India’s South-South Cooperation in Human Resource Development

ABSTRACT

The article reviews several of the main modalities of India’s human resources’ involvement with other developing economies, and especially those in Africa. These involve the provision of long-term scholarships and short-term professional training awards. Comparison is made, in the case of international students, between the scholarship and privately funded categories, and also between those from Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth countries. Comparable data on such assisted foreign student flows are also offered in respect of South Africa. Other modalities of India’s HRD engagement with Africa are analysed, including those associated with the India-African Forum Summits (IAFS). India also does capacity building through non-state actors, notably nongovernment organisations and the private sector. Furthermore, it promotes cultural diplomacy through its Indian Cultural Centres and Chairs of Indian Studies, though these are not restricted to developing economies. Although attention is paid to the Commonwealth dimension in these comparisons, it is acknowledged that the classification of students and countries as Commonwealth may not be as widespread or meaningful today as 60 years ago.     

Showing Character: Nehru,Reputation, and the Sino-Indian Dispute, 1957–1962

Abstract

In the approach to the Sino-Indian war of 1962, the Indian government made some surprising policy choices. Most significant was Nehru’s decision to contest what was viewed by him and his officials as unimportant territory in the western sector, rejecting in the process Chou en-Lai’s 1960 “package” offer. Instead, Delhi chose to initiate in 1961 the Forward Policy, in full awareness of the severely disadvantageous position of the Indian military in the disputed border areas. Using Indian primary documents, this article makes the case that reputational considerations—particularly Nehru’s fear that any concessions to China would be viewed as weakness and provoke further aggression—help explain the puzzling aspects of India’s intransigence on the Sino-Indian territorial dispute during this period.     

Britain Returns to the Indian Ocean?

This article considers how far the UK is returning to an ‘East of Suez’ role in the Indian Ocean. A threefold structure is taken based on past, current and future aspects of this role. The first section (‘past’) considers the Indian Ocean as a British Lake and the announced withdrawal from East of Suez that was announced in the early 1970s. The second section (‘present’) looks at the various bases, facilities and partnerships that the UK has around and across the Indian Ocean with Bahrain, Oman, Gulf of Aden, Somaliland, Diego Garcia (and the United States), India, Malaysia and Singapore (including the Five Power Defence Agreements), Australia and China. The third section (‘future’) considers likely post-BREXIT decisions facing the UK in the Indian Ocean with regard to its projected naval assets and political choices across the region. It finds there is some substance behind the rhetoric on a British return to the area.     

The British Empire in India,the Gulf pearl and the making of the Middle East

Abstract

Genealogies of the term ‘Middle East’ conventionally focus on a juncture around the 1890s, when it gained new geopolitical currency, promoted by various European and American officials with reference to a space centred around the Arabo-Persian Gulf. This article argues instead that the ‘Middle East’ label should be seen as the culmination of a longer process, led less from London than from India. Over the previous century, this consolidation of ‘British’ India as a distinct regional actor was accompanied by the conceptualisation of its borderlands, including that Gulf-centred space. This space become a theatre for economic and political monitoring strategised from India, seeking to transform what was represented as a pirate-infested margin into a pacified buffer zone. Control and exploitation of pearl fisheries, the main economic activity for Gulf populations, was central to these efforts. Imperial strategy around the Gulf pearl was a key tool in founding an informal Indian empire in the Gulf and its hinterlands, in that very space to which the name ‘Middle East’ would subsequently be given.     

Regulation and its discontents: the Indian judiciary and higher education

The role of the judiciary in strengthening regulatory regimes is well regarded. In developing countries where regulatory bodies are captive to powerful interest groups, the judiciary is regarded for its activist role in providing participatory access to groups excluded from the policy process. In contrast, this paper draws attention to the limits of the judiciary as a gatekeeper of regulatory governance. Using the case of regulation in India’s tertiary education sector, it shows how the judiciary’s track record of enabling elite actors to influence policy, often at the cost of legislative mandates, can undermine regulation.     

