. “This salad dressing has too much vinegar,” said Tom acidly. “I love explosions,” Tom boomed. “Happy Birthday,” Tom said presently. “Walk this way,” Tom said stridently. “I didn’t see the steamroller coming,” said Tom flatly. “This pizza place is great!” Tom exclaimed saucily. “It’s freezing,” Tom muttered icily. “The desert is blazing!” Tom said hotly. “Follow those ships!” Tom said fleetingly. “Use your own hair brush,” she bristled. “Fire!” she yelled alarmingly.
Had enough? “What a dull subject,” the editor commented bluntly. “There’s room for one more,” Tom admitted. “My word is final!” he dictated.
–> Copyright © 2021 Shashi Tharoor, All rights reserved.
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Shashi Tharoor · 97, Lodhi Estate, New Delhi 110 003 · New Delhi, 110003 · India
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