A SURVEY OF INDIA’S STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT

This paper examines India’s strategic environment in the round. ‘Strategic’ refers here to politico-military aspects of international relations, particularly those with implications for the use or potential use of force in the future. Thus economic factors are considered secondarily, and only insofar as they have diplomatic and military ramifications – as in the case of Chinese infrastructure projects in South Asia, or Indian port-development in Iran. This approach also sets aside what we might call ‘structural’ factors, such as large-scale multilateral trade deals, such as the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and sociological-demographic trends, such as relative population growth rates, also such issues necessarily influence the real and perceived balance of power over the long-run. The paper begins by considering India’s most salient adversary, Pakistan, before looking at the connected issue of Afghanistan and Central Asia. It then turns east to examine another rival, China, followed by the United States, the smaller states of South Asia, and finally the Middle East.     

Governing the Safety and Security of the Malacca Strait: The Nippon Foundation between States and Industry

ABSTRACT

Despite long-standing sovereignty sensitivities, the Malacca and Singapore Straits have been the site of co-operative governance and regime building. Of note is the 2007 Co-operative Mechanism of the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, characterised as a milestone achievement in regional co-operation towards improved safety and security in the Straits. Yet, well before the Co-operative Mechanism were also earlier instances of co-operation dating to the 1970s – specifically between the Straits’ littoral states under a tripartite framework and Japanese actors through the Malacca Strait Council. In addition to providing a template for the Co-operative Mechanism, these arrangements offer alternative models of governance and regime building that challenge conventional characterisations of “regional governance” – what it looks like, as well as its driving actors. This article considers the significance of these early efforts, with attention to the ways that the region’s developmental context bears on the actors, structures and processes of governance in Southeast Asia. Not only does this historical process of co-operation give expression to alternative governing arrangements composed of mixed actors and obligations, but an unconventional governance agent – the Nippon Foundation – has played an especially defining role in bringing actors to the table and substantiating the co-operative process.     

South Africa's maritime power in the Indian Ocean Rim∗

The article assesses South Africa's maritime power in the Indian Ocean. It is argued that South Africa needs a credible navy to exercise power and influence in support of foreign policy imperatives in the Indian Ocean. The maritime potential of other states which may have an impact on South Africa's interests is examined, including Australia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan and Kenya and, from outside the region, the United States, the United Kingdom and France. The contrast between the growth and modernisation of other navies and the contraction and ageing of the South African Navy is highlighted. It is concluded that these developments leave South Africa strategically vulnerable.     

印度历史教科书中的中国形象

历史教科书是建构民族成员历史记忆乃至民族认同的重要媒介之一。在印度民族认同建构中,历史教科书如何认识中国这一历史悠久的邻国和定位中印关系,无疑具有重要意义。通过研究印度中央和六个邦现行的高小(6~8年级)、初中(9~10年级)阶段历史教科书,可将印度历史教科书中的中国形象按印度史的分期大致分为近代前、近代、独立后三个时期。近代前,中国是印度在世界范围内的主要贸易伙伴、友好邻国、物质文明大国,而在精神文明领域,中印是"学生-精神导师"关系。其中,西藏被塑造为印度文化圈的成员,而非中国的一部分。步入近代后,中印同样在帝国主义殖民浪潮冲击下,经历了衰弱和被剥削的文明古国,印度的教科书将中国视为"难兄难弟"。独立后,中国仍然被书写为国际格局中重要的一极,但中印之间围绕边界、涉核、涉巴等问题,形成了一定程度的对立,中国也开始在教科书中被视为对手和威胁。此外,印度的世俗民族主义、印度教民族主义和地方视角也导致了教科书中中国形象的差异性建构。     

Constructing an “Iron” Unity: The Statue of Unity and India’s Nationalist Historiography

In October 2018, the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi inaugurated a pet project, the “Statue of Unity”, in Gujarat, India. The world’s tallest statue, the Statue of Unity cost USD416.67 million to construct, and depicts India’s first deputy prime minister, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel as the “Iron Man of India”, staring resolutely out over the controversial Sardar Sarovar Dam. This article examines the meanings of the statue as a political project of memorialisation. We argue that the statue is an attempt to reimagine India’s nationalist historiography around Patel, taking the emphasis off the secular, socialist first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. In doing so, the statue constructs a hyper-masculine idea of India centred on an assimilatory idea of “unity”. The statue’s construction materially enforced this symbolism by pushing aside the site’s previous Adivasi owners, and presents an ordered, majoritarian, business-led vision of public space in Modi’s India. Within this space, the statue materialises Patel as the image of Indian identity. He is made from the stuff of progress, concrete and reinforced steel, and coated in bronze, which links his image with India’s long history of religious statue-making. The project then circulates these ideas through tourist marketing and visitor experience.     

A Comparative Assessment of the Information Technology Services Sector in India and China

The purpose of this paper is to assess the nature of competition in the information technology (IT) services sector between India and China. Using primary and secondary data sources, we compare and contrast the strengths and weaknesses of the IT services sector in the two countries along the main dimensions of Porter's competitive advantage model. The principal findings indicate that the IT services sectors in the two countries are distinctively different, have developed along different paths and are highly complementary to each other. China has a well-established hardware sector and its IT services sector focuses mostly on servicing its domestic market. India's IT services sector is predominantly export orientated with focus on the US and Western European markets. Contrary to popular beliefs, given the complementary characteristics of the IT services sectors in India and China, it is unlikely for the two countries to compete against each other in the near future and greater strategic co-operation between IT service providers in the two countries is a more likely outcome.     

孟加拉国泰戈尔研究的历史与现实意义

亚洲第一位诺贝尔文学奖得主罗宾德拉纳特?泰戈尔(Rabindranath Tagore,1861～1941年)是世界级文学天才和思想巨匠.一百多年来,泰戈尔的作品在世界各地一再被翻译出版,关于他的研究成果也层出不穷.世界的泰戈尔研究成果中最丰富、最全面、最深入的当属泰戈尔的母语地区——孟加拉语地区的泰戈尔研究.从东孟加拉到东巴基斯坦再到独立后的孟加拉国,泰戈尔的研究也由于政治、文化、宗教等原因经历了很多的跌宕起伏.泰戈尔曾被认为是"印度文化的继承者"而被巴基斯坦禁止.印巴分治十几年间,泰戈尔研究主要都局限在"少数开明的文学家和数量庞大的宗派主义者"之间的"泰戈尔论争"中.1961年围绕泰戈尔的百年诞辰,东巴基斯坦的整个文化阶层和政府对立.泰戈尔也逐渐成为孟加拉文化的旗帜,激励了东巴基斯坦孟加拉人的语言和文化政治运动,成为激励孟加拉国独立的精神源泉.孟加拉国独立后,关于泰戈尔的相关性的争议又起,开始了对泰戈尔重新发现和研究的过程.梳理孟加拉国的泰戈尔接受史对于我国的泰戈尔研究,对于加强中孟、中印文化交流与互鉴,构建"亚洲命运共同体"具有重要的意义.     

Liberalisation,the state and agriculture in India

Indian state embarked upon a comprehensive reform of the economy in late 1980s, and there is more or less consensus amongst policy makers regarding liberalization. The reform process in India has not encountered much resistance from pressure groups because it has not made much headway in respect of debureaucratising and depoliticising the management of the infrastructure and in decentralizing rural development.

It is important in this context to look at the macroeconomic policy changes and its impact on agricultural sector. This article attempts to analyse the performance of Indian agriculture under liberalisation. We know that in the recent past Indian agriculture is being neglected. The benefits of liberalisation could not hitherto reach the rural poor because of the failure of economic reforms to penetrate into the vital agricultural sector. The article also attempts to analyse the adverse impact, if any, of free market conditions on the rural poor and suggests changes to revamp agriculture so as to make it more competitive.     

印度的港口导向型发展战略及其影响

《萨格尔马拉国家远景规划》于2015年5月25日被印度联合内阁批准通过,并于2016年4月在孟买首届"海事印度峰会上发布。这一规划是印度中长期发展战略,也是印度海运部的旗舰项目,其核心是"港口导向型发展"战略,主要确定了四大支柱,即港口现代化、港口互联互通、港口导向工业化、沿海社区发展。这一规划的实施对印度制造业的推进将是革命性的,将以最小的基础设施投资降低进出口和国内贸易的物流成本。规划的影响也将是深远的,通过优化货物运输来降低物流成本,提升原材料、技能、配套基础设施和现有产业集聚的竞争力,以吸引世界制造业向印度转移;要通过适当的政策和机构干预,支持和加强港口导向发展,为印度经济发展提供动力;促进港口主导的经济社会发展和对外合作,是该国印度洋战略的重要依托,会对印度洋战略形成有利支撑;印度的新海洋战略与其东向行动政策配合,还会大大拓展印—太战略空间,将加强印太合作、夯实印太战略。因此,我们应深入研究中印发展战略,在两国领导人引领下建立两国互信机制,对接印度港口导向型发展战略,与印度联手参与孟中印缅经济走廊地区的港口建设。加强国际地区问题协调、引领建立地区非传统安全合作机制,共同开发南亚、东南亚、中东、非洲国家第三方市场。     

冷战后印度与东盟关系:调整、发展与趋势

20世纪90年代,适应大国崛起战略的需要,印度的"东向政策"出台。印度的"东向政策"推动了冷战后印度与东盟关系的调整与发展。冷战后的印度与东盟关系的发展呈现"双轮驱动"的态势,一方面印度发展与东盟国家的双边关系,另一方面,依托东盟相关机制,印度发展同东盟的多边关系。未来10-15年,印度与东盟关系的发展将是经贸与安全"齐头并进"的趋势。     

Kenya's foreign policy in context (1963–2015)

Kenya matters regionally and globally. It is the economic powerhouse of East Africa and a long-standing hub for multilateral diplomacy; its positioning in a turbulent region has fashioned its profile as an anchor state in African peace and security. Until recently, Kenya's foreign policy orientation has situated it as a benign regional leader, but pressing developments in the regional and international environments have edged it towards a more assertive foreign policy position. This study constitutes a multilevel review of Kenya's foreign policy in the period 1963–2015, beginning with Jomo Kenyatta through to the current president, Uhuru Kenyatta. After evaluating contexts pertinent to the analysis of Kenya’s foreign policy, the fundamental principles, objectives and pillars of the current foreign policy are unpacked.     

Unexpected Persistence Amidst Enlargement Stasis: Usages of Europe in Turkey’s Nuclear Energy Debate

Recent studies on European Union (EU) Enlargement have emphasised the importance of usages of ‘Europe’ by domestic actors as a necessary condition for the EU to have an impact on domestic politics. We study the usages of Europe in the critical case of Turkey’s nuclear energy policy. We analyse the narratives and actions of domestic actors in Turkey to identify if they use ‘Europe’ (the EU and the idea of Europe). We reach the counter-intuitive finding of usages by both state and non-state actors, which illustrates that usages of Europe can persist despite enlargement stasis in candidate states.     

‘An act of faith’ or a new ‘Brown Empire’? The dismissal of India’s international anti-Racism, 1945–1961

At the inaugural UN session in 1946, an Indian-sponsored resolution was passed with a two-thirds majority against South Africa’s racist treatment of Indians. India continued its activism over racism and apartheid throughout the 1950s, though the issue was increasingly seen as a painful yearly ritual. Still, Indian diplomats persisted in raising the issue every year, despite diminishing results. The British settler-colonies were particularly offended by India’s campaign, as it challenged the discursive justification for their existence. They rejected what they saw as India’s emotional, hypocritical, even imperialist, campaign against racism. By tracing the construction and rejection of anti-racist politics, we examine the dismissal of racism as a ‘legitimate’ international issue.     

Parliament,foreign policy and civil society in South Africa

Discussions of Ethiopia and its present situation generally focus on the political debate in Addis Ababa, as experienced by visitors and residents. But an analysis from the point of view of the actors must perforce include those groups and positions that have been excluded from this public discourse. In Ethiopia, this exclusion concerns primarily the peasants, who constitute about 80% of the population. Other groups would include the poorest sections of the urban population and the ethnic peoples of the South, as well as Muslims, women and outcast craftsmen. This analysis opens the way for new insights and a wider perspective on the political dynamics of Ethiopia, and puts the views of the silent actors in the centre. It concludes with a call for reform of local administration and enforcement of existing constitutional provisions for democratic governance. This would require new alliances both domestically and abroad.     

Conceptualizing Japan’s Foreign Policy Trajectory Through Social Identity Theory

East Asia - Regional security studies of the Asia-Pacific commonly center upon China’s rise, leaving other actors underresearched. Among these is Japan, whose ongoing reinterpretation of its...